ERIC Number: EJ1289671
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0143-4632
EISSN: N/A
A Shifting Standard: A Stratified Ideological Ecology in a Birmingham Chinese Complementary School
Huang, Jing
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, v42 n2 p165-177 2021
This paper examines diasporic language ecology based on a sociolinguistic study of a Chinese complementary school (CCS) in Birmingham, England. The study applies a historical perspective to investigate local multilingual practices in relation to language ideology and identity. The discussion in this paper draws on "heteroglossia" to investigate language stratification in the CCS. It documents the impact of global mobility and socio-economic changes on shifting power relations among two Chinese language varieties ("Putonghua" and "Cantonese") and English. Data for the discussion includes audio-recordings of interaction and interview as well as fieldnote vignettes. Findings show that (1) a stratified ideological ecology including 'separate bilingualism', 'translanguaging', 'a preferred school-wide monolingualism', and 'a standard language ideology' is dynamically constructed and negotiated in the school as a local heteroglossia; (2) At the intra-Chinese level, the Chinese language shift from Cantonese to Putonghua at global level is seeing its power in the local discourses of Putonghua becoming 'the new diasporic standard'. This standardisation towards Putonghua, on one hand, is claimed and celebrated in the school by some Putonghua-speaking members as 'practical' and 'useful' for better communication; on the other side, it is also contested -- sometimes silently -- in tension-filled local interactions by groups of Chinese people who lack the resource of Putonghua in their repertoires. This complex and tension-filled standardisation of diasporic Chinese language provides new local discourses of global mobility and the ongoing conversion from linguistic standardisation to social inequality.
Descriptors: Chinese, Community Schools, Heritage Education, Multilingualism, Language Attitudes, Self Concept, Power Structure, Language Variation, Sino Tibetan Languages, Mandarin Chinese, Bilingualism, Code Switching (Language), Sociolinguistics, Immigrants, Social Differences, Foreign Countries, English (Second Language), English, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Native Language Instruction, Interlanguage, Socioeconomic Influences
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (Birmingham)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A