| The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the language socialization experiences and bilingual language practices of Taiwanese American children who attended a Chinese heritage language school where the school principals, administrative staff, teachers, parents, and children were comprised mainly of Taiwanese Americans.;The research data for this study were collected through informal interviews, direct observations, and audio/videotaping teacher-student and student-student interactions in three Chinese heritage language classrooms. Inductive strategies drawn from the grounded theory approach were applied to discover cultural patterns in classrooms. The research questions and analytic frameworks were inspired and developed from reappearing themes in the interactive episodes. Specifically, this study articulates: what and how culturally valued concepts, communicative styles, gender practices, and community language practices are transmitted to Taiwanese American children during interactions in Chinese heritage language classrooms as well as how these children acquire and practice their cultural knowledge in classroom interactions.;The findings suggested: (1) the cultural concept of filial piety appeared repeatedly in children's textbooks and teachers' instruction across various classes. Children acquired and manipulated it as a strategy to gain advantageous status. (2) Conflict-mitigating strategies (e.g., reasoning, ignoring, deferring, shifting topics, and being silence) were frequently employed by teachers and students to indirectly reject each other's requests and to maintain harmonious teacher-student relationships. (3) The traditional Taiwanese gender ideologies such as "nan zhi wai nu zhu nei" (man controls outside affairs, and woman controls inside affairs) and "yang gang yin rou" (man is tough, and woman is gentle) were not observed. Taiwanese American girls competed against boys assertively in both formal and informal contexts. (4) Children were socialized to speak Mandarin in teacher-student interactions and to speak English in peer interactions. Over time, they made the association among languages, speakers, and time. They exercised their judgements as to when and with whom to use languages and made use of their knowledge of the community's culturally appropriate language practices to rectify other people's inappropriate language choices. They used code-switching as a social action to achieve their momentary communicative needs (e.g., shifting stances, addressees, social identities, and participation frameworks). |
