| Although an abundance of works have addressed immigrants' experiences of learning English as Second Language (ESL), there is lack of scholarly attention on how young immigrants explore multiple identities through heritage language. Furthermore, little attention is given to how heritage language contributes to the ethnic identity development process, although some scholars have addressed language learning and identity construction in the heritage language school (He, 2004, 2005). This dissertation explores the role of heritage language in the process of ethnic revitalization for 6 second-generation Chinese American adolescents in Upstate New York. It also looks at how this dynamic identity construction contributes to various patterns of language use and language learning. From a language socialization perspective, my ethnographic case studies examine how they are socialized in and through the individual network of linguistic contacts (INLC) (Landry and Allard, 1992).; Since there are three kinds of contacts in which the INLC is established: educational support, interpersonal contacts, and media-based contacts, I have paid special attention to how different INLC contribute to individual's identity formation that in turn gives rise to different routes of language development. My findings demonstrate that there is a possibility of transformation of one's ethnic identity from a weak to a strong one, but this process is not automatic nor does it happen for everyone (Gay, 1985; Kim, 2001). Learning and use of heritage language does facilitate that process, which in turn feeds back to one's linguistic behavior. In other words, it is the youngsters' consistent learning and use of Chinese that enables them to be socialized in various contexts, which helps to establish ethnic belongingness; on the other hand, their strong ethnic identifications incline them to certain phenomenological experience, which in turn facilitates their learning and use of Chinese. However, learning and use of heritage language does not necessarily lead to homogeneous ethnic identity. By interacting within different social networks across time and space, immigrant children may display different relationships to their ethnic group and different senses of being a minority (Jo, 2002). Thus, Chinese American youngsters can be located on a continuum of "Chineseness" and "Americanness". |
