| The present study explores the language socialization of a group of China-born and American-born children who are Mandarin learners at the Lu Xun Chinese Heritage Language School in the Southwestern U.S. Theoretically, the study follows a new paradigm in language socialization research which focuses on second language contexts and uses multiple sources of data to investigate the dynamic nature of the process through which learners are socialized into a new language and cultural environment. Specifically, the study explores how members of a small Chinese community in a major city contribute to the maintenance of the Chinese language and culture by transmitting their cultural values to their children through school and home contexts, and how the children react to the efforts made by their instructors, parents and other caregivers. Ethnographic in nature, the study was conducted by adopting a variety of methods such as participant observation in the classroom and the community, interviews with parents, instructors, and children, and dinner table talk. A total of twelve students, fifteen parents, and two instructors participated in the study and all data were recorded with digital recording equipment. This study adds to the current literature about how linguistic and cultural knowledge are constructed through each other in different heritage language learning contexts, and what role children/novices and adults/experts play as active and selective agents in the process of language socialization within these contexts. |
