Factors influencing Chinese immigrant children's heritage language maintenance: An application of social network analysis and multilevel modeling

There has been a resurgence of scholarly interest in heritage language maintenance (HLM) in the U.S. in recent years. And there is the tendency of focusing more on the classroom instruction of heritage language (HL) learners, particularly addressing the growing population of such learners of HL in foreign language classrooms at universities. This study argues that pre-college HLM is still very important in providing a good base of further education in HL at college stage. Standing in such a position, this study investigated what factors may influence individuals' HLM with Chinese immigrant children and their parents as informants. In order to address the complexity in this picture of factors interacting and influencing HL proficiency and behavior, this study applied ego-centric social network analysis in combination with multilevel modeling. The models of this study confirmed that a social network of HL did exert positive influence on children's HL proficiency and behavior. This study supported some findings in the research literature but also pointed to interesting phenomena and therefore potential explanations to inconsistencies identified in the literature such as parent attitude, parent education, family income, and modern communication technology. Meanwhile this study testifies again the power of social network analysis and the quantitative method of multilevel modeling in capturing the dynamicity of the interacting factors influencing HLM. Based on these findings, this study argues for the importance of an impact belief on the side of the parents and other HL-competent people around the children so that social networks of higher quality can be established to improve the immediate environment of HLM.