Hope and agony: Maintaining Chinese as a heritage language in the United Kingdom

Over the past 10 years there has been a growing interest in how transnational families establish their family language policy (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009), in which literacy development in the heritage language plays an important role (Curdt-Christiansen, 2013). Although cases of the classic three-generation model of language shift and language loss in multilingual and multicultural societies have been widely reported around the globe (e.g. Canagarajah, 2011; Curdt-Christiansen, 2013), intergenerational transmission of family literacy practices has also been addressed recently (Lynch and Prins, 2022).

Our study was guided by the conceptual framework of family language policy (FLP). While past research has been conducted on first-generation Chinese speakers in the UK (Li Wei, 2007; Zhu, 2008), little research has focused on how second- and third-generation Chinese immigrant families (sequential bilinguals: see e.g. Rumbaut 1994, 1997) maintain their heritage language (HL), especially with respect to family literacy practices. This chapter explores the differences between the first and second generations’ attitudes towards and expectations of developing Chinese literacy. It also looks at differences between their strategies in teaching Chinese, as the families negotiate linguistic and cultural values in the process of transmitting and developing Chinese as a heritage language (CHL).