‘Of course Chinese people must know Hanzi’: WhatsApp-mediated multilingual literacy practices in a Chinese immigrant family

This ethnographic case study examines how a Chinese immigrant family in the UK negotiates heritage language (HL) and literacy practices through WhatsApp, conceptualised as a micro-digitalscape within the family’s wider digital ecology. Drawing on Spolsky’s [2009. Language Management. Cambridge University Press] Family Language Policy (FLP) framework and the concept of digitalscape, the study analyses interviews, home observations and multimodal WhatsApp interactions collected over a two-year period from two parents and their two adolescent sons. The findings show that communication, learning and entertainment frequently converged within everyday digital interaction. The parents adopted different yet interconnected approaches to HL use, while the adolescents shifted flexibly between Chinese, English, emojis and voice messages according to communicative purpose. Literacy support, including correction and reformulation, emerged naturally through family interaction rather than formal instruction alone. By conceptualising WhatsApp as a micro-digitalscape, the study demonstrates how digitally mediated interactions simultaneously support communication, language management and incidental literacy practices. It contributes to networked FLP research by highlighting the interconnected nature of everyday digital practices in shaping HL engagement.