Project Dates: 2019-2020
Funding: University of British Columbia Hampton Fund
Problem: Many recent Canadian immigrants from China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan report concerns over their knowledge of English, and express a sense of being out of place in their new communities. Most, however, do not overtly discuss the incredible value of their multilingual backgrounds. Previous research suggests that a lack of attention to the benefits of multilingualism can encourage young immigrant children to stop using their mother tongues. Does this research finding hold true for Chinese-Canadians? If so, how can we support the continued use of Chinese languages in Canada?
Research Process: To understand the causes and consequences of language ideologies (beliefs about language), I conducted ethnographic interviews with 12 recent immigrants from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao to Canada. By performing qualitative coding of key themes, I found that research participants emphasized the relative importance of major world languages, in line with beliefs about the political power of nation-states including China and Canada. This pattern of talking about language is consistent with anthropological findings about nationalism and language. What was unique in the context of Canada, however, is that participants discussed the relative value of standard languages, like English and Chinese, by recounting stories of exclusion on the basis of language in Canada. Personal experiences with exclusion therefore shaped beliefs about language, leading participants to frame multilingualism as a deficit.
Although participants described negative attitudes towards multilingualism in the context of their public lives in Canada, they also emphasized the importance of maintaining diverse mother tongues to communicate with family members in the home and in China. Their reported uses of diverse Chinese languages represented an opportunity to speak back to experiences of exclusion, and expand uses of Chinese languages outside of the home.
In response, I led a team of six students to incorporate a community-engaged research component into the project. We created a website featuring folk songs and stories told in diverse mother tongues, collected from our local Chinese-Canadian community. We curated community members’ contributions, and created worksheets to help young children learn the songs and stories. The resulting website with language learning resources can be found at Tides and Voices.
Impact: Findings from this project were published in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, and cited in expert-witness testimony to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China regarding the political importance of linguistic diversity in the region. I showcased Tides and Voices through a community cultural program that attracted more than 100 guests.
Shannon M. Ward, Ph.D. 