Although English is not the official language of the U.S., English-only ideologies are constantly reinforced by national and state-level educational policies (e.g., No Child Left Behind Act, Proposition 227 in California). Such top-down educational policies often pose challenges to heritage language maintenance and family language management (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen, 2016; Kaveh, 2018). Recent COVID-19 lockdowns, however, have offered unique opportunities to heritage language maintenance in multilingual households where children spend significantly more time with their parents (Li Sheng et al, 2021). How has the COVID-19 lockdown affected existing family language policies? What are some challenges and successes in negotiating family language policies to balance English development and heritage language maintenance?
Informed by these questions, I adopt autoethnographic methods (Ellis & Bochner, 2006) to investigate the lived languaging experiences in a Chinese American multilingual household during COVID-19 lockdowns. Different from many previous studies on this topic where researchers often examine family language policies from outsider perspectives (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen, 2016; Kaveh, 2018), autoethnography provides a unique opportunity to enact an inward perspective.
In this autoethnographic exploration, I drew upon my insider-outsider positionality as a researcher specialized in multilingualism and a first-generation immigrant mother of a 4-year-old Chinese American child, Zixuan, to examine how our family language policies are shaped by the COVID-19 lockdown. Data sources included (1) bilingual language logs documenting Zixuan's languaging practices over 96 hours; (2) my personal diaries from August 2019 to December 2021; and (3) multilingual and multiliteracy artifacts. Data were analyzed following the coding procedures of applied thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2012).
The findings of this study indicate that the COVID-19 lockdown has substantially altered our family language policies which benefited Zixuan's heritage language maintenance. However, despite my resistance to the strong grip of English-only ideologies, I developed "multilingual guilt," worrying that Zixuan's Chinese development may come at the cost of her English skills. This has led to constant challenges and shifts in our family language policies which eventually regulated multilingual practices based on academic and social contexts. Through its unique insider-outsider lens, this autoethnographic study illustrates the constant dilemma in multilingual households, striving to balance English acquisition and heritage language maintenance.
References
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2016). Conflicting language ideologies and contradictory language practices in Singaporean multilingual families. Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 37(7), 694-709.
Ellis, C. & Bochner, A. (2006). Analyzing analytic autoethnography: An autopsy. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 429-449.
Guest, G., MacQueen, K. M., & Namey, E. E. (2012). Applied thematic analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Kaveh, Y. M. (2018). Family language policy and maintenance of Persian: The stories of Iranian immigrant families in the northeast, USA. Language policy, 17(4), 443-477.
Sheng, L., Wang, D., Walsh, C., Heisler, L., Li, X., & Su, P. L. (2021). The bilingual home language boost through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 3012.
