Ziwen Mei will be presenting her PhD proposal on Friday, May 17th, 2024, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM in PCN 1306A, with the option to attend online via Zoom.
All are welcome!
Supervisors: Dr. Guofang Li (Department of Language and Literacy Education)
Committee member: Dr. Ron Darvin (Department of Language and Literacy Education), Dr. Shannon Ward (Department of Community, Culture, and Global Studies at UBC Okanagan)
Dissertation Proposal title: Negotiating Identity and Family Language Policy: Rural Migrant Families in Urban China
Abstract:
This proposed study intends to investigate the language policy and planning of Chinese families who migrated from rural to urban areas, often referred to as rural migrant families, in relation to their identity negotiation. Despite rural migrants’ central role in urban growth, they are relegated to urban peripheries, particularly due to prevalent discrimination against their regional accents and their lack of urban-recognized linguistic capital for social mobility. Navigating the urban langscape with constrained resources, rural migrant families’ language policy (FLP) constitutes multifaceted and conflicted decision making, such as societal integration through the local language variety in the host city, family bonding through their hometown regional language variety, and future advancement through the official language and the major foreign language, Mandarin and English. While complexities and challenges are expected in rural migrant families’ FLP, little has been explored. Therefore, with the framework of FLP (King et al., 2008) and the lens of identity (Darvin & Norton, 2015) and capital (Bourdieu, 1986, 1990), this study aims to address the following research questions: 1) How are rural migrant families’ FLPs (language beliefs, language management, and language practices) constructed and negotiated? 2) How are their FLPs mediated by each family member’s identity negotiation?
This ethnographic case study will be conducted with 4-6 rural migrant families in the city of Hangzhou. Data will be collected over six months through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, family archival materials, digital artifacts, informal conversations, and direct observation through audio recordings. With this study, I intend to better understand how families’ daily language choices and use are shaped within the rural-urban divide and the linguistic hierarchies, and how FLP may be negotiated and co-constructed through individuals’ exploration of identities. The close focus on each rural migrant family’s negotiation aims to reveal the underrecognized sociolinguistic injustice surrounding their lives, and to explore potential room for repositioning. The experiences of Chinese rural migrant families may speak to internal and international migrants who are confronting systemic violence against their languages and identities.