Negotiating Identity and Family Language Policy: Rural Migrant Workers and Floating Children in Urban China
By: Ziwen Mei
PhD Student in Language and Literacy Education
Abstract
This proposed study aims to investigate the identity negotiation and family language policy of rural-migrant families against the macro backdrop of rural-urban labour mobility. Although rural migrant workers are permitted to work in urban areas, their access to social welfare benefits, including children’s school education, is restricted by the household registration system. Meanwhile, coming from diverse linguistic backgrounds amid the nearly 2,000 regional languages in China, their bottom-up language planning confronts a monoglossic national language policy which legitimizes Mandarin Chinese as the only standard medium of communication across public domains. This study, drawing on the frameworks of family language policy and identity and investment with a Bourdieusan lens of capital, seeks to understand the nuanced power dynamics between social and familial structure and individual agency, and to foreground agentive capacities of marginalized migrant groups in asserting their identities and languages.
Speaker Bio
My research centres around examining the social and linguistic structures impacting migrant families and individuals inside families. For my doctoral research, I aim to investigate the language planning and practices of Chinese rural-urban migrant families in relation to their changing identities.
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