吴慧珍、杨小虎的论文“No family Is an Island: Exploring Two Chinese-American Families’ Heritage Language Maintenance”近期在International Journal of Bilingualism发表。

No family Is an Island: Exploring

Two Chinese-American Families’ Heritage Language Maintenance

Abstract
Aims and objectives: This qualitative research investigates the evolution of Heritage Language
Maintenance (HLM) investment in Chinese-American families, exploring how learner commitment
evolves from early childhood into young adulthood, and how it is shaped by affordances and
constraints across micro-, meso-, and macro-levels.
Methodology: This study adopts a retrospective, life-course perspective to examine the
HLM trajectories across critical developmental stages: early childhood, adolescence, and young
adulthood.
Data and analysis: Data were triangulated from semi-structured interviews with two ChineseAmerican parental couples and their three adult children (ages 18, 23, and 28), recorded family
conversations, and cultural artifacts. It employs a directed content analysis approach, deductively
coding the data against the constructs of Darvin and Norton’s Model of Investment within an
ecological framework spanning micro- (family), meso- (institutional), and macro-levels (societal).
Findings and conclusions: Results indicate that parental investment remains ideologically
stable but practically unsustainable. Children’s investment follows nonlinear, context-activated
paths. While micro-level family involvement creates an early foundation, learners’ trajectories
diverge significantly during adolescence, and move to autonomous “ideal self” or permanent
disengagement in young adulthood. Successful outcomes are often triggered by strategic
repositioning of the HL as symbolic capital in young adulthood, whereas divestment results from
systemic constraints at the meso- and macro-levels.
Originality: This research provides a quasi-longitudinal perspective on HLM by prioritizing the
retrospective reflections of adult learners alongside parental accounts. Its significance lies in
tracing the nonlinear evolution of investment across two decades, offering a multi-level ecological
analysis of how learner agency is negotiated within the shifting tensions of micro-, meso-, and
macro-systems from childhood into autonomous adulthood.
Significance/implications: The study advocates for a model of cross-level ecological synergy.
Practically, it calls for integrating HL into formal secondary curricula and adopting project-based
pedagogies to align learners’ “ideal selves” with institutional support.

Wu, H., & Yang, X.* (2026). No family Is an Island: Exploring Two Chinese-American Families’ Heritage Language Maintenance. International Journal of Bilingualism, https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069261454