媽媽 ,“I miss you”: Multilingual Digital Practices in Transnational Families

Speaker: Dr. Xiao Lan CURDT-CHRISTIANSEN (University of Bath, UK)

Digital devices are omnipresent in our everyday life and have an immense impact on our social communication and language practices. Transnational families often engage in multilingual practices with their family members close and far via digital devices and through social media. As a result, children are immersed in new technologies from a young age (Teichert & Anderson 2014) which exposes them to multiple languages and digital literacy. This paper focuses on multilingual and multiliteracy practices of three transnational Chinese families in the UK, seen through the lens of family language policy. In particular, it looks into how parents and children establish their family language practices, negotiate meanings and develop multiliteracy skills through social media and digital devices. Using family language audit as a methodological tool, we conducted ethnographic fieldwork through observation of the families to collect ‘live’ events that were captured through digital communications, including Wechat (Chinese social media app), WhatsApp, Skype, and other apps. The findings indicate that social media are powerful tools to socialise children into multilingual practices and thus enable them to engage in both heritage language and cultural activities. Such engagement will have positive impact on their identity and cognitive development.