Chinese L2 literacy practices: material and sociocultural considerations

Abstract

Although there has been research on literacy as a sociocultural practice, L2 literacy researchers have yet to incorporate and consider how the material characteristics of a writing system interact with sociocultural factors in shaping literacy practices. Drawing on conceptions of literacy as a sociocultural practice, psycholinguistic and developmental work, this paper seeks to expand the understanding of ‘‘literacy practice’’ by considering both material and sociocultural factors. It focuses the discussion on Chinese L2 literacy practices that concern the learning of Chinese characters in a Mandarin Chinese-as-a-second language classroom. The paper concludes with implications for L2 literacy pedagogy.

Keywords:

• L2 literacy
• literacy practice
• bilingual education
• Chinese characters

Acknowledgements

I deeply thank the students, staff and parents who generously gave their time to make this study possible. I also would like to express my appreciation to the two anonymous reviewers and my two graduate students, Melody Zhou and Su Hui for their encouraging and helpful comments that refined this paper. Last, but not least, I give thanks to my Heavenly Father for His provision.

Notes

¹There are two writing systems (simplified and traditional) that are utilized by various Chinese-speaking communities. However, in this paper, I will only talk about shared features in the description of Chinese characters.

²For an excellent historical overview of the development of the Modern Chinese writing system and the Mainland's phonetic script, hanyupinyin, refer to Chen, P. 1999. Modern chinese: History and sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ⁱIn Mandarin, Chinatown has several names. Tang2ren2jie1 and hua2bu4 are both accepted names for Chinatown.