Grandparents in Minority Language Maintenance: Mandarin Chinese in Canada

Abstract

This article investigates the role of grandparents in Mandarin Chinese retention by children in Saskatchewan, Canada. The materials for the study come from interviews with 60 Mandarin Chinese/English bi-multilingual children between the ages of 6 and 13 in the families of immigrants from China residing in Saskatchewan, Canada. Additional materials describing bilingual children’s Mandarin language proficiency come from a picture description as well as Chinese characters reading and writing tasks. The interview responses and language proficiency parameters were analyzed with the help of correlation analysis, chi-square (for nonparametric data) and univariate ANOVAs (for parametric data). The results are highly controversial, as on the one hand, they demonstrate that the presence of grandparents residing in the same household as their grandchildren is associated with the grandchildren having fewer non-canonical forms (NCFs referred to in earlier research as errors) in their narratives and fewer phonological NCFs. On the other hand, children who have grandparents residing with them are more likely to have a lower ability to read Mandarin texts with PinYin, spend fewer hours reading in Mandarin, produce more incomplete sentences per utterance, and shorter narratives.