Implicit learning and imperceptible influence: Syncretic literacy of multilingual Chinese children.

This article reports on an ethnographic study involving the literacy practices of two multilingual Chinese children from two similar yet different cultural and linguistic contexts: Montreal and Singapore. Using syncretism as a theoretical tool, this inquiry examines how family environment and support facilitate children’s process of becoming literate in multiple languages. Informed by sociocultural theory, the inquiry looks in particular at the role of grandparents in the syncretic literacy practices of children. Through comparative analysis, the study reveals similarities and differences that, when considered together, contribute to our understanding of multilingual children’s creative forms of learning with regard to their rich literacy resources in multiple languages, the imperceptible influences of mediators, various learning styles and syncretic literacy practices.

Exploring trilingual Chinese children’s language use

This article investigates the patterns of language use among a selected group of trilingual Chinese immigrant children. The study is located in a socio-cultural-linguistic context of a Chinese heritage language school in Montreal, Quebec. Drawing on data collected from classroom observations, I explore how children’s language choices are influenced by their socialization networks, friendship patterns and daily social interactions. The analysis of data is guided by sociocultural theory and the theory of language socialization. The findings indicate that socialization and political institutional contexts can have powerful influences on children’s social and educational development, including language development, identity formation, and mother tongue maintenance and loss.