Family language policies in China: A Bourdieusian re-framing and review of research

This chapter reviews the research on family language policies in China within a sociological framework. By using the central Bourdieusian concepts of field, capital, and habitus, as well as doxa and the associated concepts of heterodoxy, and orthodoxy, the sociolinguistic components of family language policy (language beliefs, language practice, and language management at home) are re-framed. The extant literature on family language beliefs, practice, or management in China has been reviewed via the three moments of field analysis: relations between fields; the structure of a given field; and habitus. It was found that family is what Bourdieu described as ‘a realised category’; and further, that the language policy in the family field is impacted by those of other social spaces. Specifically, languages or language variants are accorded different values and attract different investments by families on behalf of their children. These investments are influenced by family members’ habitus, which generates family language policy. Finally, the sparsity of relevant research is proposed as a reason for further research in this area.