Agnes Weiyun He & Xiao Yun (eds). Chinese as a heritage language: Fostering rooted world citizenry.(Book review)

Agnes Weiyun He & Xiao Yun (eds). Chinese as a heritage language: Fostering rooted world citizenry. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008. 271 pp. ISBN-10: 0824832868; ISBN-13: 978-0824832865.

In Chinese as a heritage language: Fostering rooted world citizenry Agnes Weiyun He and Yuan Xiao provide a fascinating account of the rapidly growing field of Chinese as a Heritage Language (henceforth CHL) in the last decade. Although the book focuses mainly on the US context where according to the 2000 census Chinese was reported as the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish (McGinnis, 2005: 592), it reflects the increasing recognition of CHL as a valuable national, economic, community and personal resource in today's globalized world. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines, such as developmental psychology, linguistic and cultural anthropology, discourse analysis, reading research, and second language acquisition, the book discusses 'the socio-cultural, cognitive-linguistic, and educational-institutional trajectories along which CHL may be learned, acquired, maintained, and developed and the impact of such trajectories on individuals, families, schools, and communities' (p. 1). Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, the book is organized along three broad themes, namely the CHL learner, the CHL learner language, and CHL learning.

Part I of the book opens with a detailed introduction by Agnes He highlighting some of the specificities of CHL. Of particular relevance are the numerous dialects (e.g. Wu, Gan, Min, Hakka, Mandarin) grouped under the umbrella term 'Chinese' with Mandarin serving as the standard dialect and the different scripts (i.e. traditional, simplified) used in different Chinese-speaking regions (e.g. China, Taiwan, Singapore) and across diasporic communities. As many of the chapters in this book aptly illustrate (e.g. He, Hendryx, Wiley et al.), this heterogeneity across languages and modalities has important implications for CHL learning as well as the development and transformation of the learners' heritage languages and identities. The introductory chapter is complemented by the next chapter on 'Issues of Chinese heritage language education and research at the postsecondary level' by Duanduan Li and q Duff. The authors discuss some of the challenges for the field of CHL in higher education and outline some research priorities for the future. An important challenge faced by many university foreign languages departments where CHL is typically taught is identifying who counts as a legitimate CHL learner given the learners' diverse linguistic profiles and literacy experiences. Other challenges include planning the curriculum, developing placement and assessment procedures, pedagogic approaches and instructional resources to meet …