ABSTRACT
The chapter presents an investigation on the experiences of different groups, generations, and individuals in the Chinese diaspora in dealing with bilingualism and multilingualism and the interplay between their language experiences and the local socioeconomic conditions as well as their diasporic imaginations. Researchers increasingly find terms such as 'immigrants' and 'minorities' unsatisfactory. Instead, as Clifford suggests, 'diasporic language seems to be replacing, or at least supplementing, minority discourse. Transnational connections break the binary relation of 'minority' communities within 'majority' societies'. The chapter fills a gap in the growing body of research literature on the global Chinese diaspora by focusing on the issue of language, especially multilingualism. The issues addressed include changing linguistic landscape and language practices and the emergence of new forms of Chinese or new forms of multilingualism, family language policy and practice, language socialisation and identity development, multilingual creativity, heritage language maintenance, loss, learning, and re-learning, and linguistic attitudes and ideologies.
