Early adult Chinese heritage speakers’ agency in their language practices in the United States: the role of relations.

As language policy and planning (LPP) is increasingly recognized as a multi-layered process involving multiple agents, the nature of their agency has gained significant attention in LPP research. In the context of heritage language maintenance in the United States, while extensive research has explored the agency of various grassroots agents, heritage speakers, as the actual language users, are often viewed as recipients of policy influences, and their LPP agency is not adequately addressed. This is particularly evident among adult heritage speakers who actively utilize their linguistic repertoire to forge social relations and accumulate social capital as independent social beings. Informed by relational sociology and social network analysis, this study aims to investigate the agency of early adult Chinese heritage speakers in the United States concerning their language practices and to explore how this agency interacts with their relational dynamics through qualitative approaches. Our findings indicate that their agency does not arise from a direct decision-making process regarding language choices. Instead, it emerges from a critical examination of the relational contexts in which they reside. By engaging in this reflective practice, they adapt their language practices to align with the co-action patterns inherent in their desired social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]