Sustainable Family Language Policy in Multicultural Communities: An Empirical Study of Macao Permanent Resident Families

Abstract

This study investigated family language policies (FLP) in the current context of the Macao Special Administrative Region (Macao SAR). It explored family language ideologies, management strategies, and intergenerational practices through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations. The findings indicate that Macao permanent residents’ families take Cantonese Chinese as the primary medium of communication and cultural identity. Simultaneously, Mandarin and English are often valued for their roles in academic and professional advancement. Portuguese exhibits a trend of marginalization, despite remaining one of the official languages of the Macao SAR. As for other dialects, they may be used in family conversations but are not considered important languages. Beyond this hierarchy of language values, the researchers also revealed that the FLP of Macao’s permanent residents’ families tends to be driven by both experience and foresight, enabling family members to engage in effective consultation on language choice and language learning. Regarding language practice, children’s multilingual fluency is significantly better than that of their parents. The dominant family language tendency does not influence the consensus of multilingualism and allows code-mixing to appear in conversations. In this article, FLP in Macao families is found to be shaped by both experiential knowledge and future-oriented practical considerations, while also reflecting parents’ affective concerns and responses to broader structural pressures. All these factors together form a decision-making system. In this system, both emotion and reason play their roles simultaneously. If a hierarchical distinction must be made, the rational recognition of the diverse characteristics of the linguistic environment and the dominant status of the main language will be primary.

1. Introduction

The historical conditions1 and population composition of the Macao SAR determine its reality of multilingualism. According to Macao Statistics and Census Service (DSEC, 2022) and the Basic Law of the Macao SAR by the Official Printing Bureau (Government of Macao Special Administrative Region Printing Bureau, 1999), Macao’s population is composed of several categories, including permanent residents2, non-permanent residents3, non-resident workers4, and students5. Among these groups, permanent residents account for the majority (82.5%) and maintain long-term residence, stable family networks, and sustained participation in local society (DSEC, 2017). Their language practices are therefore more representative of Macao’s enduring sociolinguistic environment. In contrast, the language choices of non-permanent residents may be shaped by temporary or transitional arrangements or migration plans, while the language choices of non-resident workers or non-local students are often shaped by their native language or specific occupational and educational requirements. Thus, this study focuses on permanent resident families, as they best capture the dynamics of local FLP while still encompassing diversity across social backgrounds. This focus provides a reliable empirical basis for analyzing family language choices in Macao’s multilingual context.

Cantonese Chinese has historically functioned as the dominant language of the local population in Macao. Portuguese acquired official and symbolic status during Portuguese colonial administration from the mid-sixteenth century onward (Yan, 2016); however, its role evolved during the pre-handover transition period before 20 December 1999. Despite the official recognition of Cantonese Chinese in 1987 and its equal legal status since 1991, Portuguese remained dominant in government administration and legislative practices during the late colonial period. Earlier waves of migration from Fujian and Guangdong, particularly from the 16th to 19th centuries, also brought regional varieties, such as Hokkien and Hakka, to Macao, contributing to the territory’s long-standing linguistic diversity (Gunn, 1996). However, standard Guangzhou Cantonese emerged as the dominant language, while minor Cantonese sub-varieties persist but remain less socially prominent (Chan, 2015). With increasing migration from mainland China and Macao’s integration into the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, Mandarin has become more visible and influential in recent years (Yan, 2017; Reynolds et al., 2024). These demographic and historical factors suggest that Macao’s linguistic ecology is not a simple “Chinese and Portuguese” duality, but rather a multilingual context characterized by the coexistence of multiple languages, shifting populations, and a blend of traditional and contemporary language resources (Yan, 2017).

In Macao, schools have a high degree of autonomy in teaching language, typically using Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and Portuguese (A. Moody, 2019; A. J. Moody, 2021; Chan & Chou, 2022). Meanwhile, the Macao SAR government adopts an inclusive approach to language education (Bray & Koo, 2004; Choi & Moody, 2024). Therefore, in addition to the schools’ teaching language, FLP may play a crucial role in children’s language learning and practice.

2. Literature Review

2.1. FLP in Multilingual Contexts

Within a multilingual context, FLP often becomes a key driver for maintaining minority languages or promoting the learning of majority languages (Schwartz, 2008; Curdt-Christiansen, 2016; Lanza & Gomes, 2020). Parents’ language choices are primarily influenced by their experiences, but are also constrained by the political, cultural, and linguistic conditions of the society in which they are living (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; Lanza & Wei, 2016; Van Mensel, 2016). Research shows that in monolingual societies, parents tend to follow the dominant culture and prioritize school language for “pragmatism” (Curdt-Christiansen et al., 2023; Hollebeke, 2024), ensuring both educational and career success for their children and avoiding social exclusion (Canagarajah, 2008). As children enter school, their language choice is increasingly influenced by their peers and the school culture, which may challenge the existing family language rules and cause a dynamic process that requires continuous negotiation with FLP (Hirsch & Lee, 2018; M. Gu & Tong, 2020; Wang, 2023). Furthermore, as children enter different life stages, their language practices may influence their parents’ language choices, thereby driving language transition (King & Fogle, 2013; Mu & Dooley, 2015; Lanza & Gomes, 2020). Additionally, siblings may further alter existing language strategies; older school-age children often encourage parents to use the school language more frequently when interacting with younger children (King & Fogle, 2013; Bridges & Hoff, 2014; Kheirkhah & Cekaite, 2018).

2.2. Theoretical Framework of FLP

Spolsky’s (2004) language policy model is a foundational framework in FLP research. It conceptualizes language policy as the interaction of three components: language ideology, language practices, and language management. Language ideology refers to beliefs and attitudes about languages, including their status, identity value, and appropriate use, as well as parents’ views on language learning and their role in children’s development (Lanza, 2007). Language practices involve the actual use of language in everyday family interactions, such as conversations at home and patterns of language mixing (Bose et al., 2023). Language management refers to the efforts that parents make to influence their children’s language use, such as setting rules, correcting language choices, or shaping the home language environment (Spolsky, 2004). These three components are interconnected: ideologies influence practices, and management aims to guide practices toward ideological goals.

Building on Spolsky’s framework, recent research emphasizes that FLP is not a fixed plan, but a dynamic and negotiated process shaped by interaction, emotion, and institutional experience. From an interactional perspective, parental language ideology is increasingly understood as constructed and revised through everyday family interaction, rather than being fixed prior to the interaction (Mirvahedi, 2024). The researchers noted that parents in Macao permanent resident families exhibit a stable ideology regarding language management and precise requirements for their children’s language choices and learning. This stability stems from parents’ rational understanding of the social environment and school language policies, as well as their outlook on the job market. Although some differences surface in interactions, these emotional or psychological phenomena do not shake the parents’ stable ideology. Furthermore, the authors believe that FLP is a long-term guiding principle, and temporary emotional states will not bring about fundamental change. Thus, we are not discussing this issue at the level of emotional psychology, but rather at the level of language value perception and a deeper ideological level.

In addition, children are increasingly recognized as active agents in FLP. Influenced by peer groups and the dominant societal language, children may resist or weaken parental efforts to maintain heritage languages (Spolsky, 2009; Schwartz & Verschik, 2013). Conversely, they may also assume agentive roles as linguistic mediators or “language teachers”, facilitating communication between the family and the wider society (Mu & Dooley, 2015; Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020). Together, these perspectives highlight FLP as an interactionally negotiated process in which intergenerational relations and sociolinguistic environments continuously shape ideology, emotion, and practice.

In various postcolonial contexts, such as Singapore, where Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil are co-official languages alongside English, the dominance of English in both education and the economy has led families to shift away from their traditional languages toward English (Curdt-Christiansen, 2016; Cavallaro et al., 2020). In Hong Kong, the “One Country, Two Systems” framework promotes bilingualism in Cantonese and English while encouraging trilingual spoken proficiency in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. Within this framework, English continues to serve as a crucial medium for international exchange (Poon, 2013). However, in Macao, though constitutionally recognized as an official language, Portuguese exerts only limited influence in everyday social life (Yan, 2017; A. J. Moody, 2021). The flexibility of language policies and the high degree of autonomy schools possess in determining their medium of instruction force families in Macao to assume a more decisive role in their children’s language development process. This background makes Macao a particularly distinctive place for examining FLP.

In the context of Macao’s harmonious and inclusive language ecology, Spolsky’s FLP model provides an analytical framework that helps illuminate how Macao families negotiate and manage in their favor about different languages for children to meet educational, career, and cultural needs. This study also enriches the theoretical understanding of the FLP framework and offers empirical insights into language choice in multilingual societies with different social environments.

2.3. Affect, Structural Pressures, and FLP

In recent years, scholars have observed that FLP is closely related to parents’ affective experiences (Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023). Affect is not understood as an isolated individual response; instead, it is embedded within broader social and institutional contexts. Within the family setting, parents’ evaluations of language value, identity meaning, and social mobility functions are often accompanied by emotional experiences such as anxiety, aspiration, or guilt (Machan, 2009). These emotional responses are shaped by macro-level structural pressures, including dominant language norms, educational systems, and linguistic market values (Sevinç & Backus, 2019).

Empirical research further indicates that language anxiety may shape family language practices. Hollebeke et al. (2023) argue that anxiety may emerge when there is a mismatch between parents’ expectations and educational investments, and children’s actual language use or proficiency outcomes. For instance, some transnational families gradually abandon the heritage language due to sustained language anxiety (Sevinç, 2022; Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023). In certain multilingual families, when children are perceived as gravitating toward a monolingual identity, parents may experience frustration or anxiety and subsequently adjust their language strategies, shifting toward a monolingual mode by focusing on the language they perceive as the child’s weaker language (F. Tang & Calafato, 2024). Moreover, in highly commodified linguistic environments, where language competence is treated as a resource that generates social recognition, status, and mobility opportunities, families tend to prioritize high-status languages in their language planning while marginalizing or suppressing lower-status ones (F. Tang & Calafato, 2022). To conclude, these studies suggest that affect operates as a relational mechanism through which structural pressures and parental language ideologies are translated into concrete family language practices. This study conceptualizes FLP as an affectively mediated and structurally embedded process, examining how parents negotiate identity preservation and mobility aspirations under shifting sociolinguistic conditions.

When we examine the parental attitudes and behaviors in Macao Permanent Resident toward FLP from the perspective of external pressure, it is not difficult to observe that, among Chinese families, the local Cantonese used in the Macao community and the dominant language of Mandarin, at the psychological level, aroused an identification and trust in the mother tongue prevalent in the local area and the broader regions of China. Based on this identification and trust, they have made a series of decisions: high expectations for their children to learn Mandarin, an international vision that integrates learning both Mandarin and English, and a reduction in the use of dialects other than Cantonese within the family. The identification and trust in the mother tongue in this context encompass both Cantonese and Mandarin, which have become a common-sense linguistic attitude among Macao Permanent Residents.

2.4. Sociolinguistic Research on the Macao SAR

Macao’s linguistic landscape has undergone a dynamic transformation before and after its return to the motherland (A. J. Moody, 2021). During the Portuguese administration, Portuguese served as the sole official language and was primarily used in government, law, and education, while the Chinese population continued to use Cantonese and other Chinese varieties daily. In 1992, Chinese was granted co-official status (Yan, 2017). According to Yan (2017), Chinese and Portuguese shall remain the official languages after the 1999 return to China6. In recent decades, this context has evolved into a multilingual environment where Cantonese remains dominant while Mandarin, Portuguese, English, and other Chinese dialects coexist and interact.

The official population database showed that 96% of Macao residents (excluding non-resident employees and students) are of Chinese nationality, with 42.8% originating from mainland migration during the reform and opening-up period. Meanwhile, inter-ethnic marriages are happening, the growth of intergenerational households, and the rising reliance on domestic workers (22.3% live-in) further diversifies the linguistic environment of Macao’s permanent resident families (DSEC, 2022). The Macanese generally refer to a mixed group of Portuguese and Asian ancestry born in Macao (Yan, 2017), who also contribute to the diversity of Macao’s linguistic life.

Language choices for the younger generation become essential for observing macro-level language policy (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; King & Fogle, 2013). An official survey of Macao youth (aged 13–35, N = 2349) showed that 69% of participants were bilingual (Chinese–Portuguese, Chinese–English, or Portuguese–English) and 30.2% were trilingual (Chinese–Portuguese–English). Meanwhile, Cantonese continued to dominate everyday interaction (90%), while the use of Mandarin (4.2%), other Chinese dialects (2.8%), English (1.3%), and Portuguese (0.5%) was comparatively limited (Sheng Kung Hui Macao Social Services Office, 2023). Most notably, the official Census reported that only 4.7% and 3.6% of the local people (over 3 years old) used Mandarin and English as their family languages. In comparison, 45% and 22.7% of the population were reported to be proficient in Mandarin and English, respectively (DSEC, 2022). Such significant differences may indicate that children may practice these languages in school or in a broader social context. FLP in Macao families, therefore, should not be understood merely as a household language choice but as an outcome of interactions with the educational system across social domains. Moreover, official census data showed that the proportion of Macao residents aged three and over who were fluent in Cantonese had decreased by 3.8% compared to ten years earlier. In comparison, the proportion of Mandarin speakers had increased by 3.6% (DSEC, 2022). Such intergenerational shifts highlight the importance of examining how macro-level language policies interact with family choices in shaping the city’s evolving multilingual landscape.

2.5. Research Questions

Existing studies on FLP have primarily examined immigrant families in Western contexts, with a particular emphasis on the transmission and shift in heritage languages (M. M. Gu et al., 2025). However, there is limited research on how families in multilingual societies shaped by colonial history, high levels of migration, and the “One Country, Two Systems” framework make language choices and plans for younger generations.

In Macao, official policies adopt a relatively tolerant stance toward multilingualism, and schools enjoy considerable autonomy in selecting their medium of instruction. As a result, families assume greater responsibility in shaping children’s language performance. To address this gap, this study draws on the theoretical framework of FLP proposed by Spolsky (2004) and collects both quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the following research questions (RQs):

• In the current social context of Macao, how do parents and children articulate their value orientations toward Cantonese, Mandarin, other dialects, English, and Portuguese?
• How do parents’ expectations for their children’s language proficiency vary across families with different backgrounds?
• What are the language management strategies reported by the parents?
• What are the intergenerational similarities and differences in language choice and proficiency?

3. Research Method

This paper adopts a mixed method, combining a questionnaire survey with semi-structured interviews and observation. This methodological design provides a comprehensive empirical foundation for analyzing how families navigate language choice, transmission, and maintenance across generations in response to internal family dynamics and external sociopolitical influences.

This study selected Macao permanent resident families as its research subjects for two primary reasons: First, permanent residents constitute the vast majority (82.5%) of the population (DSEC, 2017), thus providing a more comprehensive investigation of FLP within Macao society. Second, children of permanent residents enjoy institutional stability in their access to educational consultation and allocation (Education and Youth Development Bureau, 2022). Compared to migrant populations, their language choices and proficiency may reflect long-term trends in the local society. This approach allows the study to maintain sample representativeness while further exploring the evolution of FLP in the Macao context. Considering time constraints, data accessibility, and memory backtracking bias, the research subjects are limited to permanent resident families in Macao whose children are attending secondary school. The participating families were fully informed of the research topic and data collection methods, and were made aware of the use, storage method, and subsequent data processing.

3.1. Quantitative Data Collection

This article distributed two questionnaires to permanent resident families in Macao: a parent questionnaire filled in by parents responsible for children’s language learning and a child questionnaire completed by junior or senior high school students. The scales are adapted from the CFPS China Family Panel Studies of Institute of Social Science Survey of Peking University (2022) and the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q) created by Kaushanskaya et al. (2020). Both questionnaires cover four dimensions: basic information, language ideologies (RQ1 and RQ2), language management (RQ3), and language practice (RQ4).

Language value is collected from three aspects: the symbolic (the connection between language and personal identity), exchange (the connection between language and education and employment), and the practical value (the connection between language and personal practical feedback) (Yin & Li, 2017; Ma, 2021). To answer RQ2, the authors referred to Ma (2021) and L. L. Tang (2022) and used a five-level Likert scale (1 = “no requirements”; 2 = “can understand but don’t need to speak”; 3 = “can communicate briefly”; 4 = “can understand and speak fluently”; 5 = “speak standardly and authentically”) to examine parents’ expectations for their children’s language ability. The language practice part utilizes a five-point Likert scale, inviting parents and children to self-evaluate their language abilities in four languages across four aspects: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reliability analysis demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.86 for the parent questionnaire and 0.79 for the child questionnaire.

Questionnaires were distributed to permanent resident families in the Macao SAR from January to June 2024 through the Wenjuanxing platform (https://www.wjx.cn/ accessed on 13 September 2025) by a combination of purposive and convenience sampling. To match the parent–child data, the same family was asked to fill in the two questionnaires sequentially using the same electronic device. Subsequently, the snowball sampling method was used to expand the sample. After eliminating responses completed in insufficient time, left incomplete, or could not be matched between parent and child, a total of 195 parent and 189 child questionnaires were collected. Finally, 170 valid paired questionnaires were obtained.

3.2. Qualitative Data Collection

In accordance with the selection criteria for permanent families in Macao, the author distributed questionnaires via personal and social networks and requested respondents’ consent to participate in in-depth interviews and family observation. Thirteen families explicitly indicated their willingness to participate in interviews and observations, while the remaining respondents refused further participation. According to Curdt-Christiansen and Huang (2020), peers and school cultures may strongly shape children’s language choices. In this study, 13 questionnaires in which parents voluntarily provided contact information were first classified by children’s school type. Four families were then selected for interviews, representing varied social backgrounds and school types. Snowball sampling was applied to recruit one additional family whose children attended other schools. In addition, a Macanese family was invited through a friend’s introduction. Although this family did not strictly meet the sampling criteria (their children were not in secondary school), they were included because of the distinctiveness and exploratory nature of their experiences.

The authors contacted the parents of the Macanese family in advance to confirm the interview’s method, location, time, and language. From June to September 2024, five semi-structured interviews were conducted with Macao permanent resident families; an additional interview with a Macanese family was conducted in March 2025. Interviews were conducted mainly in Cantonese (five families) and once in Mandarin, with one held in a participant’s home and the rest in restaurants or cafés arranged with the families. Each interview lasted 40 to 60 min, followed an outline, and was audio-recorded with consent.

Following the in-depth interviews, and with informed consent and modest compensation, five families agreed to participate in follow-up ethnographic observation of their everyday language practices at times agreed upon by the families and the researcher between September 2024 and March 2025, while the Macanese family refused observational visits. Data were collected from six families over this six-month period through participant observation of naturally occurring family interactions. The dataset comprised approximately 23 h of audio recordings of home interactions and 24,700 words of field notes.

The observations were conducted during naturally occurring family interactions in everyday settings, allowing the researcher to document language practices in situ. During the observation period, researchers collected physical materials related to the research questions (Ciesielska et al., 2018), including media platform materials (chat records, mobile phone channels, language settings), family materials (language learning plans, homework, or notes), and community environment materials (linguistic landscapes).

This study adopts a qualitative, interactional, and interpretive approach to FLP (Mirvahedi, 2024). Specifically, it closely examines how language is used in everyday family activities to invoke, negotiate, and establish particular interactional frames. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations of family interactions. Interviews capture participants’ interpretations and justifications of language use, while observations provide contextual insight into daily language practices, supporting data triangulation. The analysis focuses on how parents and children construct and negotiate language choices in interaction, rather than treating reported beliefs as direct predictors of behavior. Since the beginning of this study, the authors have continuously refined the research design and analysis through discussions with the supervisor and with scholars and peers in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. After the conclusions were reached, the findings were shared with the case families for feedback and member check, which helped minimize researcher bias and enhance the study’s credibility.

Due to space limitations, this article does not include highly stable or singular interactive information on language use (repeatedly observed routine directives or minimal child responses). Instead, it focuses on analyzing situations involving language choice negotiation, frame shifts, or language resource interweaving during the interaction process, to better reveal the dynamics of FLP.

The qualitative data were analyzed using NVivo 12 for thematic analysis. Before coding, keywords, such as language values, management strategies, and language-using habits, were set from the research questions. First, open coding was used to mark repeated words and phrases. For example, positive comments like “important”, “must speak”, “must be pronounced correctly”, “needed for exams”, and negative comments like “not useful”, “too difficult”, “don’t need to speak”, “no benefits” were coded as basic categories. Then these were grouped into larger themes, such as positive and negative attitudes towards language. Parent interviews, child interviews, and observation notes were coded separately and compared to see similarities and differences. This step-by-step process helped move from simple words to broader themes and ensured clear and reliable analysis.

Table 1. Detailed information about case families. (F for female and M for male).

Case Family	Member	Address	Age	Occupation	Place of Birth	Education Level	Language Ability7
F1	Mrs. Lei	Areia Preta and Iao Hon District	52	Casino	Foshan, Guangdong	Primary school	Foshan Jiujiang dialect, Cantonese, Mandarin
	Child 1 (F)		24	Hotel	Macao	Bachelor’s	Cantonese, Mandarin, English
	Child 2 (M)		17	Student	Macao	Grade 11, Chinese Private School	Cantonese, Mandarin, English
F2	Mrs. Yip	Areia Preta and Iao Hon District	45	Government	Tanzhou, Guangdong	Bachelor’s	Tanzhou dialect, Cantonese, Mandarin, English
	Child 1 (F)		21	Undergraduate Student	Macao	In progress	Cantonese, Mandarin, English
	Child 2 (M)		15	Student	Macao	Grade 10, English Private School	Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Portuguese
F3	Mr. Ng	Fai Chi Kei District	53	Real Estate	Fuzhou, Fujian	Primary School	Fujian dialect, Cantonese, Mandarin
	Mrs. Ng		50	Housewife	Fuzhou, Fujian	Primary School	Fujian dialect, Cantonese, Mandarin
	Child 1 (F)		25	Insurance	Macao	Bachelor’s	Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Japanese
	Child 2 (F)		18	Student	Macao	Grade 12, Chinese Christian School	Cantonese, Mandarin, English, some Japanese
	Child 3 (M)		16	Student	Macao	Grade 10, Chinese Private School	Cantonese, Mandarin, English
F4	Mr. Chan	Taipa	43	Hotel	Macao	Bachelor’s	Cantonese, Mandarin, English
	Mrs. Chan		41	Finance	Wuhan, Hubei	Master’s	Mandarin, English, some Cantonese
	Child 1 (F)		13	Student	Wuhan, Hubei	Grade 8, International School	Mandarin, English
	Child 2 (M)		5	Student	Macao	Grade 3, Kindergarten	Mandarin, Cantonese, English
	Domestic Helper		39	Housework	Vietnam	Middle School	Vietnamese, English, Mandarin
F5	Grandmother	Areia Preta and Iao Hon District	71	Retired	Taishan, Guangdong	Unknown	Taishan dialect, Cantonese, some Mandarin
	Mrs. Cheong		43	Healthcare	Taishan, Guangdong	Bachelor’s	Taishan dialect, Cantonese, Mandarin, English
	Child (M)		15	Student	Macao	Grade 9, Chinese Private School	Cantonese, Mandarin, English
F6	Mr. Leong	Central District	58	Government (Chinese–Portuguese Translation)	Macao	High School	Portuguese, Cantonese, English, some Mandarin
	Mrs. Leong		58	Government (Chinese–Portuguese Translation)	Macao	High School	Portuguese, Cantonese, English, some Mandarin
	Child 1 (F)		30	Casino and Insurance	Macao	Bachelor’s	Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Portuguese
	Child 2 (M)		28	Casino	Macao	Bachelor’s	English, Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin
	Domestic Helper		45	Housework	Philippines	Junior High School	Filipino, English

provides more details about the case families, with language skills ranked in order of self-reported proficiency.

4. Findings

4.1. Parental and Children Language Value Orientations

This section addresses RQ1 by examining how parents and children discursively express and negotiate language value orientations within Macao’s multilingual environment. Across both generations, English is consistently positioned as a language of high symbolic value, particularly in relation to social status and personal advancement. More than 70% of respondents described English as enhancing individual development and social mobility. Mandarin is also framed by children as carrying symbolic value, while Cantonese and Portuguese, despite their official status, are less frequently articulated as forms of social status capital in participants’ accounts.

In terms of exchange value, the two generations have reached a strong consensus on English’s educational and employment functions. More than 70% of parents and children affirm the employment potential of English, and about 80% emphasize the role of English in improving academic qualifications. In comparison, the exchange value of Portuguese is less recognized, and Cantonese is not generally regarded as having significant exchange value.

Regarding the usage value, parents and children highly agree that Cantonese is the most convenient and familiar choice in daily communication. Notably, 91.76% of parents approve this view. However, the approval rate among children dropped to 68.82%. In addition, the proportion of children who recognized the convenience of Mandarin (24.71%) was significantly higher than that of parents (7.06%), reflecting intergenerational differences in language usage habits.

Curdt-Christiansen (2009) and King et al. (2008) pointed out that parents’ emphasis on a particular language’s necessity, priority, or core status can be understood as a manifestation of language ideology in discourse. The interview results further supplemented the quantitative results. Some respondents framed the identity function of Cantonese, often expressed as “cultural identity mark” and “mainstream in Macao”. For example, Mrs. Yip from F2 believes that8:

“對澳門人嚟講，廣東話系一定要識嘅，因為文化傳承就靠啲後生仔嘅。” [For Macao people, speaking Cantonese is a priority; the inheritance of our Cantonese culture depends on young children.]

In this excerpt, Cantonese is described using normative and moralized terms such as “一定要識” (must know) and is directly linked to “文化傳承” (cultural inheritance). The statement positions younger generations as responsible for maintaining this linguistic continuity.

Taken together with similar accounts across families, this pattern suggests that Cantonese is discursively positioned by parents as a marker of local identity and moral responsibility, rather than merely as a communicative resource. This interpretation is based on how Cantonese is repeatedly framed in terms of identity and obligation across multiple interviews.

In contrast, children sometimes expressed a lower level of importance for Cantonese. For instance, Child 2 (M) from F2 commented:

“我自己就覺得廣東話冇咁重要，因為我本身就識講，所以先會諗住學其他語言。” [Cantonese is not that important because I know how to speak Cantonese, so learning other languages is more important for me now.]

Mrs. Cheong from F5 repeatedly emphasized the importance of English for future careers, drawing on her own professional experience. However, her child stated:

“為咗學英文呢件事，我阿媽唔知同我講咗幾多百次。雖然佢同我講話要認真學英文，但系佢又幫唔到我，因為佢都唔識。我啲英文成績通常都系合格線上下咯，同埋我唔中意為咗考試攞到好成績去學英文。” [When it comes to learning English, my mother has told me thousands of times. Although she keeps telling me to study English seriously, she herself cannot really understand English. My English grades are usually just around the passing mark, and I do not like learning English only to get good exam results.]

The repetition of parental reminders (“hundreds of times”) and the child’s explicit rejection of exam-oriented motivation point to affective strain emerging from a mismatch between parental mobility aspirations and the child’s experiential engagement with English learning. This excerpt illustrates that parental language ideologies and planning intentions may not always translate into the anticipated linguistic outcomes. While parental discourse may invoke anxiety, concern, or subtle forms of reproach, such emotional expressions operate not merely as personal reactions but as discursive means of linking English to future mobility and social recognition.

The child treats Cantonese as an already-acquired competence and shifts attention to “其他語言” (other languages), which are implicitly associated with future learning priorities. Thus, this excerpt indicated that the language ideologies and planning intentions expressed by parents do not always translate into the expected linguistic practices; immediate negotiation in family interactions and children’s agency play important roles in shaping actual language choice.

As for those dialects (Jiujiang, Fujian, Tanzhou dialects), some parents mentioned “useless in Macao”, “don’t need to learn”, “will not be tested at school”. When it comes to English, vocabulary such as “very significant”, “required in school and future job position”, and “useful for communication” is reported on repeatedly mobilized by parents to justify English learning. For example, Mrs. Cheong from F5 stated:

“我一直同佢講，而家出嚟做嘢，你英文好人哋就會睇咗你簡歷先。” [I often reminded him that once he enters the workplace, strong English skills will be recognized by employers.]

In this excerpt, English is explicitly linked to employability and recruitment practices. Across multiple interviews, parents consistently frame English as an exchange-oriented linguistic resource, drawing on schooling and labor-market discourses to justify its importance. This discursive pattern indicates that parental language ideology is shaped by broader institutional and labor-market pressures, which position English as a high-value linguistic resource within Macao’s sociolinguistic environment. Rather than assuming direct effects on children’s outcomes, this interpretation highlights how parents make sense of English in relation to structural expectations surrounding education and mobility.

It is worth noting that the evaluation of Portuguese by Macanese and Chinese families differs. Chinese families use “English is more important than Portuguese”, “too difficult”, and “Portuguese is useless for the Chinese minority” to describe. The Child 1 (F) in F6 mentioned that:

“我覺得我自己系土生葡人，就冇理由唔識講葡文嘅，呢個就系我嘅身份象徵啊。” [I think that since I am a native Portuguese person, there is no reason why I can’t speak Portuguese. Speaking Portuguese is the symbol of being Portuguese.]

In this excerpt, Portuguese is explicitly linked to ethnic identity rather than practical utility. The child frames Portuguese as a personal and collective identity marker, while Chinese families’ accounts focus on difficulty, lack of utility, and comparison with English. These contrasting accounts suggest that Portuguese is positioned as an identity-bound language within Macanese households while remaining peripheral in most Chinese families’ value systems.

The survey and interview data show intergenerational differences in how languages are valued across symbolic, exchange, and usage dimensions. These findings set a foundation for a deeper discussion of family management and practice in Macao’s context.

4.2. Family Background and Variation in Parental Language Expectations

To answer RQ2, this subsection shows how parental expectations for children’s language proficiency vary across families with different backgrounds. We first conducted a correlation analysis between parents’ age, length of residence in Macao, educational level, and occupational type, as well as their expectations for their children’s language proficiency. These factors were included in the correlation test because they capture sociocultural and socioeconomic conditions that may directly influence how families evaluate and choose languages (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; Li et al., 2022).

Parents’ expectations for their children’s language skills across different age groups do not show a linear correlation. This result may be due to the lack of significant differences in expectations for children’s language skills across age groups. The finding indicates that the longer parents live in Macao, the higher their expectations for their children’s Cantonese and English proficiency, and the lower their expectations for their children’s Mandarin ability. Subsequently, the chi-square analysis showed significant differences in the parents’ expectations for their children’s Cantonese level based on different educational backgrounds (p = 0.000 *). Specifically, parents with lower education levels usually place more importance on Cantonese as a symbol of daily communication.

Furthermore, parents’ occupational backgrounds were significantly associated with their expectations for proficiency in Cantonese (p = 0.003 **) and English (p = 0.002 **). The data show that parents working in the service industry, especially those working in the entertainment and gaming industry (97.44%) and the medical and health industry (94.12%), are more inclined to expect their children to reach the highest level in Cantonese, that is, “speak standardly and authentically”. Regarding English proficiency, there are also significant differences based on parents’ occupations. Parents from the locally based hotel and catering industry (92.86%) and the medical and health industry (82.35%) demonstrated higher expectations for their children’s English communication skills than those from other professional groups. Specifically, these parents prioritized their children’s ability “to understand and speak fluently” in English.

The qualitative interview further supports the quantitative data. For example, Mrs. Cheong in F5, noted:

“我喺醫院做嘢，好多嗰啲藥名啊，同埋嗰啲檔案都系用英文寫嘅，所以英文真係好重要。” [I work in a hospital, and many drug names and files are written in English, so it is significant.]

Similarly, Mrs. Chan in F4 mentioned:

“英語真的太重要了。我上研究生的時候，用了很多英文的教材和資料。” [English is essential. When I was a graduate student, I used a lot of English textbooks and materials.]

According to these excerpts, English is evaluated through references to professional requirements. The language is framed in relation to institutional practices rather than family identity or emotional attachment. During the interviews, such accounts may indicate that parents draw on institutional and professional experiences in English learning, positioning it as necessary for navigating schooling and employment environments.

Regarding Mandarin Chinese, some parents frequently noted its status as the national common language, emphasizing that proficiency is essential for children’s future educational and occupational mobility in mainland China. For instance, Mrs. Yip from F2 stated:

“依家澳門有好多新移民，如果你要同佢哋傾偈或者你要去內地旅行嘅話，如果唔識普通話都好難溝通到。” [Nowadays, there are many new immigrants in Macao. If you want to talk with them, or if you travel to mainland China, it is very difficult to communicate if you do not know how to speak Mandarin.]

Similarly, Grandmother in F5 noted:

“而家內地嗰啲大城市個個都系講普通話，遲啲如果佢要去大陸讀書或者做嘢，咁就一定要識講普通話先得。” [Currently, everyone in the developed cities in mainland China speaks Mandarin. If he wants to study or work in the mainland, then it is essential to be able to speak Mandarin.]

Both speakers highlight the widespread use of Mandarin among new immigrants in Macao and major cities in Mainland China. They explicitly link Mandarin proficiency to practical needs such as everyday communication, travel, education, and employment opportunities in Mainland China.

These findings suggest that family members discursively construct Mandarin as a necessary linguistic resource for social integration and future mobility. Mandarin is thus positioned primarily as an instrumental language tied to national norms and socioeconomic advancement.

To conclude, the results suggest that parents’ language expectations for their children are associated with and influenced by the length of residence in Macao, the parents’ educational level, and their professional background. At the same time, the integration and development trend between the Macao SAR and mainland China also has a significant influence on their forward-looking judgments.

4.3. Language Management Strategies: Identity and Mobility Orientations

This subsection addresses RQ3 by examining reported language management strategies, supplemented by observational materials. The data show that 88.82% of parents chose to improve their children’s Cantonese proficiency by communicating with family members. The experience of the Macanese family provides a different example. As Mrs. Leong in F6 recalled:

“就嚟回歸嗰陣時，我哋就諗住全家都留喺澳門唔返葡國啦。所以啲小朋友喺呢邊讀書就一定要識講中文，我同佢爸爸就開始強制佢係屋企唔可以再講葡文。同埋因為佢當時淨系識講葡文，一啲中文都唔識講嘅，我哋就幫佢轉去中文幼稚園，等佢喺嗰中文環境度儘快識講中文。” [When Macao’s handover was approaching, we decided to stay in Macao and not return to Portugal. Therefore, the child had to learn how to speak Cantonese Chinese. We began to enforce the rule that she couldn’t speak Portuguese at home. Since she only spoke Portuguese then, we transferred her to a Cantonese Chinese kindergarten to help her learn it quickly in a native environment.]

In this account, the parent narrates a period of deliberate language adjustment linked to a significant political transition. She reports (a) a decision to remain in Macao, (b) the introduction of an explicit home rule restricting Portuguese use, and (c) a school transfer intended to increase the child’s exposure to Chinese. These actions are described retrospectively as coordinated responses to anticipated educational and social demands in Macao.

Consistent with F. Tang and Calafato’s (2024) observations, the perceived imbalance in the child’s linguistic repertoire prompted a shift toward a more concentrated language management strategy. However, rather than demonstrating the effectiveness of these measures on the child’s eventual language outcomes, the excerpt illustrates how parents discursively frame language intervention as a strategic response to anticipated structural change. In this sense, macro-level political transformation (the handover) is invoked not merely as historical background, but as a rationale for intensified language regulation within the family.

Regarding Mandarin, parents and children prefer to use online resources, TV dramas, music, and peer communication within the community. This study found that a school’s geographical location may affect the frequency of Mandarin use in daily communication. Specifically, students attending schools near border areas, particularly those in Areia Preta and Iao Hon District, tend to use Mandarin more frequently in their daily communication. This pattern may be related to the relatively high proportion of cross-border students enrolled in these schools.

For English and Portuguese, the two generations are more inclined to seek formal and external resources, such as enrolling in after-school remedial classes or some advanced classes at off-campus institutions. This inclination appears to be related to parents’ self-reported limited proficiency in English and Portuguese. However, the study found that some parents relied on domestic resources, such as asking older children to support the language learning of younger siblings or asking a foreign domestic helper for assistance. For instance, Mrs. Lei in F1 said:

“佢依家高中啲英文就越嚟越難啦，淨系可以靠佢家姐。佢家姐讀書嗰陣英文就唔錯，我平時都叫佢家姐教下佢。佢啲英文默書啊，寫作都系叫佢家姐去檢查嘅。” [His English tasks are increasingly complex in high school, so he can only rely on his sister. My daughter did well in English in high school, so I often ask her to teach him. His English dictation and writing homework were all checked by his sister.]

This excerpt shows parents describe adapting strategies based on their own language proficiency and available resources. These patterns can be interpreted as indicating that parents describe language management as flexible and resource-dependent. The findings point to negotiated and situationally adjusted practices, without assuming consistent enforcement or guaranteed outcomes.

Meanwhile, F4 and F6 both mentioned that English proficiency is one of the essential criteria they consider when hiring a foreign domestic helper, as they hope that this person can speak English frequently with their children to improve their children’s oral English.

Respondents were asked about language negotiation in family interactions: “At home, if you speak Cantonese to your child but your child responds in another language, what will you do?” Survey results show that 45.29% of parents maintained their language practices, using Cantonese while allowing children to respond in other languages. Another 35.29% of parents reported adapting to their children’s language choices by switching to the language used by the child, prioritizing communicative ease. In contrast, only 17.06% of parents reported adopting explicit language management strategies to promote Cantonese at home, showing that strong parental enforcement remains uncommon.

The qualitative findings show that some parents would use obvious rules to restrict dialect input to their children. Take F5 as an example, Mrs. Cheong explained:

“佢婆婆落嚟澳門之後，我一路同佢講唔好同啲細路講台山話。因為啲細路好中意去學，我驚佢學埋曬啲台山口音。” [After his grandmother came and lived in Macao, I kept reminding her not to speak the Taishan dialect to my child. Because children are good at imitating, I worried that his Cantonese pronunciation would be affected by dialectical imitation.]

In this situation, although Mrs. Cheong is a dialectal speaker, she discourages her child from learning or using it, expressing the hope that they will better integrate into mainstream society in the future. This suggests that within the mother’s generation, language choice is shifting away from a hometown-centered orientation toward a more discrete language pattern. When this FLP becomes more widespread, the dominant language of the communities where these families relocate will become more unified.

Furthermore, interview data indicated that children’s language preferences can influence parental practices at home. As Mr. Chan from F4 explained:

“佢細個嗰陣我冇同佢一齊住，所以佢唔中意我同佢講廣東話，每次都扮聽唔到。我覺得廣東話要由細個就開始教啊，依家喺屋企我就同個仔講廣東話，同佢同埋佢阿媽就講普通話，咁樣就皆大歡喜。” [When she was little, I didn’t live with her, so she disliked my spoken Cantonese and always pretended she could not hear me. Cantonese must be cultivated from an early age. I speak Cantonese with my son at home, but I use Mandarin with her and her mother, so everyone feels comfortable.]

These excerpts show that parents both impose restrictions and adjust their own language use in response to children’s reactions. Children’s preferences are explicitly mentioned as influencing interactional choices at home. Taken together, these accounts suggest that parents treat children’s language preferences as interactional constraints that shape management decisions, supporting an understanding of FLP as negotiated rather than unidirectional.

Finally, the findings indicate that the family domain is the key site of intergenerational language transmission regardless of Cantonese, Mandarin, or Portuguese. Survey data reveal that 90.59% of children reported Cantonese as their first language, with 85.88% acquiring it before age two, confirming its role as the primary language of most Macao permanent resident families. English and Mandarin are generally acquired later (between ages 3 and 6), while Portuguese learning is more variable, shaped by family background and individual willingness.

4.4. Generational Differences in Language Proficiency

This section compares intergenerational similarities and differences in language choice and proficiency between parents and children. The quantitative data indicate both continuities and shifts in intergenerational language proficiency. Most parents (91.18%) and children (84.12%) reported Cantonese as their most fluent language. In contrast, proficiency in Mandarin (11.18%) and English (4.71%) was higher among children than among parents. In terms of daily use, Cantonese remains dominant but is 11.76% lower among children, while Mandarin (11.18%) and English (8.24%) show clear increases compared with parents (5.3% and 0.59% respectively). Regarding language competence, both groups reported over 90% competence in Cantonese and Mandarin. However, children’s English proficiency reached 88.24% versus 75.29% among parents, and their Portuguese use (29.41%) far exceeded that of parents (5.29%).

The questionnaire collected respondents’ language background information across three dimensions: the language they spoke the best, the language they spoke the most frequently, and the languages they were able to speak. Results indicate that while Cantonese remains the primary language used in both family and social domains, its dominance has weakened among the younger generation. In contrast, the usage frequency and proficiency of Mandarin, English, and Portuguese have significantly increased among children, reflecting a diversification of language practices across generations among Macao’s permanent resident families.

Following the self-assessment approach advocated by You and Zou (2016), respondents were asked to evaluate their proficiency in Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and Portuguese across listening, speaking, reading, and writing. According to

Table 2. Paired t-Tests of Parents’ and Children’s Comprehensive Language Proficiency in Four Languages (C for children and P for parents).

		M *	SD	t	Sig *
Pair 1	Cantonese-C	4.76	0.54	−1.022	0.308
	Cantonese-P	4.80	0.50
Pair 2	Mandarin-C	4.20	0.71	2.903	0.004 **
	Mandarin-P	4.05	0.68
Pair 3	English-C	3.36	0.83	7.547	0.000 **
	English-P	2.71	1.03
Pair 4	Portuguese-C	1.50	0.75	5.689	0.000 **
	Portuguese-P	1.20	0.58

* Values are presented as mean (M) and standard deviation (SD). ** p < 0.01.

, paired t-Test analyses revealed statistically significant generational differences in Mandarin (p = 0.004 **), English (p = 0.000 **), and Portuguese (p = 0.000 **) proficiency.

The findings show significant intergenerational differences in Mandarin (t = 2.903, p = 0.004 **), English (t = 7.547, p = 0.000 **), and Portuguese (t = 5.689, p = 0.000 **), with children reporting consistently higher self-assessed proficiency than their parents. These results suggest that younger generations’ higher proficiency may be related to expanded access to multilingual education and peer interaction. In contrast, no significant difference was found in Cantonese proficiency (t = −1.022, p = 0.308), and the relatively small standard deviations across both groups indicate stable and high competence in this language.

The mean comparisons further showed that children’s self-assessed proficiency in these three languages was consistently higher than that of their parents, suggesting that increased exposure to multilingual education and peer interaction has enhanced language acquisition among the younger generation. In contrast, no significant difference was observed between generations in Cantonese proficiency.

Further analysis revealed that although the comprehensive Cantonese proficiency scores were similar across generations, the number of children reporting excellent listening and speaking skills in Cantonese was lower than that of their parents. For Mandarin, the younger generation demonstrated markedly higher abilities across all four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Similarly, significant generational gains were observed in English proficiency. In Portuguese, however, both generations reported generally low proficiency across all domains, with no substantial improvement among children.

Some parents and children occasionally engaged in unconscious code-switching during interviews and observations, particularly through lexical insertions. For example, the author found that Child 2 (M) in F1 and his classmates used intra-sentential code-mixing of Chinese and English in the group chat records, such as “叫你Partner出嚟討論吓” [asking your partner to come out and discuss the situation] and “midterm唔合格點算” [What should I do if I fail my mid-term test?]. When the researcher asked why he used this mixed form of written language, he explained that: “平時同學同埋老師……” [using English is simpler.]

“婆婆同我講廣東話嗰陣時，成日都會有啲台山口音喺度嘅。佢都唔知有啲字用廣東話點講，所以成日用台山話嚟講啲字。” [When my grandma spoke Cantonese to me, she usually didn’t know how to speak some words in Cantonese, so she spoke those words in Taishan dialect.]

Moreover, daily online interactions in F6 show frequent lexical-level code-switching across Cantonese, Portuguese, and English, as illustrated in

Table 3. F6 online chatting record with lexical-level code-switching.

Original Messages	English Translation
Mrs. Leong: “今個sábado有咩做呀？ vamos na China 食飯好唔好啊？”	Mrs. Leong: “Are you free this Saturday? Can we go to Zhuhai for a meal together?”
Child 1 (F): “可以啊。星期六中午一齊出珠海食啊，順便去山姆行吓。”	Child 1 (F): “Sure! Let’s go to Zhuhai for lunch on Saturday, and we can stop by Sam’s Club too.”
Mr. Leong: “你今日返唔返casa jantar ?”	Mr. Leong: “Are you going home for dinner tonight?”
Child 1 (F): “我唔翻啦，今日好攰啊！”	Child 1 (F): “No, I’m not. I’m really tired.”

:

Finally, the children in F1, F2, and F6 are found to insert English vocabulary when speaking and writing Cantonese sentences. For example, Child 2 (M) in F1, said:

“平時同學同埋老師都習慣佐咁講嘅，可以講得快少少，同埋我覺得呢啲詞用英文講出嚟就簡單啲” [My classmates and teachers are used to mixing Cantonese with English words daily. It helps us speak faster, and I feel that using English words is simpler.]

In these interactions, words from different languages are inserted into otherwise Cantonese-dominant utterances. Speakers do not explicitly mark these switches as problematic or marked. The recurrent nature of such patterns suggests that lexical-level code-switching operates as a routinized communicative practice within families, supporting interactional fluency and efficiency.

To conclude, the results suggest that intergenerational differences in proficiency are reflected in the adaptive communication needs within Macao’s social context. Children surpass their parents in both multilingual repertoire and proficiency in their dominant language. Generational differences are also evident in patterns of lexical-level code-switching9. In everyday interaction, when speakers encounter lexical gaps in the mainstream language, they insert words from other languages, such as regional dialects, Portuguese, or English, to maintain conversational flow, a practice commonly described as lexical insertion in code-switching research (Muysken, 2000). Parents tend to draw on their heritage language for such lexical insertions, whereas children more frequently turn to English. This pattern suggests that within families of permanent residents in Macao, regardless of how FLP prioritizes different languages, parents’ mother tongue consistently functions as a supplementary linguistic resource. At the same time, for children, this role is often assumed by English. Families of Portuguese ancestry may adopt Portuguese as the dominant home language—a relatively rare situation in contemporary Macao—with English or Chinese serving as supplementary languages. Overall, the dominant family language does not undermine a shared orientation toward multilingualism, and lexical-level code-switching emerges as a natural and accepted communicative strategy in family interaction.

5. Discussion

5.1. Family Orientations and the Hierarchy of Linguistic Values

The findings reveal a clear hierarchy in how parents orient to and evaluate Cantonese, Mandarin, other Chinese dialects, English, and Portuguese. This hierarchy can be interpreted through Bourdieu’s (1991) concept of linguistic capital. Cantonese primarily functions as symbolic capital, reinforcing local belonging and cultural loyalty, while Mandarin and English are treated as forms of exchange capital that provide access to academic qualifications, employment, and social mobility. In particular, parents discursively frame English as a valuable resource by drawing on concerns about schooling and future mobility. These justifications may reflect parents’ own pragmatic orientation; they also echo institutional schooling requirements and dominant labor-market discourses in Macao. In contrast, Portuguese is used only in certain families (the Macanese families), highlighting Macao’s unique sociolinguistic environment, despite its official status, its function in real-life language use and family language contexts is quite limited. Parents in this study tended to marginalize or abandon dialects because of barriers to integration and academic success (De Houwer, 2007; Agirdag, 2014), framing this as a pragmatic and voluntary choice rather than expressing guilt or emotional conflict (Curdt-Christiansen & Lanza, 2018).

Such a hierarchical evaluation of languages, in which specific languages are strategically prioritized over others, resonates with Sevinç (2022) and F. Tang and Calafato (2022), who argue that monolingual mindsets, pressure to integrate into mainstream society, intergenerational negotiation demands, and efforts to reduce uncertainty may lead families to reduce or discontinue heritage language transmission. In this sense, promoting a dominant language with higher economic and social value can function as an adaptive response to structural constraints. As Tannenbaum (2012) suggests, framing the dominant language as necessary and beneficial allows parents to rationalize structural pressure and reduce psychological strain.

Parental language ideologies should therefore be understood as situated evaluations shaped by schooling norms and social expectations (De Houwer, 1999). Within this evaluative process, negative affect may emerge when parents perceive a mismatch between their language management efforts and their children’s actual language use or proficiency. In contrast, positive affect tends to accompany perceived success in language maintenance (Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023). However, drawing on interviews and observations with permanent resident families in Macao, this study finds that parents’ language management orientations are generally stable over time. Although emotional reactions may appear in specific interactions, parents’ expectations regarding language learning are primarily grounded in structural realities and policy environments. From this perspective, FLP in Macao’s families reflects pragmatic calculation and structural adaptation rather than fluctuating emotional states.

The study further shows how parents negotiate within this multilingual environment. For example, one Macanese family transferred their child from a Portuguese-medium school to a Cantonese-medium school before the handover, anticipating future integration needs. Similarly, Mrs. Yip in F2 suggested building a strong Cantonese foundation in primary school before transitioning to English-medium education in secondary school. Such sequencing strategies reflect efforts to balance identity preservation with mobility preparation (Yu, 2025). However, as F. Tang and Calafato (2022) note, parental management strategies can influence but do not determine children’s language outcomes.

Overall, Cantonese is closely tied to identity, while English and Mandarin are associated with mobility and access to valued forms of linguistic capital. Dialects and Portuguese occupy more marginal positions in most households. This hierarchy reflects not only family-level priorities but also adaptation to institutional schooling structures, labor-market expectations, and broader sociopolitical transformations. Compared with other postcolonial contexts such as Singapore and Hong Kong, where English dominates the hierarchy (Choi & Moody, 2024), Macao families maintain a stronger attachment to Cantonese as a marker of cultural continuity, while Portuguese remains limited in everyday family practice despite its official status. These findings underscore Macao’s distinctive multilingual configuration, in which FLP emerges as a structurally embedded negotiation between identity preservation and socioeconomic advancement.

5.2. Variations in Parental Language Expectations Across Social Backgrounds

The findings indicate that parents’ expectations for their children’s language abilities vary across different family backgrounds. Specifically, the findings suggested that parents with lower levels of education tended to place a greater emphasis on Cantonese as a practical medium of daily life and one closely tied to cultural identity. Moreover, the longer parents have lived in Macao, the more they tend to value Cantonese and English. By contrast, highly educated parents emphasized proficiency and application of English and Mandarin more strongly, aligning with Bose et al. (2023)’s findings that present global and national languages as pathways to academic and professional success. Differences in educational background also shaped the extent to which parents actively sought additional linguistic resources for their children. Consistent with Li et al. (2022), parents with lower educational attainment were less likely to invest in supplementary language learning opportunities. However, such differences should not be interpreted merely as individual preference. Instead, they may reflect unequal access to educational capital and differential positioning within broader socioeconomic structures. As previous research on FLP suggests (Sevinç, 2022), parental language management is often constrained by structural conditions that shape perceptions of feasibility, opportunity, and risk. Parents with limited educational resources may prioritize Cantonese not solely out of attachment, but also in response to perceived structural limitations.

Occupational background further illuminates these dynamics. Parents frequently grounded their emphasis on English and Mandarin in their own professional and academic experiences. Such experiential judgments resonate with Bourdieu’s (1991) notion of the linguistic marketplace, in which languages acquire differential exchange value within specific institutional and occupational fields. Families invest in languages that promise greater returns within the sectors they themselves have encountered. At the same time, these investments can be understood as adaptive strategies within competitive educational and labor-market environments. The prioritization of high-value languages reflects not only aspiration but also an awareness of unequal opportunity structures and the necessity of securing future socioeconomic positioning.

Meanwhile, interview data also revealed that some parents discussed Macao’s long-term development, with particular reference to the deepening socio-economic integration between Macao and mainland China. Such forward-looking orientations align with the growing perceived importance of Mandarin in local education and employment. The gradual elevation of Mandarin’s practical and exchange value is shaped not only by current institutional arrangements but also by anticipated structural shifts. In this context, parents’ future-oriented language policy serves to manage uncertainty, combining pragmatic calculation with affective responses to social transformation. In their affective responses, the identification and trust in the mother tongue applicable to a broader region are prerequisites for action.

All in all, parental language expectations in Macao emerge as experience-informed and future-oriented evaluations embedded within specific structural conditions. While emotional reactions may surface in interactions, the overall pattern suggests relatively stable orientations shaped by educational background, occupational positioning, and perceptions of broader socioeconomic. Rather than fluctuating affect, it is the interplay between lived experience and structural anticipation that most consistently informs parental expectations in this context.

5.3. Negotiated Language Management in Macao Families

The language management strategies reported by Macao parents highlight that family policies are often flexible and context-specific, rather than strictly enforced. Most families rely on daily communication to transmit Cantonese, and direct intervention may happen when they perceive a significant risk (e.g., shifts in social policy or concerns about dialect interference). As seen in the F5 family case, the mother’s management strategy of preventing the grandmother from speaking the dialect directly shifted the family’s language environment from hometown-centered to dominant language preferred choice. The results suggested that, in Spolsky’s (2004) model, management strategies do not maintain the same intensity over time but are described by parents as being adjusted in response to situational needs. Such intervention is not merely a strategic adjustment but also an emotionally charged decision (Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023). Similar patterns have been observed in other multilingual contexts, where parents respond to a perceived imbalance in their children’s linguistic repertoire by concentrating on what they consider the weaker language, sometimes reducing the use of other languages in the home (F. Tang & Calafato, 2024). Moreover, parents’ concerns about dialect interference or language shift often reflect more profound anxieties and frustrations about children’s academic opportunities, identity alignment, social integration, and future mobility. Therefore, avoiding using language that may cause anxiety is shaped not only by ideological orientations but also by affective experiences embedded in broader structural pressures (Sevinç & Backus, 2019; Sevinç, 2022). Based on an optimistic sense of identification and trust in the dominant language, parents have higher expectations for their children’s proficiency in it. When reality falls short of these expectations, they present this kind of anxiety.

Furthermore, when parents lack English or Portuguese proficiency, they seek compensation through internal resources (older siblings) or external resources (after-school lessons or foreign domestic workers), suggesting that parental strategies are driven not only by language ideologies but also by the constraints of capabilities and resources. This compensatory behavior may also be understood as a response to parental language anxiety (Machan, 2009), particularly when there is a perceived gap between aspirations for upward mobility and their own linguistic capital (F. Tang & Calafato, 2022; Hollebeke et al., 2023). The study also found that FLP is not a one-way discipline by parents but rather an ongoing negotiation process. Children demonstrate agency through conscious responsiveness to their language habits, effectively participating in and influencing FLP, consistent with the perspectives of King and Fogle (2013) and Lanza and Gomes (2020). Parents’ autonomy in managing their children’s language habits is limited by the availability of social networks and other forms of social resources (Hatoss, 2025).

In Macao’s postcolonial and multilingual context, parents often prioritize consolidating Cantonese in their children’s early years through family and community interactions. Once children enter formal school or face academic pressure, they gradually increase their investment in English. This sequence of “identity first, mobility later” not only echoes Fishman’s (1991) emphasis on the family domain as the foundation of language intergenerational transmission, but also extends his framework, demonstrating how families in multilingual context strategically link languages with different future spheres for local belonging, national mobility and international opportunities, depending on their children’s age and educational level. This phased language acquisition strategy is particularly evident in Macao’s multilingual context. Meanwhile, this phased strategy is found to be emotionally structured. In early childhood, maintaining Cantonese is often associated with intimacy, familial bonding, and continuity of identity. As schooling progresses and age increases, however, English becomes associated with aspiration, competitiveness, and future security. The gradual shift in investment, therefore, reflects not only pragmatic planning but also a practical reorientation, from preserving identity to managing mobility anxiety within a competitive linguistic market.

5.4. Intergenerational Differences in Language Proficiency and Practice

This study investigates both intergenerational similarities and differences in language proficiency: the younger generation exhibits significantly higher competence in Mandarin and English, as well as modest gains in Portuguese. In contrast, Cantonese has not experienced a significant intergenerational difference, highlighting its resilience as a shared medium of identity and communication. These findings suggest that Cantonese ensures symbolic continuity, while the growth of Mandarin and English indicates shifts driven by education and social mobility. However, intergenerational differences in language proficiency are not simply evaluations of skill level but reflect broader sociolinguistic practices. The younger generation’s improved Mandarin and English proficiency align with multilingual education policies and expanding peer networks (Sevinç, 2022).

Additionally, this study showed that language use in Macao families is uneven across different interactional frames, but this pattern differs by language (Mirvahedi, 2024). Cantonese is used relatively evenly across many family interactions, while Mandarin and English show apparent differences between home and non-home settings. These two languages are used more often in peer interactions and school-related activities, but less frequently in everyday family communication. Different interactional frames shape language use in different ways: some family frames support language maintenance, while school- and peer-related frames are more likely to increase the use of Mandarin and English. When children start or lead specific interactions, they tend to use Mandarin and English as practical languages. This tendency may signal children’s increasing orientation toward future-oriented identities and mobility aspirations, which are often emotionally charged with ambition and performance pressure within a highly commodified linguistic market (F. Tang & Calafato, 2022).

More importantly, these advances transform their communication styles. Generational differences are also reflected in practices of code-switching and integration. The older and parental generations often insert elements of their native language, such as the Taishan dialect or Portuguese, frequently based on lexical gaps or habitual usage. To a certain extent, this may reflect habitual attachment and identity continuity, rooted in emotional memory and community belonging. However, younger generations in Macao have increasingly lexicalized Cantonese with English elements, a practice shaped by school culture, peer interaction, and Hong Kong media influence (Chan, 2022; Chan & Chou, 2022). This lexical insertion is a communication shortcut and a stylized linguistic resource, reinforcing a sense of local belonging. To be specific, their multilingual abilities altered their language behavior in society, shifting from compliance to the conscious use of specific language combinations as markers of their multilingual identity (F. Tang & Calafato, 2022).

Overall, the findings show that intergenerational differences in Macao reflect not only changes in language proficiency but also shifts in language practices and identities. While Cantonese remains a stable marker of shared identity, the growing prominence of Mandarin and English signals education-driven mobility and future-oriented aspirations. In response to RQ4, these findings show both continuity in Cantonese use and change in proficiency, code-switching, and language choice across generations.

6. Conclusions

This study has examined FLP in Macao SAR as a postcolonial and multilingual setting, demonstrating how family ideology, management strategies, and practices interact under shifting sociolinguistic conditions. Parental beliefs are not treated as isolated personal preferences but as situated interpretations shaped by schooling demands, labor-market expectations, policy discourses, and shifting regional dynamics. Within this context, families navigate a structured hierarchy of linguistic values while attempting to secure both identity continuity and future mobility for their children. In the dynamic balance of social change and multilingualism, they demonstrate a consciously proactive linguistic stance, strategy, and action.

The findings reveal a layered value system in which Cantonese Chinese is a symbolic marker of local identity. Mandarin Chinese and English are assigned exchange value for academic and occupational advancement. Mandarin is considered a dominant language closely related to the region’s future development, and Portuguese retains limited yet identity-linked relevance in Macanese households. These value orientations are not purely instrumental; they are embedded in parents’ affective experiences, including concerns about children’s academic competitiveness, social integration, and future security. Parents’ management strategies emerge as a blend of implicit environmental shaping and explicit intervention, structured around securing identity first and mobility thereafter. As children’s autonomy develops, FLP becomes an ongoing process of negotiation and collaboration.

At the same time, several limitations of this research must be acknowledged. The absence of detailed socioeconomic indicators restricts the analysis of how economic factors shape language choices10. Including a Macanese family whose children did not meet the sampling criteria for secondary school age introduces potential bias in representativeness. Moreover, the relatively small sample size constrains the statistical generalizability of the quantitative findings, even as qualitative insights enrich theoretical interpretation.

Despite these limitations, the study makes four meaningful contributions to Spolsky’s FLP framework beyond its contextual application. First, it empirically supports the view of FLP as a dynamic, negotiated system, illustrating that parents do not simply impose language ideology, practice, and management unidirectionally but continuously adjust in response to children’s growing agency. Second, the findings extend Spolsky’s model by demonstrating how children’s insistence on language preferences may prompt parents to compromise and actively adjust their management strategies. This process underscores the significance of bottom-up influences in FLP. Third, by foregrounding the tension between identity preservation and future mobility in a postcolonial context, the research suggests that contemporary structural language hierarchies help mediate the interplay among Spolsky’s three components. Fourth, this study highlights the affective dimension of FLP, showing that emotions shaped by structural pressures mediate the interaction among ideology, practice, and management.

Future research could incorporate socioeconomic variables by adding larger-scale anonymous household income information, broaden the range of family backgrounds, and adopt comparative designs across multilingual postcolonial places to clarify how identity construction and future mobility are continually balanced in children’s language development. Such approaches would further clarify how emotional investment, structural pressure, and linguistic capital interact in shaping sustainable FLP across generations.