Notwithstanding the rise of Chinese as a global language in recent years, there has been little attention given to research on Chinese as an additional language (CAL). Additionally, as the authors aptly point out, the bulk of extant CAL literature is based on a cognitive or psycholinguistic paradigm, and few studies examine the teaching and learning of CAL from alternative perspectives. A longitudinal auto-ethnographic study of five cases is reported in this book, derived from the CAL learning experiences of five of the authors (the sixth author being a Chinese applied linguist). Three methodological and theoretical perspectives guided the study: a linguistic perspective, a poststructural sociocultural perspective, and a narrative perspective.

From a linguistic perspective, the five learners’ developmental trajectories of oral Chinese competences and everyday Chinese literacies (e.g., text messages, visual puns combining images and character, and other kinds of literacy play) are examined. It is noteworthy that when assessing learners’ Chinese literacies, rather than measuring their ability to produce and comprehend Chinese written messages, the authors focus on how and why learners engage with different Chinese literacies (e.g., the character-based system and the Romanized ones) as well as the potential influence of leaners’ linguistic profiles (e.g., heritage vs. nonheritage learners) in the process. From a poststructural sociocultural perspective, thematic analysis illustrates the five learners’ shifting identities in the target-language communities and how agency, positioning, and gender affected their identity construction. Finally, from a narrative perspective, the authors discuss the narrative inquiry process and how participants’ engagement changed their identities and communities in relation to CAL learning. As highlighted in this book, the narrative analysis is beneficial for engaging research participants on a number of levels (cognitive, social, linguistic, and professional) but also limited in that the authors could not fully express their thoughts about sensitive issues such as those related to gender and race.

Through collaborative and participatory investigation, Duff and her colleagues’ work is of great value to those interested in CAL research as it presents integral (i.e., linguistics, sociocultural, and narrative) perspectives that differ from current predominant cognitive or psycholinguistic approaches in this area. In addition to insights drawn from empirical data, it also provides an overview and evaluation of the current state of CAL research and reflects upon future research directions; thus it could be a very useful guidebook for researchers and graduate students specialized in this area or applied linguistics in general.