Cultural Fusion, Conflict, and Preservation: Expressive Styles Among Chinese Canadians

In this study, multicultural literature served as a site for Chinese Canadians to explore the interplay between their dual cultural backgrounds. After reading a story written by a Chinese Canadian author, participants were invited to imagine a dialogue between two characters with whom they identified, allowing the exploration of different aspects of their bicultural selves. Systematic examination of their dialogues, using cluster analysis of recurrently expressed dialogical themes, revealed four distinct expressive styles (Rhetorical Conflict, Imperative Conflict, Active Narration, and Embodied Reconciliation), each revealing a different bicultural stance. Both the rhetorically probing and explicitly imperative styles of expression reflected a fusion of Chinese and Canadian expectations regarding confrontation, although in different ways each also facilitated the maintenance of a conflictual cultural hierarchy. Active, but distanced, narrative description reflected the preservation of a collective sense o...