Investing for what? A Bourdieusian class perspective on well-educated Chinese immigrants faced with linguistic and cultural barriers in Canada

Abstract There are many skilled immigrants from mainland China in Canada. Despite being well-educated professionals, they often do not speak fluent English. To understand this sociolinguistic phenomenon, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 informants. The results indicate that faced with linguistic and cultural barriers in multicultural Canada, the informants are disadvantaged in the job market and experience social distance from their white local counterparts. They believe that overcoming these barriers requires a substantial investment in English, with no guaranteed return. Therefore, they prefer to invest in areas that provide job security, such as developing their professional skills. These findings are then analysed through Bourdieu’s class perspective: the informants’ positions within the social space of Canadian society and their social trajectory suggest that investing in symbolic capital in the form of the dominant linguistic and cultural competencies is not the most effective path to upward mobility. Instead, they find it more prudent to focus on enhancing their professional skills to strengthen their current positions.