Individual Language Policy

Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen

Description

Uses the unique theoretical lens of individual language policy

This book explores individual language policy among bilingual youth who belong to different ethnic minority groups in Vietnam, through vivid stories detailing their life with multiple languages. It examines the youth’s daily language behaviours through the unique theoretical lens of individual language policy, and the ways in which this policy interacts with and is influenced by language policies at macro, meso and micro level. It contributes to research on language and identity, and language policy in non-Anglophone societies and will appeal to a broad international readership, including researchers in sociolinguistics, teachers working with ethnic minority students and policymakers concerned with minority language maintenance around the world.

Foreword. Bernard Spolsky

Chapter 1. Individual Language Policy: An Introduction

Chapter 2. Conceptualisation of Individual Language Policy          

Chapter 3. External Forces on Bilingual Youth      

Chapter 4. Practised Language Policy      

Chapter 5. Perceived Language Policy     

Chapter 6. Negotiated Language Policy  

Chapter 7. Individual Language Policy: Identification, Contextualisation and Interaction Perspectives

Transcription Convention            

References         

Index

Sujets

• Minority Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Linguistics
• Professional
• Vietnam
• Personality
• Postgraduate education
• General officer
• Sociolinguistics
• Viêt Nam
• General
• Research
• Postgraduate

Informations

• Publié par: Channel View Publications
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800411159
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Individual Language Policy
BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM
Series Editors : Nancy H. Hornberger (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Wayne E. Wright (Purdue University, USA)
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is an international, multidisciplinary series publishing research on the philosophy, politics, policy, provision and practice of language planning, Indigenous and minority language education, multilingualism, multiculturalism, biliteracy, bilingualism and bilingual education. The series aims to mirror current debates and discussions. New proposals for single-authored, multiple-authored, or edited books in the series are warmly welcomed, in any of the following categories or others authors may propose: overview or introductory texts; course readers or general reference texts; focus books on particular multilingual education program types; school-based case studies; national case studies; collected cases with a clear programmatic or conceptual theme; and professional education manuals.
All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed.
Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com , or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.
BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM: 135
Individual Language Policy
Bilingual Youth in Vietnam
Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS
Bristol • Jackson
DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/NGUYEN1135
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Names: Nguyen, Trang Thi Thuy, author.
Title: Individual Language Policy: Bilingual Youth in Vietnam/Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen.
Description: Jackson [Tennessee]; Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2022. | Series: Bilingual Education & Bilingualism: 135 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book explores individual language policy among bilingual youth who belong to different ethnic minority groups in Vietnam, as reflected in their daily language behaviours. Contributing to research on language and identity, and language policy in non-Anglophone contexts, it will appeal to those working in sociolinguistics and related areas”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021059174 (print) | LCCN 2021059175 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800411135 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800411159 (epub) | ISBN 9781800411142 (adobe pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Language policy—Vietnam. | Multilingualism—Vietnam. | Linguistic minorities—Vietnam. | Minority youth—Vietnam—Language.
Classification: LCC P119.3 .N45 2022 (print) | LCC P119.3 (ebook) | DDC 306.44/9597—dc23/eng/20220208 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059174
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059175
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-113-5 (hbk)
Multilingual Matters
UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.
USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA.
Website: www.multilingual-matters.com
Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters
Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2022 Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned.
Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India.
Contents
Foreword
Bernard Spolsky
1 Individual Language Policy: An Introduction
Background, Terminology and Overview
Outline of the Book
2 Conceptualisation of Individual Language Policy
Proposing Individual Language Policy
Level: Macro, Meso, Micro and Individual Forces on Individual Language Policy
Agent: Individual Language Policy Constructor and Agency
Level: The Influentiality of Individual Language Policy
Process: Components of Individual Language Policy
3 External Forces on Bilingual Youth
Geographical, Historical and Social Forces
Political Forces
Under the Forces: Bilingual Youth in the Terrain
4 Practised Language Policy
The Youth’s Stories: Policy in Practices
Construction of Practised Language Policy: Maintenance and Transformation in Implementational Spaces
5 Perceived Language Policy
The Youth’s Stories: Policy in Beliefs
Construction of Perceived Language Policy: Maintenance and Transformation in Ideological Spaces
6 Negotiated Language Policy
The Youth’s Stories: Policy in Management
Construction of Negotiated Language Policy: Maintenance and Transformation in Managerial Spaces
7 Individual Language Policy: Identification, Contextualisation and Interaction Perspectives
Identification: Individual Language Policy as a Means for Maintenance and Transformation of Identity
Contextualisation: Individual Language Policy in a Subtractive Language Environment
Interaction: Individual Language Policy and Higher-Level Language Policies
Transcription Convention
Acknowledgements
References
Index
This book is dedicated to my family and to those who provided early support for my research journey. My heartfelt thanks go to Dr Obaid Hamid and late Professor Richard (Dick) Baldauf for their great mentorship. I am thankful to the editors of the Bilingual Education and Bilingualism book series for their useful suggestions on the proposal of the book.
(Brisbane, November 2021).
Foreword
When I started to study language policy, the field was still largely under the influence of what Jernudd and Nekvapil (2012) called the classic period, the 1960s, when several linguists tried to help new independent nations to develop a language policy that would suit a postcolonial situation. Language policy then meant national language planning, what some classify as a top-down process. In our own first efforts in the field (Spolsky & Shohamy, 1999), we too tried to prescribe Israel national policy, but given the source of the funding of our research, we aimed to propose a workable language education policy, seeing the school as a significant domain. In continuing studies, I later acknowledged the relevance of different levels and domains, so that in Spolsky (2009) I suggested that the common failures of State language management was ignoring the policies at other levels, ranging from the family through education and religion and work to government.
Two developments took me further. I learned about the concept of self-management of the Prague linguists who drew attention to how individual workers in German-owned industry in Czechoslovakia tried to gain competence in the language of their employers (Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003). And my middle grandson, at the age of five or six, refused to shift from the English of his parents to the Hebrew that his older siblings had already acquired at school. Therefore, in my latest book (Spolsky, 2021), I start not with the nation but with the individual speaker, working through all the levels up to the nation.
This explains why I am so happy to be invited to write a foreword for this book by Trang Nguyen, Individual Language Policy , a pioneering study focusing on the language practices, beliefs and management of bilingual minority Vietnamese youth. Drawing on a wide and thorough grasp of research in language policy, she sets out to describe the way that, despite external pressure, these young people maintain their loyalty to and use of their indigenous non-standard home languages, drawing on their developing language repertoires to fit into their changing domains and environments.
From informal interviews with several youths and supplementary talks with some of their parents, she derives a picture of the way their competence in the second language, Vietnamese, grows, and the varied situations in which they use it and their home languages. To this, she adds evidence of their learning and use of global English. The resulting description provides a vivid picture of the pressures that young speakers of indigenous minority varieties encounter in the wider modern world.
Apart from its interest in showing the current state of minority varieties in Vietnam, this book will hopefully encourage more studies which focus on the language policy of individuals, for it is at the individual level that the success or failure of a language policy is finally revealed. We need more studies like this, studies that show language practice, beliefs and management and the individuals concerned. Thus, we will learn about the early and late adopters (Cooper, 1989) who show the forces behind language maintenance and shift, and be able to go beyond analysis and criticism to proposing language management that can contribute to healthy multilingualism and maintenance of heritage language varieties.
Bernard Spolsky
References
Cooper, R.L. (1989) Language Planning and Social Change . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jernudd, B.H. and Nekvapil, J. (2012) History of the field: A sketch. In B. Spolsky (ed.) Handbook of Language Policy (pp. 16–36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Neustupný, J.V. and Nekvapil, J. (2003) Language management in the Czech republic. Current Issues in Language Planning 4 (3&4), 181–366.
Spolsky, B. (2009) Language Management . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spolsky, B. (2021) Rethinking Language Policy . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Spolsky, B. and Shohamy, E. (1999) The Languages of Israel: