Language accommodation in same- and cross-ethnic interactions: A case study of Vietnamese ethnic minority students

In Vietnam, ethnic minority people traditionally speak their ethnic languages inside their communities and use Vietnamese to communicate with others in the wider society. Over the course of the twentieth century,... [ view full abstract ]

In Vietnam, ethnic minority people traditionally speak their ethnic languages inside their communities and use Vietnamese to communicate with others in the wider society. Over the course of the twentieth century, Vietnamese—the language of Kinh (Viet) majority people—became the official and national language of the country. Minority languages are not generally considered important or valuable as compared with Vietnamese. In this presentation, I talk about a group of Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice and language accommodation strategies in same- and cross-ethnic interactions (i.e. interactions with their parents at home and interactions with their majority peers at school), that reflect their identity and the social distance between them and their interlocutors. The concepts of “convergence” and “divergence” underpinning the Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles & Coupland, 1991) are used as the theoretical lens of this discussion. Multiple semi-structure interviews with eight college-age students are the main source of data. Findings suggest that the students converged to the mainstream language and moved closer to the majority peers by applying more Vietnamese in school. They also brought Vietnamese to home to create temporary divergence and introduce a new in-group distance between them and their parents. This reflects the subtractive influences of the more powerful language on the minority ones and the social distance between minority groups and the Kinh majority group in Vietnamese society. The students’ language convergence is also a manifestation of their ethnic group’s language shift. Policy implications for preserving minority languages and reducing social distance between different ethnolinguistic groups in Vietnam are hence suggested.

References:

Giles, H., & Coupland, N. (1991). Language: Contexts and consequences. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.