Article in:
Language Problems and Language Planning: Online-First Articles

Language choice in peer interactions and the role of peers in minority language maintenance

A case study from Vietnam

| University of Queensland image/svg+xml
| University of Queensland image/svg+xml
Drawing on the positioning theory and the conditions for language use, this article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in interactions with their same-ethnicity and majority peers, focusing particularly on their communication motives underlying this choice. Findings suggest that in regulating their language alternation practices across peer groups in different contexts, the students shifted their participation status – from aligning (being alike) to disaligning (being distinct) – to (re)position themselves in relation to their peers. As their desires for alignment or disalignment were either supported or disrupted by their peers, peer attitudes played a critical role in providing opportunities and encouraging minority students’ willingness to use their L1 in school and ethnic community spaces. Implications are suggested for engaging peer support as a resource for maintaining or widening L1 use among young minority people in both of the domains.
Keywords: language choice, language use, language maintenance, positioning, peer interactions, minority students
Published online: 24 September 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.19003.ngu
References

References

Aarsæther, F.
(2003) Codeswitching as a resource in interaction. How Pakistani-Norwegian children use multiple languages to organize interaction. In J. Cromdal & A. -C. Evaldsson (Eds.), Et vardagsliv med flera språk [An everyday life with multiple languages] (pp. 105–128). Stockholm: Liber AB.Google Scholar
Aikman, S., & Pridmore, P.
(2001) Multigrade schooling in ‘remote’ areas of Vietnam. International Journal of Educational Development, 21(6), 521–536. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, T.
(2016) Language policy in Japanese ethnic churches in Canada and the legitimization of church member identities. Language Policy, 1–28. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bui, T. T. N.
(2013) “Can a basket hide an elephant?” – Engaged language policy and practices toward educational, linguistic, and socioeconomic equity in Vietnam. (Unpublished PhD Thesis), University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai’i.Google Scholar
Caldas, S. J.
(2008) Changing bilingual self-perceptions from early adolescence to early adulthood: Empirical evidence from a mixed-methods case study. Applied Linguistics, 29(2), 290–311. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Carbaugh, D.
(1999) Positioning as display of cultural identity. In R. Harré & L. V. Lagenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 160–177). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Carrasquillo, A., & Rodríguez, V.
(2002) Language minority students in the mainstream classroom. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L.
(2009) Invisible and visible language planning: Ideological factors in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec. Language Policy, 8(4), 351–375. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Davies, B., & Harré, R.
(1990) Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1999) Positioning and personhood. In R. Harré & L. V. Lagenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 32–52). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dołowy-Rybińska, N.
(2016) Language attitudes and community engagement: Diwan–The Breton immersion high school through the eyes of its pupils. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 15(5), 280–292. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ellwood, C.
(2008) Questions of classroom identity: What can be learned from codeswitching in classroom peer group talk? The Modern Language Journal, 92(4), 538–557. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Giacchino-Baker, R.
(2007) Educating ethnic minorities in Vietnam: Policies and perspectives. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 43(4), 168–173. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, M. H., & Kyratzis, A.
(2012) Peer language socialization. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs & B. B. Schieffelin (Eds.), The handbook of language socialization (pp. 365–390). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Grin, F.
(2003) Language policy evaluation and the European Charter for regional or minority languages. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gu, M., & Patkin, J.
(2013) Heritage and identity: Ethnic minority students from South Asia in Hong Kong. Linguistics and Education, 24(2), 131–141. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Harré, R., & Lagenhove, L. V.
(1999) Reflexive positioning: Autobiography. In R. Harré & L. V. Lagenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 60–73). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hornberger, N. H.
(1991) Extending enrichment bilingual education: Revisiting typologies and redirecting policy. In O. Garcfa (Ed.), Bilingual education. Focuschrift in honour of Joshua Fishman on the occasion of his 65th birthday (pp. 215–234). Philadelpia: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Jacobs, J. E.
(2016) Language ideologies and identity construction among dual language youth. (Unpublish PhD Thesis), Havard University, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Lewis, A., & Lindsay, G.
(2000) Researching children’s perspectives. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Luo, S. -H., & Wiseman, R. L.
(2000) Ethnic language maintenance among Chinese immigrant children in the United States. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24(3), 307–324. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McCollum, P.
(1999) Learning to value English: Cultural capital in a two-way bilingual program. Bilingual Research Journal 23(2/3), 113–134. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McElwee, P.
(2008) “Blood relatives” or uneasy neighbors? Kinh migrant and ethnic minority interactions in the Trường Sơn mountains. Journal of Vietnamese Studies, 3(3), 81–116. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McVee, M. B.
(2011) Positioning theory and sociocultural perspectives: Affordances for educational researchers. In M. B. McVee, C. H. Brock & J. A. Glazier (Eds.), Sociocultural positioning in literacy: Exploring culture, discourse, narrative, and power in diverse educational contexts (pp. 1–22). New York: Hampton Press.Google Scholar
Meek, B. A.
(2007) Respecting the language of elders: Ideological shift and linguistic discontinuity in a Northern Athapascan community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 17(1), 23–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Merriam, S. B.
(1998) Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Miller, J.
(2000) Language use, identity, and social interaction: Migrant students in Australia. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 33(1), 69–100. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mills, J.
(2006) Talking about silence: Gender and the construction of multilingual identities. International Journal of Bilingualism, 10(1), 1–16. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, T. T. T.
(2018) Bilingual identity of ethnic minority students: insights from Vietnam. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1–16. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2019a) Translanguaging as trans-identity: The case of ethnic minority students in Vietnam. Lingua, 222, 39–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2019b) Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language practices under the influence of external interventions: A management perspective. Language in Society, 1–23. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, T. T. T., & Hamid, M. O.
(2016) Language attitudes, identity and L1 maintenance: A qualitative study of Vietnamese ethnic minority students. System, 61, 87–97. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2017) Subtractive schooling and identity: A case study of ethnic minority students in Vietnam. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(3), 142–156. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2018) Bilingualism as a resource: Language attitudes of Vietnamese ethnic minority students. Current Issues in Language Planning, 19(4), 343–362. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2019) Language choice, identity and social distance: Ethnic minority students in Vietnam. Applied Linguistics Review, 10(2), 137–162. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
O’Rourke, B.
(2011) Galician and Irish in the European context: Attitudes towards weak and strong minority languages. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oriyama, K.
(2010) Heritage language maintenance and Japanese identity formation: What role can schooling and ethnic community contact play? Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), 76–111.Google Scholar
Park, Y. J.
(2011) Presentation of social identity and language use among bilingual Korean English speakers. (Unpublished PhD Thesis), University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A., & Blackledge, A.
(2004) Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pillai, S., Soh, W. -Y., & Kajita, A. S.
(2014) Family language policy and heritage language maintenance of Malacca Portuguese Creole. Language and Communication, 37, 75–85. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, A., & Mandelbaum, J.
(2005) Conversation analytic approaches to the relevance and uses of relationship categories in interaction. In K. L. Fitch & R. F. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction (pp. 149–171). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rambo, T. A.
(2003) Vietnam. In C. Mackerras (Ed.), Ethnicity in Asia (pp. 108–135). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Revis, M.
(2016) A Bourdieusian perspective on child agency in family language policy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1–15. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C.
(1983) The negotiation of identities in conversation: A theory of markedness and code choice. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 44, 115. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J.
(1998) Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Tran, B. C.
(2014) An exploratory study of attitudes toward bilingual education in Gia Lai province of Vietnam. (Unpublished PhD Thesis), University of Canterbury, Christchurch.Google Scholar
Truong, C.
(2011) “They think we don’t value schooling”: Paradoxes of education in the multi-ethnic Central Highlands of Vietnam. In J. London (Ed.) Education in Vietnam (pp. 171–211). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Unamuno, V.
(2008) Multilingual switch in peer classroom interaction. Linguistics and Education, 19(1), 1–19. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vasavakul, T.
(2003) Language policy and ethnic relations in Vietnam. In M. E. Brown & S. Ganguly (Eds.), Fighting words: Language policy and ethnic relations in Asia (pp. 211–238). Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Willoughby, L.
(2009) Language choice in multilingual peer groups: Insights from an Australian high school. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 30(5), 421–435. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yoon, B.
(2012) Junsuk and Junhyuck: Adolescent immigrants’ educational journey to success and identity negotiation. American Educational Research Journal, 49(5), 971–1002. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zhao, S., & Baldauf, R. B.
(2012) Individual agency in language planning: Chinese script reform as a case study. Language Problems and Language Planning, 36(1), 1–24. CrossrefGoogle Scholar