ABSTRACT

This article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ experiences of language choice in communication with people of different ages and in different relations to them in their family and ethnolinguistic community. Concepts of power, solidarity and marked and unmarked choices are adapted to examine the students’ strategies of language choice. Interviews with a group of students are used as the main data source. Findings suggest that the mainstream language was set up as the generational solidarity code among young members while the L1 was considered the power code associated with older members of the family and community. These emerging patterns of language choice may result in disruption of everyday in-group language practices among different generations and perpetuate language shift. It is suggested that explicit L1-promotion policies in the community and minority language support in public domains may encourage young people to engage in language management efforts and empower minority languages in the polity.

摘要

本文考察了越南少数民族学生在与不同年龄的人以及与他们的家庭和民族语言社区的不同关系中的语言选择经验。权力、团结以及标记和非标记选择的概念适用于检查学生的语言选择策略。对一组学生的访谈被用作主要数据来源。研究结果表明，主流语言被设置为年轻成员之间的代际团结代码，而 L1 被认为是与家庭和社区中年长成员相关的权力代码。这些新兴的语言选择模式可能会破坏不同世代之间日常的群体内语言实践，并使语言转换永久化。