Representing language, culture and citizenship to minoritised ethnic groups: the teaching of Mandarin Chinese to Mongolian learners as a second language in China since 1912

My PhD study investigates the under-researched history of teaching Mandarin Chinese as a second language to Mongolian learners within China since 1912, and its implications for the present day. This research makes a novel contribution to understanding how a national language and national identities are promulgated to a minoritised ethnic group over time. Mandarin teaching to Mongolian learners is revealed as a site where different representations of the Chinese nation contest and negotiate with one another, shaped by the power relations between Mongolian and Han. I employ critical discourse analysis to examine a wide range of Mandarin Chinese language textbooks for Mongolian learners issued by the Republican (1912-1949) and People’s Republic of China’s governments (1949-present) to explore the changes in expectations of Chinese cultural knowledge and values to be taught, in particular in terms of Chinese history and citizenship. The findings show that the Chinese cultural knowledge and values conveyed through the textbooks is given different emphases at different times, but it frequently serves as a tool serving the interests of the governments to reproduce official understandings of Chinese national identities, with Mongolian cultural features being often neutralised and/or made subservient to Han-dominant Chinese national values. In addition, to explore how the dominance of Han culture and values in the textbooks has been embraced and/or challenged by Mongolian elites in the early twentieth century and Mongolian teachers of Mandarin Chinese in the present, two approaches are adopted. First, a historical linguistic analysis of how Mandarin Chinese pronunciation is presented to Mongolians in a dictionary compiled by a Mongolian official named Khaisan in 1917 is conducted, when the basis for a standard Chinese was still being debated. This part of the study reveals that the diverse linguistic sources that Khaisan drew on challenge the monolingual Han native speakership ideology. Second, the historical textual analysis is augmented by data from two months’ field work in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia in 2018. There, I conducted semi-structured interviews, surveys and classroom observations of the Mongolians and Han who work in the field of Mandarin teaching to Mongolian learners to explore their understandings of the Mandarin language and views on what cultural knowledge and values to teach. The data highlight how different views of Mandarin Chinese teaching, as a communicative tool, as linguistic and cultural capital, and as an identity marker, are negotiated by Mongolians today. Looking into the past and present impact of Mandarin Chinese teaching on Mongolian ethnic identity, my work is the first to combine historical textbook analysis, historical linguistics, and ethnography. It makes an important contribution to the field of the History of Language Learning and Teaching, which has thus far been heavily skewed to the history of language education in Europe. Second, it addresses a gap in bilingual education studies, where little attention has been paid to the teaching of the majority language that Mongolians in the past and at present as the actors to define the knowledge of Chinese to teach. Third, my analysis of strategies for incorporating Mongolians into China are relevant to other non-Han studies such as Tibetans and Uyghurs and ethnic minority studies in different political and educational contexts

A Grammar of Eastern Geshiza : A Culturally Anchored Description

This dissertation describes Eastern Geshiza, a previously insufficiently known Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) Horpa language spoken primarily in eastern Geshiza Valley of Danba County in the People’s Republic of China. The approximately 5000 speakers of Eastern Geshiza are categorised as ethnic Tibetans, practice agriculture, and follow the religious traditions of Bön and Tibetan Buddhism. Adopting a functional-typological framework and following an approach that emphasises linguistic ecology, the dissertation aims to anchor the grammatical description to the various contexts of the language. Eastern Geshiza is currently endangered. Almost all speakers of the language are bilingual: Eastern Geshiza functions as an in-group language while Sichuanese Mandarin, also acquired since childhood, is used for external communication as a regional lingua franca. Knowledge of Tibetan lects and Written Tibetan, however, is low among the speakers. A substantial influx of new lexical loans from Chinese and a gradual language shift towards Chinese among the young constitute issues that will greatly affect both the future shape and vitality of the language. Eastern Geshiza exhibits complex phonology. It possesses an extensive phoneme inventory that contains 8 fully phonemic vowels and 37 fully phonemic consonant phonemes. The language abounds in complex consonant clusters of up to three members. Eastern Geshiza is morphologically complex. The complexity is particularly prominent in verb morphology that is characterised by an argument indexation system based on accessibility hierarchy and a set of multi-functional verbal prefixes that encode orientation, aspect, and mood. Like many of the other regional languages, Eastern Geshiza is also rich in evidential categories and includes the grammatical category of engagement. Typological peculiarities of the language make it an important source of data for typological research. The dissertation is based on first-hand field data collected on five major field trips during 2015-18 with the total duration of approximately eight months. The fieldwork was primarily carried out in Balang Village and the surrounding area, the easternmost Geshiza communities closest to Danba County Town. As its theoretical foundations, the description builds on Basic Linguistic Theory and linguistic typology. I hope that this description of the language’s most prominent features will be helpful in advancing our knowledge of Horpa studies and Trans-Himalayan linguistics together with providing new material for linguistic typology and other branches of linguistics.Tämä väitöskirja kuvaa itäisen geshizan kielen. Geshiza on aiemmin riittämättömästi tunnettu sinotiibetiläinen (transhimalajalainen) horpakieli, jota puhutaan pääasiallisesti Geshizan laakson itäosissa Danban läänissä Kiinan kansantasavallassa. Itäisen geshizan noin 5000 puhujaa luokitellaan etnisesti tiibetiläisiksi. He harjoittavat maanviljelystä ja seuraavat uskontoinaan sekä böniä että tiibetinbuddhalaisuutta. Lähestymistavaltaan tämä funktionaalis-typologiseen viitekehykseen nojaava deskriptiivinen kielioppi painottaa kieliekologiaa ja pyrkii ankkuroimaan geshizan kielen sen moninaisiin konteksteihin. Itäinen geshiza on muuttunut uhanalaiseksi. Lähes kaikki itäisen geshizan puhujat ovat kaksikielisiä: itäinen geshiza toimii ryhmän sisäisenä kielenä, kun taas sichuanin mandariinia, jonka geshizat myös oppivat lapsuudessaan, käytetään ryhmän ulkoiseen kommunikaatioon lingua francana. Tiibetin kielimuotoja tai kirjoitettua tiibetiä ei kuitenkaan tunneta laajalti geshizojen keskuudessa. Suuri määrä uusia lainasanoja kiinasta ja asteittainen kielenvaihto kohti kiinaa nuorten geshizojen parissa ovat tällä hetkellä kaksi keskeistä asiaa, jotka vaikuttavat geshizan kielen tulevaan muotoon sekä sen elinvoimaisuuteen jatkossa. Itäisen geshizan kielessä on kompleksinen fonologia. Kielessä on laaja foneemi-inventaario, joka sisältää 8 täysin foneemista vokaalia sekä 37 täysin foneemista konsonanttifoneemia. Konsonantit muodostavat laajan kirjon konsonanttiyhtymiä, joissa voi olla jopa kolme jäsentä. Lisäksi itäinen geshiza on morfologisesti kompleksinen kieli. Tämä kompleksisuus tulee vahvasti esille verbimorfologiassa, jossa keskeistä osaa näyttelee saavutettavuushierarkiaan (accessibility hierarchy) perustuva argumentti-indeksaatio ja monikäyttöiset verbiprefiksit, jotka merkitsevät orientaatiota, aspektia, sekä modusta. Kuten monet muut alueen kielet, itäinen geshiza sisältää runsaasti evidentiaalisuuden kategorioita ja kielessä on tämän lisäksi myös hiljattain tunnistettu engagement-kategoria. Kielen typologiset ominaispiirteet tekevät siitä tärkeän lähteen typologiselle tutkimukselle. Tämä väitöskirja perustuu ensikäden kenttätutkimusaineistoon, jonka keräsin viiden keskeisen aineistonkeruumatkan aikana vuosina 2015-2018. Aineistonkeruumatkojen yhteenlaskettu kokonaiskesto oli noin kahdeksan kuukautta. Suoritin kenttätutkimuksen pääasiallisesti Balangin kylässä sekä sitä ympäröivällä alueella, jotka muodostavat itäisimmät geshizankieliset yhteisöt Danban läänikaupungin läheisyydessä. Teoreettisena pohjana kieliopille toimii Basic Linguistic Theory ja kielitypologia. Toivon, että laatimani kielioppi geshizan keskeisimmistä ominaisuuksista auttaa edistämään horpakielten ja sinotiibetiläisten (transhimalajalaisten) kielten tutkimusta sekä tarjoaa lisäksi uutta materiaalia kielitypologialle ja muille kielitieteen haaroille

Exploring language contact and use among globally mobile populations: a qualitative study of English-speaking short-stay academic sojourners in the Republic of Korea

This study explores the language contact and use of English speaking sojourners in the Republic of Korea who had no prior knowledge of Korean language or culture prior to arriving in the country. The study focuses on the use of mobile technology assisted l anguage use. Study participants responded to an online survey about their experiences using the Korean language when interacting with Korean speakers, their free time activities, and the types of digital and mobile technologies they used. The survey respon ses informed questions for later discussion groups, in which participants discussed challenges and solutions when encountering new linguistic and social scenarios with Korean speakers. Semi structured interviews were employed to examine the linguistic, soc ial and technological dimensions of the study participants’ brief sojourn in Korea in more depth. The interviews revealed a link between language contact, language use and a mobile instant messaging application. In the second phase of the study, online surveys focused on the language and technology link discovered in the first phase. Throughout Phase Two , the researcher observed the study participants in a series of social contexts, such as informal English practice and university events. Phase Two concluded with semi structured interviews that demonstrated language contact and use within mobile instant messaging chat rooms on participants’ handheld smart devices. The two phases revealed three key factors influencing the language contact and use between the study participants and Korean speakers. Firstly, a mutual perspicacity for mobile technologies and digital communication supported their mediated, screen to screen and blended direct and mediated face to screen interactions. Secondly, Korea’s advanced digital environment comprised handheld smart devices, smart device applications and ubiquitous, high speed Wi Fi their Korean speaking hosts to self reliance. Thirdly, language use between the study participants and Korean speakers incorporated a range of sociolinguistic resources including the exchange of symbols, small expressive images, photographs, video and audio recordings along with or in place of typed text. Using these resources also helped the study participants learn and take part in social and cultural practices, such as gifting digitally, within mobile instant messaging chat rooms. The findings of the study are drawn together in a new conceptual model which h as been called sociolinguistic digital acuity , highlighting the optimal conditions for language contact and use during a brief sojourn in a country with an unfamiliar language and culture

The Nature of Writing – A Theory of Grapholinguistics [book cover]

Cover illustration: Purgatory: Canto VII – The Rule of the Mountain from A Typographic Dante (2008) by Barrie Tullett (also displayed in Barrie Tullett, Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology, London: Laurence King Publishing, 2014, p. 167). With kind permission by Barrie Tullett. The text is taken from Dante. The Divine Comedy, translated by Dorothy L. Sayers, Harmondsworth­Middlesex: The Penguin Classics, 1949. On the lower part of the illustration, one can read the concluding verses of the Canto: But now the poet was going on before; “Forward!” said he; “look how the sun doth stand Meridian­high, while on the Western shore Night sets her foot upon Morocco’s strand.