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Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study

  • Bin Ai

    Dr. Bin Ai is professor at the School of Foreign Studies, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China. He gained his PhD at Deakin University, Australia, in 2014, and his research interests include applied linguistics, language in society, and intercultural studies.

     ORCID logo     , Siwei Ma

    Siwei Ma is a graduate at the School of Foreign Studies, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China. Her research interests include sociolinguistics and intercultural studies.

         and Xia Liu

    Dr. Xia Liu is lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages for Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China. She gained her PhD at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, in 2016 and her current research interests include Business English and second language acquisition.

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Published/Copyright: June 5, 2023
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Applied Linguistics Review
From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 15 Issue 5

Abstract

In this case study, seventy Tibetan residents selected from two Tibetan villages in Danba county, Southwest China, were invited to participate in an investigation of their everyday use of Tibetan, standard Chinese, and English, as well as their expectations of future multilingual practices. It was found that there are intergenerational differences in the participants’ use of these languages. This paper, in the context of neoliberal ideology and rural development, suggests that attention should be given to support local Tibetan residents’ language learning and improve their multilingual competence, thus enabling the conversion of their linguistic/human capital to economic capital. The study contributes to understandings of how local multilingual resources can be exploited for the betterment of living standards and opportunities, and it calls for governments to address the issues regarding poverty reduction, rural development, and language preservation by improving the quality of multilingual education in ethnic minority areas.

Keywords: intergenerational difference; linguistic entrepreneurship; linguistic capital; multilingual practices; neoliberal ideology
Corresponding author: Xia Liu, School of Foreign Languages for Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China, E-mail:

Funding source: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Award Identifier / Grant number: 2019110115

About the authors

Bin Ai

Dr. Bin Ai is professor at the School of Foreign Studies, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China. He gained his PhD at Deakin University, Australia, in 2014, and his research interests include applied linguistics, language in society, and intercultural studies.

Siwei Ma

Siwei Ma is a graduate at the School of Foreign Studies, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China. Her research interests include sociolinguistics and intercultural studies.

Xia Liu

Dr. Xia Liu is lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages for Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China. She gained her PhD at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, in 2016 and her current research interests include Business English and second language acquisition.

Acknowledgments

Our thanks go to the participants and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.

  1. Research funding: This work was supported by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics [grant number 2019110115] and [No. 2020110925].

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Received: 2022-06-17
Accepted: 2023-05-08
Published Online: 2023-06-05
Published in Print: 2024-09-25

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2022-0075
Keywords for this article
intergenerational difference; linguistic entrepreneurship; linguistic capital; multilingual practices; neoliberal ideology

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
  3. Research Articles
  4. Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
  5. The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
  6. Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
  7. I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
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  12. Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
  13. Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
  14. Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
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  28. The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
  29. A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
  30. “Part of me is teaching English”: probing the language-related teaching practices of an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher
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