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“What I want to do I do not do”: on bi- and multilingual repertoires and linguistic dislocation in a border town

  • Seong Lin Ding ORCID logo EMAIL logo and Wei Han Chee
Published/Copyright: December 16, 2021

Abstract

Language problems and language barriers are challenges facing not only immigrants but also minorities and people in rural/semirural areas. This study examines individuals’ bi- and multilingual repertoires, language practices and attitudes in a Hokkien-speaking community in Kangar, a semirural town of northern Malaysia bordering Thailand. Through questionnaire surveys and interviews, we investigate how these notions can be used as a means to understand/reflect bilingualism and multilingualism and, more importantly, the potential disparity between what people want to do/say and what people eventually manage to do/say. While there is a shift in language practice from a local- and ancestral origin-induced pattern towards a more “global” and “pan-Chinese” paradigm, the findings also reveal the linguistic “dislocations” of the Hokkien-speaking community across ALL generations regardless of ethnicity. The language issues in the community reflect—and are likely to be reflections of—society at large. The vast contrast between individual/societal linguistic aspirations and the actual linguistic repertoire/communicative competence among the locals indicates the need to redress an absence of major efforts to close urban-rural/city-town/dominant-dominated social divides across the (language) education landscape at the national level.


Corresponding author: Seong Lin Ding, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, E-mail:

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Received: 2021-08-09
Accepted: 2021-12-02
Published Online: 2021-12-16
Published in Print: 2023-05-25

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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