Abstract
In Vietnam, where 41 out of over 93 living languages are classified as endangered, language preservation is a concern for speakers of minority languages. But advocating for a minority language is a delicate task that involves garnering support from the community of speakers while not alienating the majority. This thesis looks at the similarities and differences between two educators who are working on a Mông minority language program in a primary school in Sapa, Vietnam. Given the two educators are very different from each other—the Principal of the majority Viet ethnic group and the Mông language teacher of the Mông group, this thesis examines how their differences have implications for Mông language program.
Through interviewing the educators about their role within Mông programs, I analyzed their language orientation, interview dynamics and alignment with the government to show that they are performing two distinct roles. Additionally, I did Critical Discourse Analysis of policy texts to understand the environment that the educators are working in. This thesis shows that two educators in the same primary school in Sapa, Vietnam are playing different roles—internal and external relations—and contributing to Mông language programs in their unique ways. The Principal does external relations, communicating to government officials and those external to the Mông community, while the Teacher does internal relations, connecting with the Mông community. The study suggests that advocacy for minority groups can benefit from having policymakers of different ideologies and who can connect to different stakeholders. Additionally, more research needs to be done on the individual agency of educators as policy makers instead of grouping them together, because differences among them can have important implications for minority rights advocacy.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Literature Review 5
Section 2.1: Sociolinguistic Situation of Vietnam 5
Section 2.2: Minority Language Educational Policies in Vietnam 8
Section 2.3: The Mông Language in Vietnam 11
Section 2.4: Three Orientations Towards Language Planning 13
Section 2.5: Educators as Policymakers 16
Chapter 3: Methodology 19
Section 3.1: Site Description 19
Section 3.2: Participants 20
Section 3.3: Data Collection and Analysis 21
Section 3.4: Critical Discourse Analysis of Policy Texts 22
Chapter 4: Results and Discussions 25
Section 4.1: Top-down Policies 25
Section 4.2: Interview Dynamics 31
Sub-Section 4.2.1: Joint Interview 32
Sub-Section 4.2.2: Individual Interviews 35
Section 4.3: Language Orientations of Educators 43
Sub-Section 4.3.1: Principal Hương 44
Sub-Section 4.3.2: Teacher Dũng 46
Section 4.4: Alignment with the Government 48
Sub-Section 4.4.1: Comparison of Language Orientations 48
Sub-Section 4.4.2: Point of Conflict 50
Chapter 5: Division of Roles 56
Section 5.1: The Teacher as Internal Relations 56
Section 5.2: The Principal as External Relations 59
Chapter 6: Conclusion 63
Bibliography 65
Appendix A: Survey 69
Appendix B: Interview Guidelines (Summer 2022) 70
Appendix C: Interview Guidelines (Summer 2023) 71
Appendix D: Codebook 73
Appendix E: Transcription Conventions 76
About this Honors Thesis
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- Emory College
- Linguistics
- B.A.
- Honors Thesis
- English
- Education, Bilingual and Multicultural
- Language, Linguistics
- acquisition planning
- Vietnam language policy
- minority language
- language policy and planning
- Susan Tamasi, Emory University
- Valérie Loichot, Emory University
- Mark Risjord, Emory University
