---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 15:50:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Angel M.Y. Lin <mylin who-is-at tortoise>
To: language-culture who-is-at cs.uchicago.edu
Subject: mock linguistic play and sociocultural identity... in Hong Kong
In my classroom data in Hong Kong, where school children whose mother
tongue is Cantonese have to learn English for socioeconomic purposes... I
find lots of artful verbal play... one type of this play is to mock the
English speaker's Cantonese! I find this very interesting as most Hong
Kong Cantonese-speaking people have to learn English but few English-speaking
people there learn any Cantonese at all... and for a 12-year-
old in an egnlish lesson to speak Cantonese in a mocking Angliczed tone by
Anglicizing Cantonese words to pass for English vocab... (sorry my
description here is very brief... I know one has to look at the
transcript to know better... but not much time for me to type in the
transcript here....)
I interpret this play as a way to turn the table by the children... by
turning the potentially face-losing situation of one's lack of English
resources into one that shows the unbalanced sociolinguistic realities in
our society, where the majority have to struggle to learn the language of the
minority, and the minority do not care to learn the language of the
majority...and the fact that English is much more politically and
socioeconomically valued than the children's mother tongue in the education
system... the children may use verbal play (in a mocking way) to assert
their own (often devalued) linguistic and sociocultural identity...
How does that interpretation sound to you?
I would like to know if there are similar studies in N. America or
elsewhere on similar issues. Thanks!
Angel
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Angel M.Y. Lin
Doctoral Candidate
Modern Language Centre
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
252 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada
E-Mail: MYLIN who-is-at OISE.ON.CA
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