Chinese Topolects in British Columbia
Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, is the official language of the People’s Republic of China. However, people who trace their heritage to mainland China, the Pacific islands of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and the north-western borderlands of Tibet, Manchuria, and Mongolia speak many languages in addition to Mandarin. These language varieties are called “topolects” by scholars. They are generally known as “dialects” in English, or fang yan (方言) in Chinese.
The Tides and Voices research team began this project with in-depth ethnographic interviews about the language experiences of Chinese people living in Kelowna, British Columbia. Even in this relatively small community, participants reported over twenty language varieties. All participants demonstrated multilingual repertoires, describing how they adapted their mother tongues to new social settings and new places throughout their lives. Individual histories of language contact were influenced by longer-term family migration histories, with movements in China affecting the languages these individuals have brought with them to Canada.
Due to the depth of language diversity and participants social networks, this project quickly expanded to involve community members throughout Canada.
Early Childhood Language Socialization among Tibetans in Canada
Many speakers of Tibetan languages are living in protracted exile from their homelands. Canadians are fortunate to have a well-represented Tibetan community with us, and to have networks of support for research with Tibetan communities at several major universities including UBC.
This SSHRC-funded project uses audio-video recording to document the language learning trajectories of Tibetan toddlers growing up in Canada. Tibetan-Canadian toddlers are growing up in densely multilingual families, where decades of migration have contributed to unique multilingual repertoires. Our work with Tibetan children aims to recognize the links between culture and changing language repertoires. We plan to use findings from this project to create resources for encouraging Tibetan-Canadian children to maintain their knowledge of spoken and written Tibetan as they grow up.
Language and the Politics of Amdo Tibetan Childhoods
Amdo refers to a region of eastern Tibet, situated at the historical borderland of Tibet, China, and Mongolia. Amdo is also the name of a major Tibetan language, with an estimated 1.8 million speakers and multiple, distinctive place-based language varieties.
Language and the Politics of Tibetan Childhoods draws on 15 months of ethnographic and linguistic research conducted from 2016-2018 in Amdo (Qinghai, China). This longitudinal research documented the language learning pathways of Amdo children from one extended family, who were growing up in rural and urban settings. This project reveals the intersections of state development and child development in contemporary China. A push towards urbanization and economic change in the region has reformatted Amdo children’s everyday settings of language learning. Amdo children are adapting their language use, as they shift away from spending their days in free play with related peers, and towards formal learning in structured education settings.
An archive of over 65 hours of audio and video data from Amdo children’s everyday talk is currently hosted on Databrary. Publications, including articles and a book manuscript, are currently being developed from this invaluable data.
Selected Publications from the Tides and Voices Team
Ward, Shannon. Forthcoming. Spatializing Kinship: The grammar of belonging in Amdo, Tibet. Pragmatics. http://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20039.war.
Ward, Shannon. 2021. Narrative Elicitation as Ethnography. Frontiers in Psychology: Educational Psychology. 12: 1554. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644331
Ward, Shannon. 2020. “How a Child’s First Language Includes More Than Words.” The Conversation, Canada Edition. https://theconversation.com/how-a-childs-first-language-includes-more-than-words-132232.
Ward, Shannon. 2016. Knowing, Experience, and Reporting: Social memory and participant roles in a Tibetan woman’s oral history. Language & Communication 49: 19-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2016.04.001.
Ward, Shannon. 2015. Style and Standardization: A Case Study of Tibetan Family Interaction in Greater New York. Texas Linguistics Forum 58: 152-161. http://salsa.ling.utexas.edu/proceedings/2015/Ward.pdf.