Abstract
AbstractIn recent years, in Nepal, while some languages of the nation are on the verge of extinction, some foreign languages (such as Japanese, Korean, Chinese) are emerging as new attractions among the youths and adults and are widely taught in the marketplaces through the private sector initiative. Against this backdrop, in this article, we have examined the current foreign language teaching and learning situation drawing on qualitative empirical data obtained from the institutes involved in foreign language instruction in a city in Gandaki Province of Nepal. The data were collected from a survey in forty institutes, ten individual interviews and five focus group discussions. Drawing on the data, an ecological model was adopted, which focused on dynamic interaction, co-existence, and competition among languages, and findings were discussed in line with these aspects of ecological understanding. Findings revealed that learning foreign languages has been established as a conduit towards economic gains and opportunities for employment and education, which has largely been contributory towards reshaping the ecological relationship among the foreign languages in Nepal.
Highlights
Nepal, a country that is resided by approximately 30 million people (UNFPA Nepal 2017) belonging to a total of “125 ethnic groups/communities” (Dahal 2014: 3) and speaking “more than 123 languages” (Yadava 2014: 52), lies on the lap of the Himalayas between the People’s Republic of China on the North, and the Republic of India on the South, West, and East
The selected research context may not provide a compelling representation of the case of Nepal, it certainly provides the general picture of the changing trend of foreign language learning, purpose and driving factors for the contemporary youths in Nepal to learn the foreign languages
We have presented our understanding of ecological relationships among languages (Haugen 1972) where we see an interaction between the foreign languages and the learning environments
Summary
A country that is resided by approximately 30 million people (UNFPA Nepal 2017) belonging to a total of “125 ethnic groups/communities” (Dahal 2014: 3) and speaking “more than 123 languages” (Yadava 2014: 52), lies on the lap of the Himalayas between the People’s Republic of China on the North, and the Republic of India on the South, West, and East. Changes of various kinds in the neighborhood influence the situated diversity of this country. Influences have been noticed in the cultural, religious, educational, and linguistic dimensions of the Nepalese society at large. Being a country with low socioeconomic status and still principally conceptualized as the Least Developed Country (United Nations 2019), it has been struggling hard to promote and protect its own cultural values and identities. The sociolinguistic scenario can be taken as an example, where the teaching and learning of new foreign languages have been widespread both in formal and informal language teaching contexts affecting the sociolinguistic constitution of the communities. We have attempted to explore the changing situation of the ecology of foreign languages in the recent years, drawing on some empirical data from one of the metropolitan cities in the Gandaki Province of Nepal
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