Monoglossic echoes in multilingual spaces: language narratives from a Vietnamese community language school in Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article reports on language narratives in the ecology of a Vietnamese community language school (VCLS) in Australia. The study takes a dialogical perspective, where the stories about language that informants in the research setting tell are understood to shape and be shaped by the contexts in which they are told. Systematic analysis of deictics, reported speech and evaluative indexicals in stories told during 19 interviews with 34 students, teachers and administrators (20 hours 53 mins) was conducted to investigate how informants talk about language and language use and how this impacts on the language learning environment in that context. The results show how narratives both echo and contest ideas about language and language planning in the wider context. The narrative of separate multilingualism echoes monolingual views of language, advocating separate spaces for the use and development of different languages. In contrast, the narrative of flexible multilingualism frames multilingual practices as a natural part of daily life and at the VCLS, but constrained in other spaces. The study illustrates the gap between multilingual practices and monolingual ideologies and approaches to language education. It contributes to the literature calling for revised approaches to language education planning and multilingualism in Australia.