Negotiating Mongolian ethnic identity through the teaching of Mandarin Chinese as a second language

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite growing attention paid to the language ideologies of teachers as actors in bilingualism or multilingualism studies, little research has examined whether and how power dynamics between majority and minority languages play a role in the promulgation of a majority language to ethnic minority learners of that majority language. This paper explores how both linguistic and cultural knowledge of Mandarin are understood by a specific group of Mongolian teachers and trainee teachers of Mandarin in Inner Mongolia, China. Drawing on Geeraerts’ (2003. “Cultural Models of Linguistic Standardization.” In Cognitive Models in Language and Thought. Ideology, Metaphors and Meanings, edited by R. Dirven, R. Frank, and M. Putz, 25–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter; 2020. “Romantic and rationalist models of linguistic diversity.” SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 17 (3): 2–19) two cultural models of language standardisation, we shall show that the Mongolian teachers and trainees appear to adopt both a ‘rationalist’ and a ‘romantic’ view. On the one hand, they hold a rationalist view of modern Chinese literature, perceiving it as linguistic and cultural capital (Bourdieu, P. 1992. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press) for Mongolian students in the Han-dominant linguistic market. At the same time, they hold a romantic view of classical Chinese literature, perceiving it as a marker of the dominant, and therefore ‘ideal’, Han ethnic identity. Such mixed perceptions have significant implications for understanding how teaching a majority language may be viewed by an ethnic minority group: as a communicative tool, as linguistic and cultural capital, and/or as an identity marker.