LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE: A SOCIOLINGUISITIC STUDY OF FEMALE TIBETAN IMMIGRANT YOUTHS IN TORONTO, CANADA by DAWA BHUTI GHOSO B.A., York University, 2004 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ASIA PACIFIC POLICY STUDIES in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA APRIL 2007 © Dawa Bhuti Ghoso, 2007 ABSTRACT This thesis explores language maintenance and shift among female Tibetan immigrant youths in Toronto, Canada. It considers the various factors affecting language shift and maintenance such as pre-migration experience such as residence and educational history, linguistic repertoires, domains of language use, institutional support factors such as exposure to media and attitude to native language. Data from a survey questionnaire is analysed to inform the research with supplementary information provided from interviews. The thesis demonstrates that language shift from Tibetan to English is taking place among the respondents. First language (LI) oracy is receding in its function towards personal domains while LI literacy is at a critical stage where the shift is more pronounced and it seems that it was already underway before the female Tibetans youths came to Canada. The only domain, where Tibetan language seems to be well maintained is in the personal domains of home, speaking to parents and in religious activities. Code switching and a new dialect formation or koineisation is taking place among the Tibetan in Diaspora. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract " Table of Contents , iii List of Tables v Acknowledgements vi Dedication vii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 The Socio-Political Situation of Tibetan language 3 Importance of Language Maintenance 7 Chapter 2 Literature Review 11 Language Maintenance Research 11 Factors affecting Language Maintenance 11 Chapter 3 Research Methodology 24 Methodological Approach for this Research 25 Methodological Shortcomings 30 Research Questions 31 Chapter 4 Results and Data analysis 32 Demographic Background 36 Linguistic Repertoire 38 Pre-Migration Experience 41 Language Use in Various Domains 44 Institutional Support Factors 56 Attitude to Tibetan Language 57 iii Code Switching 62 Policy Implications of the Study: 63 Chapter 5 Conclusions 65 References 70 Appendix 1 Survey Questionnaire 75 iv LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Summary of Findings 34 Table 2: Demographic Background 36 Table 3: Household Composition 37 Table 4: Place of Residence 38 Table 5: Multilingualism 39 Table 6: Dialects 40 Table 7: Years of Residence in Canada 42 Table 8: Migration and Settlement History 43 Table 9: Medium of Instruction 44 Table 10: Domains of Language Use 45 Table 11: Crosstabulation of Years in Canada and Language Used most often in the Workplace 46 Table 12: Crosstabulation of Years in Canada and Language Used most often in School 46 Table 13: Language Used with Different Interlocutors 47 Table 14: Language Use in Cognitive tasks and Expressing emotions 48 Table 15: Frequency of using Tibetan and other Languages 50 Table 16: Tibetan Proficiency 51 Table 17: Literacy in Tibetan and English 52 Table 18: Reading in Various Contexts 53 Table 19: Religiosity 54 Table 20: Exposure to Tibetan and English media 57 Table 21: Instrumental attitude to Tibetan 58 Table 22: Integrative attitude to Tibetan 59 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am greatly indebted to many people for their guidance and support all through my graduate studies and the successful completion of this thesis. I like to thank my committee members Dr. Julian Dierkes, Dr. Seonaigh MacPherson and Dr. Tsering Shakya for their careful reading and criticism of the thesis. I like to express my gratitude to Dr. Seonaigh MacPherson for the opportunity to work with her on the SSHRC funded research project, "Resisting Language Shift in the Tibetan Diaspora", a part of which resulted in this thesis. She provided constant support and guidance throughout the whole research process even before I started my M. A. Her involvement has nourished my intellectual curiosity and maturity that I will benefit from, for a long time to come. I also like to thank her for allowing me to use the data collected from the research for this thesis. I express my deep appreciation for my supervisor, Dr. Julian Dierkes, who was instrumental in getting me to this stage of thesis completion. His kindness and dedication in guiding me through my graduate program from selecting courses to thesis completion and all things in between are very much appreciated. One simply could not wish for a more supportive and friendlier supervisor. Without his guidance and persistent help, this thesis would not have been possible. His encouraging words and excitement ridden research discussions form a fond memory of graduate life at UBC for me. I gratefully acknowledge Dr. Tsering Shakya for his guidance on both academic and non-academic matters and for filling my graduate life with much laughter with his British or is it Tibetan sense of humour? I am also much indebted to Sharon Hick for her precious time in reading and giving critical comments on the thesis and for her constant moral support. This thesis would not have been possible at all without the participation of the Tibetan female survey respondents. I thank them deeply. I also cannot thank enough the privileges of library access granted to me by the libraries of University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, York University and Ryerson University. Finally, thanks go to my partner, Arun Tosing, my family, and numerous friends for their and love and support. In particular, I am infinitely indebted to Elaine Hick for her generosity and selflessness. vi DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my mother, Tsering Kyipa and uncle, Ngawang Kalsang for their bountiful love, support, and prayers across the miles. vii Chapter 1 Introduction One common concern for groups whose migration has crossed linguistic boundaries is language maintenance and/or shift in the newly created minority ethnic community (Gibbons & Ramirez, 2004; Seville-Troike, 2000). Immigrants, especially youths, are caught between the need to adjust to the dominant culture, where English is the main language of communication, and the pressure to maintain native language coming from the family, ethnic community or within the identity imperatives of individuals themselves. Globalization and the accompanying increase in mobility have made the issue of language shift and language maintenance a pertinent one. This thesis will address the dynamics of maintaining one's native language as well as language shift among the female Tibetan immigrant youths in Toronto, Canada. Language shift takes place when an individual or a particular community gradually abandons its original native language and speaks another one instead (Trudgill, 2000, p. 191). The use of the first language (LI) diminishes and second language (L2) increases in the process of the language shift, and when the shjft is completed, the individual is said to have lost her language, or in the case of a community, tfrey have lost their LI. The shift can be exhibited on a wide spectrum. The language shift can be towards the L2 in restricted domains such as school, workplace, friends and others, or alternatively, the shift can be more intense and pervasive when the L2 comes to be used in most situations such as with parents, at home and so forth. In the extreme case, the language shift is said to be complete; if the individual or community no longer uses their LI and instead uses the L2 all the time in 1 all contexts. Language maintenance is the antonym of language shift. A language is maintained if L2 is not used for domains where LI was previously used. In the Tibetan community in Toronto, Tibetan language maintenance among those born in Canada and for those who migrated to Canada is a real concern. As such, this thesis will be of practical significance in contributing to the knowledge of the actual state of Tibetan language in the community through the lens of the female youths. Female youths are an important demographic determining language trends in communities and so offer a unique window into the Toronto Tibetan community. The overriding aim of this thesis is to explore and illustrate the process of language maintenance and language shift among the group by examining various sociolinguistic phenomena. In terms of the layout of this thesis, the thesis will first detail the linguistic situation of the Tibetan language in a global context. It will be followed by background information on Tibetans in Diaspora with specific focus on the Tibetans in Canada. Then the various arguments for the importance pf native language maintenance will be provided since the language maintenance sTtidies are based on this premise. The literature review that follows will examine literatures that contribute to a better understanding of the sociolinguistic situation of female Tibetan youths in Toronto. The literatures reviewed here are mostly cases from immigrant communities in North America, U K and Australia. The research questions to be examined will be laid out after the literature review. This will be followed by the research methodology section, which will explain the rationales for the methodological approach taken in this thesis. The next section will present the results from the survey questionnaires and analyze the data to answer the 2 research questions posed. A section will be dedicated to the policy implications of this research and finally, discussions will ensue followed by the conclusion. The Socio-Political Situation of Tibetan language Tibetan is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about 6 million people. Geographically, it is native to Tibetans on the Tibetan plateau that stretches from the west in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) to the east in the provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu. Many neighbouring areas of Tibet such as Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and India also have ethnic groups who speak different variants of the Tibetan language.