Funding: National Science Foundation programs in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics
Project Dates: 2016-2018
Problem: China’s federal and provincial development policies have contributed to rapid urbanization in Tibet. They have also created strong motivations for rural to urban migration, due to the consolidation of education in cities and a new reliance on market employment as opposed to subsistence farming. Cities therefore represent hopes for socio-economic mobility. In cities, however, Tibetans lack legislated language protections meant to ensure the continued use of the Tibetan language across generations. In many rural Tibetan communities, schools must operate bilingual education, offering at least some instruction in Tibetan. Because young children drive language change, these education policies protect the future of the Tibetan language. From a policy perspective, then, urbanization threatens the vitality of Tibetan languages while offering broadened opportunities for children’s future economic stability. However, we know little about the lived experiences of young children and families growing up in cities. Are the possible economic benefits of urban living worth the social and cultural costs? My research drew on foundational social science theory that emphasizes the importance of qualitative research to understanding the human effects of policy interventions.
Research Process: By extensively reviewing interdisciplinary scholarship in the social sciences, as well as locating and analyzing rare materials on education policy in different regions of Tibet, I identified key paradoxes related to urbanization in Tibet. While urban living represents hopes for socio-economic advancement among Tibetan adults, economic analyses suggest that Tibetans face considerable barriers to financial stability and employment in cities. Despite these barriers, land-use policies and a shift to market employment have made rural Tibetan subsistence practices precarious, leaving many families with little choice over their lifestyles. In addition, anthropological studies from across the world show that, while education policy can rapidly bring about language endangerment, children’s language choices can also drive language vitality. Given the disjuncture between beliefs about urbanization, the economic impacts of policy, and the potential effects of children’s language practices, I conducted long-term mixed methods research with Tibetan children and families.
During 15 months, I conducted participant observation in schools and families, examining formal language instruction and informal, everyday talk. Using video ethnography, I documented 60 hours of spontaneous talk. Drawing on best practices in language documentation, I worked alongside parents to analyze the videos, carefully transcribing and annotating their children’s language choices. I also conducted oral history interviews, gaining insight into longer-term patterns of migration in the community. I used qualitative analysis to identify themes from across these different forms of data. Findings indicated that urban language shift is not inevitable. Past migrations had allowed for sustained multilingualism. I identified children’s peer relationships as the driver of language vitality and cultural survival amid social change driven by current patterns of urbanization.
Impact: This project created the first annotated corpus of children’s language in the under-studied variety of Amdo Tibetan. My use of methods from language documentation suggested the importance of actively analyzing ethnographic materials alongside participants, an insight that was published in Frontiers in Psychology. The key finding that language shift is not inevitable, but results from the identities that children build through their peer relationships in early childhood was published Pragmatics and the edited volume, Bordering Tibetan Languages.
I translated findings into actionable insights for community partners by facilitating workshops for teachers-in-training at Qinghai Normal University and Qinghai Nationalities University. These workshops suggested classroom practices that could help Tibetan children build and maintain peer relationships.
Shannon M. Ward, Ph.D. 