Multilingual communication characteristics of ethnic minorities in An Giang province, Mekong Delta Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam’s rapid global integration has made significant changes in all aspects of the socioeconomic life of ethnic minorities. Among these changes, the languages of ethnic communities have been particularly affected. Consequently, the communication characteristics of these groups have undergone substantial transformations. To describe such changes, this study investigates the multilingual communication competence among people of different ethnicities in Vietnam and the characteristics of language choice they make in different intra-community and inter-community communication domains with a view to giving more insights into the characteristics of multilingual communication among ethnic minorities in Vietnam. This investigation is conducted through observations and in-depth interviews with the participation of 105 Hoa people, 100 Khmer people and 100 Cham people in An Giang province. The data collection process, over seven months, involved: immersive observations to assess their multilingual competence and language choices, followed by in-depth interviews to explore their language preferences and reasons. The findings reveal that the phenomenon of multilingual communication is common in An Giang because most investigated ethnic groups in An Giang can speak at least two languages other than their mother tongue. In terms of language choice, mother tongue is used in informal communication domains whereas Vietnamese is used in formal ones. Khmer language is used in family and community communication and is used by Hoa people in some localities. Cham language is only used within the Cham community. The Chinese dialects are only partly used in family communication domain and by Hoa people of the same local groups.