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Dissertation Information
| Title: | The Variety of Vietnamese Czech as an Example of Transcultural Communication in the Czech Republic | Add Dissertation |
| Author: | Jitka Slezáková | Update Dissertation |
| Email: | click here to access email | |
| Homepage: | http://is.fhs.cuni.cz/zivotopisy/cv.pl?lang=cs;uco=5828;zjazyk=eng;varianta=1 | |
| Institution: | Charles University in Prague, Linguistic Anthropology | |
| Completed in: | 2007 | |
| Linguistic Subfield(s): | Sociolinguistics; Anthropological Linguistics; Language Acquisition; | |
| Subject Language(s): |
Czech
Vietnamese |
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| Director(s): |
Petr Zima |
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| Abstract: | The subject of ethnic minorities represents an actual topic in today's society. Vietnamese merchants were chosen as an example for several reasons. They are one of the largest foreign minorities in the Czech Republic, they are in everyday contact with the Czechs and their native language is typologically completely different from the language of their host country. The aim of my project was to create a corpus, which would provide data for linguistic description, analysis and sociolinguistic characterization of the outcome of such a specific contact situation in the Czech Republic. More accurately, in which way the typological differences are reflected in Vietnamese Czech. Sources of particular morphological as well as phonetic features are detected and explained. In particular, I deal with the question whether the Vietnamese Czech could be regarded as an autonomous language code (pidgin or creole) or rather as a case of an incomplete second language acquisition (SLA) process. For this purpose, the text is divided into three sections. In Part I, the Vietnamese Czech is classified within the scope of contact linguistics, whereas possible linguistic results of the contact are introduced. A depiction of Vietnamese communicative situation is provided by comparing the conditions before and after the political change in 1989. Special attention is paid to linguistic analysis in subsequent two sections. Part II deals with the Vietnamese Czech as a specific case of SLA and methodology of this field is applied. Specifically, it was desirable to examine the individual variability of language proficiency from the viewpoint of mastering the Czech target language. On the contrary, Part III focuses on unifying characteristics and stabilization of the Vietnamese Czech as necessary conditions for creating a new sovereign language. The data are based on a survey conducted among the Vietnamese merchants in several cities with large residing Vietnamese communities (Praha, Cheb, and Jihlava). Border regions were excluded for the expected influence of other languages (German). While questioned individuals were chosen randomly in Praha and Cheb, the entire community was mapped in Jihlava. The sample includes 37 different speakers of all important social categories: sex, age and length of stay in the Czech Republic. Interviews were digitally recorded and subsequently transcribed according to the Czech version of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The total length of the transcribed text is about 12 hours. Personal experiences and statements from a Czech informant (a former spokesperson of the Vietnamese community in Jihlava) are added to the official data concerning the numbers of Vietnamese immigrants in the Czech Republic. Summary: Although Vietnamese Czech resembles in several linguistic features a pidgin at first glance, it has to be characterized - after more elaborate analysis - as a specific case of second language acquisition. Sociolinguistic facts give support to this statement. The collected data also build up an inexhaustible base for further research. |
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