Abstract
My five Tibetan individuals’ stories of their journeys towards becoming bilingual indicate that their bilingual development was related to changing policy. The frequently changing policies of treasuring minority languages, banning the use of minority languages and then again restoring minority languages in educational institutes in China fundamentally affected the development of their identity, indicating that the person is always situated in history. In addition, because of the socio-political history and the different personal circumstances each of my five participants found themselves in, their abilities in two languages are diverse. Their differing contexts and the role of education in promoting or impairing bilingualism also affected their personal bilingual proficiency. Their use of language shift showed that my five Tibetan individuals live with two languages.
My argument is that narrative, like lyric or dance, is not to be regarded as an aesthetic invention used by artists to control, manipulate and order experience, but as a primary act of mind transferred to art from life.
Barbara Hardy
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LaMuCuo, Y. (2019). Understanding Stories: Discussion. In: Becoming Bilingual in School and Home in Tibetan Areas of China: Stories of Struggle. Multilingual Education, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14668-9_7
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