{"title":"A Question of Tone","authors":"D. Lempert","doi":"10.5130/pjmis.v18i1-2.7539","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Language, itself, as a source of communication, can also be a form of establishing an identity and setting barriers to communication. This article presents one example of such barriers in a major national language; that of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language is one of the markers of identity that Vietnamese often claim as the distinguishing feature of their culture, particularly its use of tone. As an assimilative culture changing rapidly with absorption into the global, urban economy, the Vietnamese language is now one of the only fixed identity markers of the Vietnamese. This may be why the Vietnamese now seek to establish it as a symbol and a barrier. This piece, by an American anthropologist, critically examines the Vietnamese perception of their language and its role among other identity markers in creating boundaries between Vietnamese and outsiders. ","PeriodicalId":35198,"journal":{"name":"PORTAL: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies","volume":"271 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PORTAL: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5130/pjmis.v18i1-2.7539","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Language, itself, as a source of communication, can also be a form of establishing an identity and setting barriers to communication. This article presents one example of such barriers in a major national language; that of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language is one of the markers of identity that Vietnamese often claim as the distinguishing feature of their culture, particularly its use of tone. As an assimilative culture changing rapidly with absorption into the global, urban economy, the Vietnamese language is now one of the only fixed identity markers of the Vietnamese. This may be why the Vietnamese now seek to establish it as a symbol and a barrier. This piece, by an American anthropologist, critically examines the Vietnamese perception of their language and its role among other identity markers in creating boundaries between Vietnamese and outsiders.
期刊介绍：
PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies is a fully peer reviewed journal with two main issues per year, and is published by UTSePress. In some years there may be additional special focus issues. The journal is dedicated to publishing scholarship by practitioners of—and dissenters from—international, regional, area, migration, and ethnic studies. Portal also provides a space for cultural producers interested in the internationalization of cultures. Portal is conceived as a “multidisciplinary venture,” to use Michel Chaouli’s words. That is, Portal signifies “a place where researchers [and cultural producers] are exposed to different ways of posing questions and proffering answers, without creating out of their differing disciplinary languages a common theoretical or methodological pidgin” (2003, p. 57). Our hope is that scholars working in the humanities, social sciences, and potentially other disciplinary areas, will encounter in Portal scenarios about contemporary societies and cultures and their material and imaginative relation to processes of transnationalization, polyculturation, transmigration, globalization, and anti-globalization.
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