The Landscape of Tibetan Individuals’ Multilingual Experiences

LaMuCuo explores the experiences of different individuals with language socialization, language acquisition, language shift and loss, and education in a variety of multilingual contexts in Tibetan areas of China. Through investigating the experiences of these individuals, the book illustrates how the development of multilingualism at a macro level has impacted individuals’ daily lives in school and home within cultural contexts.

The book documents the diversity of multilingual experiences of Tibetan individuals in real life within various Tibetan areas, covering the topics of language loss and shift, learning L1 as the second language, the experiences of Tibetan nomadic children leaning Chinese in the course of textbook reform in Tibetan nomadic areas, and the power of trilingual education for women living in a particular village. This book contributes significantly to our understanding of language education and identity in the field of multilingualism. Through presenting nine case studies of individual multilingual experiences, it demonstrates that individuals have experienced multilingualism fundamentally differently in various Tibetan areas because of social cultural and economic disparities, thus illustrating the complexity of multilingualism as reflected in their lives.

The focus on diversity of Tibetan individuals’ multilingualism will be of significant interest to postgraduate students and researchers whose studies are relevant to multilingual communities across the world.