Srdečně zveme na sociolingvistický seminář na téma „Vietnamese mothers’ embodied transmission of language and culture in Vietnam-Taiwan transnational families“. Seminář vede Thu Thi Mai Krausová, MA, Ph.D. (Univerzita Palackého) a koná se příští týden ve středu 6. května 2026 ve 14:10 v místnosti č. P419a.
Resumé semináře v angličtině:
Recent Taiwanese multicultural policies increasingly frame marriage migrant families as bearers of “multicultural capital,” valorizing their presumed multilingual and multicultural competencies. Drawing on longitudinal, multi-sited ethnographic research with 11 Vietnamese marriage migrant women and 18 of their children, this paper examines how such policy framings are realized in everyday family life. Based on repeated household observations, in-depth interviews, and audio- and video-recorded interactions conducted in Taiwan and Vietnam, the study analyzes micro-level processes of mother heritage language and cultural transmission. The findings show that heritage transmission remains highly individualized, feminized, and precarious. Despite celebratory policy discourse, Vietnamese mothers are widely expected to assimilate linguistically, with Chinese Mandarin positioned as the sole legitimate language of child-rearing and social integration. Responsibility for bilingualism is placed primarily on mothers, whose efforts are constrained by household power relations, long working hours, limited institutional support, and restricted transnational family ties. The paper argues that “multicultural capital” remains unevenly convertible in practice, revealing a persistent gap between state multicultural rhetoric and lived experience.
