Vietnamese-English Bilinguals in Melbourne: Social Relationships in the Code-Switching of Personal Pronouns

Tuc Ho-Dac Monash University Victoria, Australia

---

Content:

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Methodology
• The Vietnamese system of person reference
• The Marked Model
• The motivation for code-switching of personal pronouns
• Conclusion
• References

Abstract

This paper investigates the code-switching of personal pronouns in the speech of Vietnamese-English bilinguals in Melbourne. Relying on Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model (1993), it discusses in some detail the code-switching of English personal pronouns and argues that the switching of personal pronouns is to signal a change in the social relationship between the addressor and the addressee.

Introduction

In this paper, I discuss the motivation for code-switching of personal pronouns occurring in the speech of Vietnamese-English bilinguals in Melbourne. This paper is divided into two main parts. The first part begins with the description of the variation in Vietnamese person reference lexical items, which consist of kinship terms, proper nouns, and personal pronouns. The second part focuses on the code-switching of English personal pronouns in the corpus. The code-switching literature indicates that several approaches have been attempted to explain the phenomenon from the sociolinguistic and pragmatic point of view. As an example of such an approach, Myers-Scotton's concept of Markedness offers a framework to understand how code-switching can be approached as a communicatively and socially functional phenomenon (Myers-Scotton 1993). This paper is based on Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model as a linguistic device that can be used for the interpretation of the code-switching of personal pronouns.

Methodology

The present study is based on recordings of interviews and natural conversations. The informants consists of 60 Vietnamese-English bilinguals who came to Australia as adults and adolescents, and live in and around Melbourne. They are post-1975 migrants who had Vietnamese as their first language, and identified themselves as of Vietnamese ancestry. The informants' age on arrival in Australia varied from 5 to 42. The age of the informants varies from 18 to 62 at the time of the interviews. The durations of the interviews ranged from thirty to forty-five minutes. In addition to the face-to-face interviews, some informants were asked to tape their natural conversations occurred in their home. This forms part of the corpus on which the analysis of this study is based. The interviews were made from May to December 1994.

To condense information about their relevant attributes and identify individual informants a sequence of three basic attribute components (age, sex, date of arrival in Australia) was employed. For example, 69F78 identifies a woman born in 1969 who arrived in Australia in 1978; and 33M75 a man born in 1933 who came to Australia in 1975.

The Vietnamese system of person reference

The complex system of person reference in Vietnamese comprises lexical alternatives of common nouns (kinship and social status terms), proper nouns, and personal pronouns. In general, these three subclasses have the following features:

Firstly, these linguistic forms are structural equivalents. That is, they can substitute for each other in the same syntactic structure. Consider the following example extracted from Thompson (1987: 293):

The kinship terms con and má can also be replaced by any address terms (i.e. proper nouns or personal pronouns). For example, the addressor in (a) could choose other linguistic forms such as con ('child'/common noun), mày ('you'/personal pronoun), or A (given name/proper noun) without violating the syntactic structure of the utterance.

Secondly, the meanings of linguistic forms in the Vietnamese person reference system are defined in accordance with the speech environment. That is, the use of the same linguistic form in the person reference system in different interactional situations may be decoded differently. The following will clarify this point.

Vietnamese kinship terms

The study of address systems and terminology has long been of central interest to sociolinguists and anthropologists. Many have not only focused on forms of address in a particular language and culture (Brown and Ford 1961; Bates and Benigni 1975; Lambert and Tucker 1976; Bean 1978; Scotton and Wanjin 1983; Luong 1987; Srivastava and Pandit 1988; Sifianou 1992), but also described patterns of usage in various languages and cultures in an attempt to seek generalisations and universals in the field of address (Goffman 1981; Brown and Levinson 1978, 1979; Braun 1988; Clyne 1987, 1994).

Turning to the use of address terms of the Vietnamese speakers, the Confucian doctrine of name rectification has become their metalinguistic awareness. In their daily speech behaviour they choose certain forms in the system of person reference which they consider as appropriate to indicate the relations among the referents (addressor, addressee, and third party). According to this doctrine, role terms ( such as "king", "father", "child") must be appropriately used in association with the social roles of interlocutors (see Tran Trong Kim 1971: 129; Waley 1938: 166-171), and interlocutors must behave in accordance with what the "name" of their role entails (cf. Russell 1940: 204). Within family contexts, for example, young children are not expected to use the personal pronoun nó (she/he/her/him/it) in reference to older siblings or cousins, as this address form implies the speaker's lack of deference to the addressee or the third party.

Vietnamese kinship terms can be used for addressor, addressee, and third party references. This is not unlike the practice of using kinship terms with small children in English. But while this kind of usage is "baby talk" in English, it is an integral part of Vietnamese interaction. Examine the following examples from my data: The addressor in (1) is a woman, codenamed 65F80, who was talking to an older woman, codenamed 50F86:

In (1), the woman 65F80 used the kinship terms chi 'elder sister', em 'younger sibling', and anh 'elder brother' to refer to the addressee, the addressor and the third party respectively. This highlights the fact that in Vietnamese speech interaction, kinship terms are also used among non-relatives. The addressor chose chi for the addressee reference on the basis that the addressee is older than the addressor. Thus, the use of kinship terms in (1) is to address the hierarchical relation among the referents (the addressor, her husband's friend, and her husband). The use of chi ... em 'elder sister ... younger sibling' also implies the acceptance of the addressor's subordinate status vis-a-vis the addressee and reinforces solidarity relation with the addressee.

Similarly, in (2), in referring to her son (third party), the addressor 50F86 used the kinship term cháu 'grandchild' instead of con 'child' as she would if she addressed him. By using cháu, 50F86 not only specified a different relationship between herself and the addressee 65F80 toward the third party, but also indicated hierarchical and solidarity relations with the addressee. At the same time, she defined the hierarchical relation between her son and the addressee. In order to avoid bringing in the incongruence in the contextual relations defined by 50F86, the younger woman (65F80) chose the kinship term cháu in reference to the son of 50F86 for the rest of the conversation. In other words, 65F80 takes the addressee's perspective in reference to the addressee's absent son (i.e. the third party). In this way. 65F80 reinforces solidarity relation with the addressee.

Proper nouns

Proper nouns, including personal names, have received attention in the literature (e.g. Searle 1969; Kripke 1972; Carroll 1983; Marmaridou 1989; among others). In the Vietnamese system of person reference, proper nouns are used frequently for addressee and third party references, but infrequently for self-reference. In practice, the use of other linguistic forms and proper nouns in particular inseparably relates to its usage contexts. This is because proper nouns do not indicate the hierarchy of power. It is not proper nouns but kinship terms that are used in accordance with addressor, addressee, and third party reference to imply the hierarchy of the speech contexts. However, the rule for forms of address, such as proper nouns and personal pronouns, is not unambiguous. For example, the use of a given name can pragmatically imply either less respect for the addressee or more informal solidarity with the addressee. The ambiguity in the use of given names can be attributed to a name taboo: the avoidance of personal name usages in the family domain where junior kin is prohibited from mentioning the personal names of their elder relatives.

Personal pronouns

Similarly to the other two subclasses, personal pronouns in the Vietnamese system of person reference comprise many linguistic forms. In contrast to personal pronouns in English, some personal pronouns in Vietnamese can be used in reference not only to third parties, but also to addressors and addressees. In general, the meanings and use of Vietnamese personal pronouns are inextricably linked to the pragmatic implications of these linguistic forms (see Luong 1987, 1988), that is, certain forms may pragmatically imply the lack of deference towards the referent, while others imply exactly the opposite. In particular speech environments, terms of personal pronouns may change. It is the inconsistency of rules specifying the relations of personal pronoun forms to the contexts of their usages that underlies certain ambiguity. This ambiguity emerges from the inconsistent meanings of Vietnamese personal pronouns, and is similar to the ambiguity with regard to the choice of kinship terms discussed previously.

It should be noted here that the French personal pronouns toi/moi have been transferred into the Vietnamese system of person reference in certain contexts, such as within French-educated Vietnamese circles. The two French personal pronouns toi/moi were also used by Vietnamese speakers when they spoke to people they did not know well. By using toi/moi for self- and addressee references, Vietnamese speakers deliberately avoid taking risk of implying a negative relation in speech behaviour. In other words, Vietnamese speakers neutralise the ambiguous meanings of Vietnamese personal pronouns by replacing alternative forms in the person reference system with French personal pronouns. The phenomenon of avoidance, so to speak, occurs not for structural, but for semantic reasons.

The same can be said of English personal pronouns which have been used among Vietnamese-English bilinguals in the corpus. The Vietnamese in Melbourne, or specifically the informants in this study, have incorporated English personal pronouns into their own system of person reference, and as expected, made use of English pronouns in their speech. From a sociolinguistic point of view, the use of English personal pronouns in the speech of Vietnamese prompts a wealth of intriguing questions. For example, what is the underlying motivation for the switch in the course of a speech interaction? Such a question is posed by Myers-Scotton (1988) as she attempts to provide a theoretical explanation of sociolinguistic aspects of code-switching: The speakers "are free to make any choices (between codes), but how their choices will be interpreted is not free" (Myers-Scotton 1988: 155). How "their choices will be interpreted" will be discussed in the second part of this paper.

The Markedness Model

In dealing with the switching of pronouns, some approaches to code-switching of pronouns attempt to determine at what points in a sentence pronouns are (Timm 1975; Lipski 1977; Bentahila and Davies 1983; Woolford 1983; Eid 1992; Azuma 1993; Jake 1994). In an attempt to provide an general theoretical explanation of the sociolinguistic and pragmatic aspects of code-switching, Myers-Scotton (1993) proposes a theoretical model called "Markedness Model". In very general terms, Myers-Scotton argues that most code-switching is to negotiate a social situation, and code-switching is viewed as a socially functional phenomenon which occurs with the speaker's intention. It remains Myers-Scotton's argument that there are socio-psychological motivations behind code-switching. The basic theoretical assumptions of Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model are that interaction types in every conversational situation are conventionalised and have relatively fixed schemata about the role relations between speakers. The schemata are the unmarked "rights-and-obligation sets" (RO sets) for particular interaction types. A speaker may comply with the unmarked RO set on the basis of non-linguistic conditions, such as her/his identity, degree of formality, that is, she/he may choose the unmarked code during a conversation; or she/he may wish to establish a new RO set by using a marked one to maintain or change the relations between themselves.

In code-switching, if the speaker uses the unexpected code to achieve a strategic effect in conversation, then this phenomenon is called "code-switching as a marked choice". If, however, the speaker conforms to the expected one to maintain a desired situation or meaning, this is called "code-switching as an unmarked choice".

In this model, speakers appear to switch between codes in accordance with the purpose of the conversation, and they switch codes as they wish to do "some social work (1993: 100). In the words of Myers-Scotton: "... all code choices can ultimately be explained in terms of such speaker motivations" (p. 113). To a very large extent, Myers-Scotton wants her model to have validity for all multilingual communities in which code-switching is an aspect of daily linguistic behaviour. The following sections will use the Markedness Model to explain the code-switching of personal pronouns.

The motivation for code-switching of personal pronouns

I have observed that a number of the subjects were very adept at avoiding the use of linguistic forms in the Vietnamese system of person reference in certain contexts. Specifically, the subjects frequently used me and you for addressor and addressee references when the status of the referents appears to be ambiguous: between those whose ages are different while (social) status is similar (i. e. engineer/social worker), or between those who do not know each other well enough to establish a relationship. The significance of the use in personal pronouns can be highlighted in the utterances below:

(A) Setting: Exchanges between younger sister and her elder brother:

The use of the kinship term anh in (3) pragmatically implies respect for and solidarity with the addressee. When "elder brother" turned down his sister's request, the use of the personal pronoun you in (5) immediately negates the previous implication. At the same time, 73F79 used the kinship term em 'younger sibling' in referring to her younger brother H (third party) to pragmatically imply slightly greater solidarity with the third party than with the addressee. In other words, the shift from the frequent use of the kinship term anh to English personal pronoun you implies at least a temporary negation of the solidarity and affectionate kinship relation between the addressor and the addressee in this interactional context.

Consider another example from the interview data:

By replacing the Vietnamese personal pronoun tôi 'I' by English pronouns you and me, the addressor in (6) avoided using the serious implication of the Vietnamese personal pronoun tôi, to indicate, either on a permanent or temporary basis, his preparedness to be interviewed.

Thus, in certain speech context, the addressor switches from a Vietnamese address term to English personal pronoun to signal a change in her/his attitude toward the addressee. To further elaborate this point, consider the following examples:

(B) Setting: The female informant (66F84) wanted to borrow her friend's (69F78) book:

66F84 is a university student who missed two lectures. She went to her friend 69F78's home to borrow a computer manual. This conversation was recorded by 69F78.

At first, 66F84 uses the personal pronouns tao 'I' and mày 'thou/thee' to construct an informal solidarity with the addressee. It should be recalled that the use of addressor-and-addressee reference pair tao ... mày can communicate either informal solidarity or the negation of solidarity. Its usage depends on the relationship between the speakers. In (7), 66F84's linguistic usage of tao ... mày is appropriate in light of her social relationship with 69F78, who is expected to comply with 66F84's request. When 66F84's request is turned down, 66F84 uses the common noun cô (aunt/miss) instead of the previously used personal pronouns tao and mày. The use of cô immediately implies at least a temporary negation of the affectionate friendship relation. 66F84 also attempts to distance herself from her friend by switching to the English personal pronoun me, which is followed by an English sentence.

This is not the end of the story. At this point, one may wonder: Why is it that 66F84 did not switch to another term of Vietnamese reference system, which in itself is rich in both lexical items and meaning, instead of switching to the English personal pronoun me which is pragmatically neutral? The possible answer lies in the regularities in the use of Vietnamese personal reference.

As seen in setting (B), 66F84 sets off the conversation by using the personal pronouns tao ... mày for addressor and addressee references. The use of these linguistic forms implies not only stable solidarity but also the congruence between the participants because the first person tao in its self-reference use co-occurs with the second person mày, not with any common noun or any other personal pronoun. In the light of the rule regulating the use of these linguistic forms, 66F84's use of cô for addressee reference would indicate the denial of the co-membership of the addressor and the addressee. As a matter of fact, the use of such common nouns as cô 'Miss' or bà 'Mrs' between speakers of equal status, such as between friends or husband/wife, for addressee reference is usually to negate the solidarity nature of a closed relation. In general, the shift from one personal reference term to another marks the change in the addressor's attitude. Along the same lines, the switch from cô - a term which had already marked the negation of the closed relation in this speech context - to English personal pronoun me can be seen as a device that is used to emphasise the intense conflict between the speakers.

According to the basic assumption of the Markedness Model, the meaning of code-switching arises as either a conventional (unmarked) or unconventional (marked) choice for the speech context in which it occurs. To Myers-Scotton, code-switching is at the service of individual's intentions, and individual's intentions are the basis of all communicative meaning. In line of Myers-Scotton's argumentation, in setting (B), 66F84's knowledge of the unmarked RO set can be seen through the use of personal pronouns tao ... mày at the outset of the conversation. The regularities in the use of address terms in Vietnamese require that a specific pair of address terms (personal pronouns with personal pronouns, kinship terms with kinship terms) should be consistently co-concurrent to maintain the established relations between speakers, or can be changed at the addressor's intention to create a desired situation. When 66F84 switched to English, she tries to establish a new role relationship between herself and her friend. Thus the function of marked choice noted by Myers-Scotton is fulfilled in this conversational context.

The following examples render support to Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model:

(C) Setting: A son (76M88) tells his father (40M88) about a car accident in which he hit another car.

In setting (C), the use of the personal pronoun cha by 76M88 implies hostility towards its referent. The form cha is either rude or denotes the greatest possible deference to the referent. In comparison to any other form of third person reference, cha indexcically marks the speaker's deference to the third party.

To reinforce his negative perception of the man whose fault the accident was, 76M88 a moment later adds the form thang to cha (thang cha). Thang is exclusively used to refer to young boys. The combination of thang and cha underlies the strong deference to the third party in this conversation. According to the rule of name rectification which regulates the choice of verbal behaviour, the younger must use appropriate address terms for reference to the older. His father (40M88) notices the usage of this combined form, and wants to clarify the identity of the man by asking about his age. Being aware of the inextricable relations of person reference terms to interactional contexts, 76M88 switched to the English personal pronoun he. 76M88's code-switching may have a dual purpose. Firstly, to deliberately negate the address terms he has just used. Secondly, to avoid repeating using an inappropriate terms in reference to an older person. In this way, 76M88 places himself in a lower status vis-a-vis the third party in terms of age distance.

76M88's awareness of the pragmatic effects of linguistic usage in further evident in that he switched from he to the form ông  for the third party reference. The code-switching in setting (C) is clearly indicative of some kind of "social motivation" - to use Myers-Scotton's terms, and is an instance of "code-switching as a marked choice".

A similar case is in the speech of 72F79 in setting (D). In this example, 72F79 relates a fictional story about a girl whose face is badly scarred for life after having been attacked with the solution of acid. By asking if the girl in the story is a victim of an affair, the interviewer wants to know whether this is the reason why someone threw acid at the girl. The question was raised because at the outset of the conversation, 72F79 uses the third person cô, which would refers to a young female, not to a girl aged seven or eight. 72F79 immediately corrects her speech by switching to the English personal pronoun she, which is understood as a general term for a female regardless of age in English. 77F79 then keeps repeating the English personal pronoun she to the girl for the rest of the conversation. It seems as if the repetition of she can be conceived as being purposeful and rational to reaffirm the principal character in the story: the seven year old girl, not anyone else who is qualified to be addressed as cô. In other words, the use of she is the linguistic equivalent of creating the position of the girl without taking a risk of violating the regularities in the use of Vietnamese person reference terms.

As demonstrated in examples in examples (3) and (6), when a new speech situation arises during the conversation, the speakers shift from one type of Vietnamese address term to another or switch to English personal pronouns. Their code-switching is in line with what Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model would expect: code-switching signals the addressor's intention to change the social relationship with the addressee; in Myers-Scotton's view, it negotiates identities by means of code choices. A similar interpretation can be applied to example (7). In this example, the Vietnamese personal pronouns mày ... tao prevailing at the outset of the conversation can be seen as an instance of informal exchange between friends. When 66F84 switches to English, she wants to change the role relations. In Myers-Scotton's term, 66F84 switches to "negotiate" greater social distance than is normative in this situation whereas 69F78 keeps using the informal (Vietnamese) form of address (tao) to maintain the role relationship which she prefers to prevail.

The remaining examples can also be interpreted as instances of code-switching as a marked choice. In settings (C) and (D), the speakers switch to English personal pronouns to negotiate the status of the referred third parties. In (C), status refers to the age of the referent whereas in (D) it refers to the third party's gender.

Conclusion

It has been recognised in the code-switching literature that code-switching is a universal phenomenon in multilingual communities, but its functions vary between communities. Taking into account this observation and the specific characteristic of the overall picture of speech interaction in Vietnamese bilingual speakers in Melbourne, this paper has attempted to explain the occurrence of pronoun code-switching in the following ways:

Firstly, it has presented the rule-governed uses of linguistic forms in the Vietnamese system of person reference. In Vietnamese, as in a number of other languages (see Sifianou 1992), the use of appropriate address terms is indispensable to every utterance in all speech contexts. Its use is inextricably related to extralinguistic factors such as personal identity, age, gender, degree of solidarity and co-operation. Not only does its use designate the participants, but it also concurrently creates interactional contexts. In terms of Myers-Scotton's Markedness Model, the appropriate use of person reference forms is the unmarked rights-and-obligations set. The presentation of the Vietnamese system of person reference is thus an important step towards applying the Markedness Model in analysing the code-switching of personal pronouns in this study.