Discourses on ‘authenticity’: language ideology, ethnic boundaries, and Tibetan identity on a multi-ethnic campus

ABSTRACT

This paper examines Tibetan ethnicity by studying the language ideologies among Tibetan students and their persistent roles in shaping ethnic boundaries at a Minzu University (MU). MU attracts the highest achieving ethnic minority students throughout China and explicitly aims to turn them into patriotic minority cadres. Hosting extremely heterogeneous Tibetans from different dialect groups, MU is an ideal field for studying inter-ethnic relations and in-group interactions among Tibetans. Ethnographic data reveals that Tibetan language has been a significant ethnic boundary marker and a crucial toolkit for ethnic empowerment. On one hand, it has been used as an exclusive way of distinguishing between ‘pure’ and ‘non-pure’, ‘authentic’ and ‘fake’ Tibetans, the latter of which are discriminated against on campus by both Tibetan and Han students. On the other hand, Tibetan language has been conveniently appropriated by the so-called authentic Tibetans to organise many ethnic cultural practices, resist the marginalisation of the Tibetan group, and achieve a higher ethnic status. Yet, Tibetans’ discourses on ‘authenticity’ are rooted in the same principles of alterity and hierarchy under which minorities are subject to by the majority, that they unavoidably marginalise and stigmatise certain ‘non-standard’ yet culturally Tibetan populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic identity
• language ideology
• ethnic boundary
• authenticity
• Tibetan

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Dr. Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, Dr. Gerald Roche, Dr. Timothy Thurston and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions. Great thanks to Tenzin Dorjee and Tashi Phuntsok for their permissions to use the photos.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 All names are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of individuals or organizations.

2 As of 2016, there were 15,841 full-time students, including 11,270 undergraduates, 4,386 postgraduate students, and 185 ethnic minority preparatory students. Fifty percent of the overall undergraduate students are ethnic minorities.

3 There are debates whether these are dialects or languages. Tournadre (2014) considers ‘Tibetic’ a useful replacement for the notion of ‘Tibetan dialects’, which he considers inappropriate for various reasons. Hyslop (2014) develops a similar argument by detailing the typological characteristics of the bodic subfamily of Tibeto-Burman. Throughout the paper, I adopt an emic perspective of Tibetan informants by considering these as Tibetan dialects.

4 Some informants also used expressions such as བོད་རིགས་གཙང་མ། or བོད་རིགས་གཙང་གཙང་།.

5 ‘Language’ in this paper refers to both spoken and written language if there is no further explanation.

6 Qinghai education plan for 2010–2020, http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s5520/201104/117415.html. accessed March 10, 2017.

7 It literally means ‘neither goat nor sheep’. It is a derogatory term used to refer to hybrids. The designer uses it to remind Tibetan students not to use Tibetan-Chinese mixed speech. Since I have lost contact with the original designers, I could not use the picture without permission. I use a similar picture designed by Tenzin Dorjee.

8 Notification on the working plan of ‘win and gather the heart of ethnic minorities’, http://www.gem.gov.cn/html/762/99637.html. accessed on February 24, 2018.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Sciences Foundation [grant number 15CSH039].