Negotiating language ideologies in learning Putonghua: Myanmar ethnic minority students’ perspectives on multilingual practices in a borderland school

This case study investigates how a cohort of Myanmar ethnic minority students’ language ideologies shape their Putonghua learning and educational trajectories at government schools and Chinese supplementary schools in the borderland next to China. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and from the participants’ autobiographies on their language learning experiences. The findings indicate that Myanmar ethnic minority students are often linguistically and culturally excluded in government schools because of their lack of proficiency in the Burmese language. Yet having access to Putonghua and other Chinese-related resources provides them with an agentive strategy and capital to reposition themselves from being a disadvantaged ethnic minority group in a peripheral region to moving towards full inclusion and empowerment as part of China. The paper highlights the multiplicity and contested nature of language ideologies that mediate between learners’ language practices and social structures during socio-economic transformations. It also sheds light on Myanmar’s language policy-making and the expansion of China’s soft power through the increasing capital of Putonghua in the borderland of neighbouring countries.