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Language Policies in Modern-day Vietnam: Changes, Challenges and

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Language, Education and
Nation-building
Assimilation and Shift in Southeast Asia

Edited by

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Newcastle University, UK

and

Ruanni Tupas
National Institute of Education, Singapore

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11
Language Policies in Modern-day
Vietnam: Changes, Challenges
and Complexities
Plian Le Ha, Vu Hai Ha and Bao Dat
Vietnam has a population of approximately 87 million, consisting of
54 ethnic groups, among which the Kinh account for 87 per cent of
the population, with the rest making up around 11 million people
(13 per cent of the total population), who speak about 100 languages
(Dinh 2010). Among the 11 million people, more than one million
are of Chinese and Khmer descent (Kosonen 2004). Vietnamese, the
language of the Kinh group, has been the common language among
Vietnamese in the country, at least since 1945. Across all these commu
nities it is estimated that over 100 languages are spoken (Lavoie 2011),
although many of these languages did not have writing systems until
recently. Ten ethnic languages are used by over one million speakers in
each group; and it was regulated by national language policy that users
of these languages are entitled to bilingual education. These groups
include Tay Nung, H'mong, Muong, Cham, Khmer and Jrai, among
others (Bui 2003). These languages have been put to official use at
cultural events as well as being used as media for broadcasts on televi
sion and radio news. The Vietnamese Constitution, of 1946 and 1992,
stated that all minority groups have the right to maintain their mother
tongues in their schooling as well as to use their languages to preserve
their ethnic cultures and values.
Up until the 13th century, 'Chinese with its Han script was used as
the [only] official language' in Vietnam (Pham 1991, 1994; cited in
Do 2006, p. 2). In the 1.3th century an adapted writing system known
as Nom was initiated making use of new phonetic elements to denote
the tones in the Vietnamese language. Nom was created in such a way
that it was 'unintelligible to the Chinese' to symbolize Vietnam's lin
guistic independence from China (Do 2006, p. 2). This modification
allowed the language to be widely employed in poetry and literature
232
Language Policies in Modern-day Vietnam 233
creation. A fair amount of Vietnamese vocabulary, including classic
metaphors, were adopted and adapted from neighbouring languages
during the ancient era and were fundamentally restructured to reflect
the Vietnamese phonetic system and cultural experience. The Chinese
language was used in the educational system of feudal Vietnam until
the early 20th century. In the 17th century a number of European
Jesuit missionaries travelled to Vietnam to spread Christianity. To
facilitate communication for this mission, they initiated the creation
of a coding method to record the Vietnamese phonetic system in
Romanized script, called Quae Ngu. With this addition, up to the early
20th century in Vietnam, there co-existed three writing systems in the
administration comprising Han, Nom, and QuocNgu. The roles of these
scripts changed overthe years with a number of nationalist movements
promoting the Romanized script since this system was user-friendly
enough for reducing illiteracy, common among a large percentage in
the population at that time. During the French colonization period,
]858_1945( the Chinese language declined in use, until almost dis
appearing, in Vietnamese education. The Vietnamese language, as a
medium of instruction, played a marginal role in the education system
during this period (Do 2006).
Following Vietnam's independence from the French, in 1945,
Vietnamese gained its official position as the national language and as
the medium of instruction across the education system. It is the first
language of the majority of Vietnamese and the second language of 54
ethnic minority groups across the nation. The Vietnamese Constitution
of 1992 also made it clear that alongside minority languages the
Vietnamese language was to be taught and learnt to foster national
harmony (MOET 2006). In addition, the language is spoken by around
three million overseas Vietnamese in over 20 different countries in Asia
Pacific, Europe and North America, and is ranked among the 50 most
widely spoken languages in the world (Geographic 1996).
Vietnamese as a national language since 1945
Vietnamese plays a key role in conserving national linguistic and cul
tural heritage, bringing the 54 ethnic groups of the country together
and being the key language of the national curriculum and publications.
During the French colonial period, Vietnamese was not recognized as
the sole national and official language in administration and education
despite strong movements against the imposition of the French lan
guage (Do 2006). With Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence on
234 Plum Le Ha, Vit Hai Ha and Bao Dai
2 September 1945, Vietnamese gained its official status as the national
language in all spectrums of life, putting an end to French colonization
and linguistic dominance in the country for nearly a century.
Following the Geneva Accord, 1954, the country was partitioned into
Nortli and South Vietnam. With this partition, the linguistic panorama
of the country grew more complex, evident in a number of language
reforms (versus preservation movements) in the two respective terri
tories (Gayle 1994; Pham 1991; Do 2006). In South Vietnam until the
early 1970s there were avant-garde attempts among scholars to reform
the writing system including proposals to remove diacritic marks from
the script, allegedly as a means to move away from the Northern politi
cal system and French influence on the language. This phenomenon is
comparable to American English in the USA or Rap in New York City:
the American accent was artificially modified as an attempt to resist the
socio-cultural and political influence of Britain. Rap with its enhanced
speed and hyperbole can be political and not just musical. The reform
movement, however, led to a decade-long stalemate, without practical
results and thus the writing system remained unmodified. In the mean
time, North Vietnam saw a general tendency to retain the original writ
ten language form as it was and consistently promoted Vietnamese as
the medium of instruction at all levels of the educational system (Trtfemg
Ba Can 1992). This promotion of Vietnamese not only aimed to unify
the country's sense of national identity but also hoped to serve as a
foundation for the full development of Vietnamese as the language of
science, technology, culture and other aspects of communication.
During this period, the role of foreign languages taught and used
in the country, such as English and French in the South and Russian
and Chinese in the North, had an impact on the life of the national
language. In the South, the bilingual use of state documentation in
English and Vietnamese was official and mandated, while Russian and
Chinese were only used instrumentally, and limitedly, as school subjects
in urban areas in the North. These opposed foreign language policies in
North and South Vietnam resulted in fundamental differences in the
ways Vietnamese, as the national language, was promoted in the two
regions respectively. While in the South the integrated elements of
foreign language and culture pervaded many socio-cultural, economic,
educational and political domains of public and individual life, in
the North the promotion of Vietnamese as the sole national language
played a role in strengthening Vietnam's national independence and
cultural identity as well as reclaiming the richness of Vietnamese classic
and modern-day cultural values embedded in the language.
Language Policies in Modern-day Vietnam 235
Over the past 30 years the role of English and other international
languages has had a slow but significant impact on the language and
culture landscape of Vietnam. Since the reunification of the country
in 1975, the role ofVietnamese as the national language has been consist
ently promoted by the unified central government of Vietnam throughout
the countryand remains the only official language in Vietnam. Language
reforms from the late 1950 to the 1980s aimed to expand and enrich the
lexicons of the Vietnamese language in different domains of lifeto accom
modate the wider world of 'progress', while minimizing the useof foreign
lexical loans, and thiscanbesaid to have had considerable positive effects
in the long run (M. H. Le & O'Harrow 2007, p. 432). The Vietnamese
language has been developed to try and ensure the three qualities of
being 'national', 'popular' and 'scientific'. Though these qualities do not
necessarily work in harmony nor are they clearly defined (ibid., p. 433),
they certainly raise awareness of national language building and call
for the 'domestication' of foreign words. It is the latter that can help
justify the approval of foreign language learning while maintaining a
cautious attitude towards their excessive use, to try and safeguard the
Vietnamese language's privileged position, at least in formal domains.
Language policies in relation to minority languages
in Vietnam since 1945
Vietnam's language policy is fairly open, with encouragement for lin
guistic and cultural heritage preservation. After 1945 when Vietnam
gained independence from the French, the state promoted the
Romanized Vietnamese language (Qitoc Ngu) and adopted a language
policy which unified the country in maintaining ethnic languages
through incorporating minority languages in the national curriculum
as compulsory components at primary educational levels in bilingual
and multilingual areas of the country (Archibald 1988; Bui 2003). In
1960 the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North
Vietnam) regulated the need to maintain the traditions, culturesand use
of all the mother tongues in both verbal and written forms to preserve
cultural heritage among minority groups. In 1980 the state issued a
new policy known as Decision 53 CT, on 22 Feb 1980, which encour
aged research and training to help develop bilingual and multilingual
education in Vietnam. The initials 'CT' stand for the words 'Chinh Tri'
which literally means 'Politics' and which refers to the Political Bureau
where policies are initiated and implementation documents are written.
In the 1970s in South Vietnam, a number of linguistic scholars in the
236 Plum Le Ha, Vu Hai Ha and Bao Dat
Ministry of Education, with the support of the USA's Summer Institute
of Linguistics, created writing systems for a number of ethnic languages
in an effort to prevent them from vanishing. To date, 21 ethnic lan
guages have gained their own orthographies, of which six are consid
ered especially long-established languages in Vietnam, including Cham,
Khmer and Thai, mostly located in the Northwest part of the country.
According to a more recent official document, 30 minority languages
now have orthographies (Dinh 2010). The Vietnamese Constitution in
1992 in its Article for primary educational law maintains that curricula
at the primary school level must be taught in Vietnamese but students
of other ethnic backgrounds have the right to employ their own lan
guages in education (Bui 2003). More recently, the Education Law of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2005 reaffirms that 'the State shall enable
ethnic minority people to learn their spoken and written languages in
order to preserve and develop their ethnic cultural identity..' (Article 7).
Although efforts at all levels throughout Vietnam have been made to
retain ethnic cultures and languages and a number of intellectuals are
taking leadership rolesin their ethnic communities to support the main
tenance and development of their languages, there remain at least three
major issues. First, progress remains very modest, related largelyto access,
equity and excellence (Giacchino-Baker 2007), among other reasons. These
include individual and institutionalized negative stereotypes against
minority students, and teachers' and administrators' biased attitudes
towards their relatively deprived academic backgrounds. Other reasons
point to the remote settings and 'perceived' low level of development
among many minority groups throughout Vietnam, and the taken-for-
granted impracticality of maintaining all minority languages while the
need to improve their economic conditions seems to be more urgent
(Giacchino-Baker 2007; Iran 2006). To make the situation worse, as
indicated by Dinh (2010, p. 1), 'few [Vietnamese Kinh ethnic] teachers
can communicate in ethnic minority languages. Most teachers do not
have the skills and capacity to teach Vietnamese as a second language;
many government officials see the teaching of Vietnamese to ethnic
minority children as early as possible as the best way to alleviate the
situation.' Bui (2003) confirms this reality.
Second, there is a gap between policy and practice. Bilingual educa
tion has been promoted by the government with support from interna
tional organizations, including UNICEF, the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) and the World Bank (WB). The most recent project, known as
the MOET-UNICEF's Action Research on Mother Tongue-based Bilingual
Education (MTBBE) (2008-2015), is in place and is being implemented
Language Policies in Modern-day Vietnam 237
in three provinces among H'mong,Jrai and Khmer communities in the
North, the Highlands and the South of Vietnam, respectively (Dinh
2010; UNICEF-MOET 2011). This project proposes that MTBBE be intro
duced at preschool and primary school levels in these areas to balance
the use of both Vietnamese ethnic languages in educational settings and
to hopefully unify education for the whole nation. The project has been
reported with positive outcomes that serve as the springboard for the
continuation of the next phase of implementation, which is teacher-
training, materials development and capacity-building at all levels.
However, this 'flagship' project appears to be very modest, given the
complex language picture across Vietnam; and most minority languages
are still struggling. To exemplify this, Bui (2003) makes it clear that the
intended bilingual curriculum promoted by official governmental poli
cies has not been fully implemented and that the number of teaching
hours in schools is limited. Besides, not only are there not many teach
ers who can teach bilingually but there is also virtually no systematic
academic training for bilingual teachers. Therefore, it has been proposed
that bilingual teacher training be implemented at different key locations
where there is a high population density. Also, Bui (2003) puts forward
that more educational policy and practice initiatives need to be intro
duced to facilitate ethnic groups' maintenance and reproduction of their
cultures that realistically reflect the socio-historical and linguistic situa
tions of their languages. Without these being mandated, the third issue
may become more critical, which is attrition among manyof Vietnam's
ethnic languages. It can be inferred from published documents (such
as Bui 2003; Dinh 2010; MOET 2006) that there have been many more
attempts to teach Vietnamese to minority students and to integrate
them into mainstream education (with Vietnamese being the language
of instruction) than attempts at maintenance of minority languages.
The current role of English in Vietnam: opportunities
and challenges
Vietnam has witnessed the rise and fall of a number of dominant for
eign languages over the past 2000 years. In various parts of the coun
try foreign languages including English, Chinese, French and Russian
respectively have each enjoyed dominant status during previous peri
ods. Across the nation after the Vietnamese government introduced an
open-door policy in 1986, English gradually took over the functions
(and significance) of Russian, following the dissolution of the former
Soviet Union which consequently had reduced influence over Vietnam.

238 Plum Le Ha, Va Hai Ha and Bao Dat
Most relevant to foreign language prospects, as Gayle (1984) remarked,
were the less 'xenophobic' policies that extended diplomatic relation
ships with the 'Western' world, many of which use English as a or the
(co-)official language. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991, the end of Cold War with a shift towards the right in politics
and increasing levels of globalization, English has gradually replaced
Russian as the most popular foreign language, introduced at all levels of
education; and a series of official documents and decrees have ensued to
officially acknowledge its role and status in Vietnam (Phan Le Ha 2008,
p. 83). The early 1990s witnessed an explosive growth in the demand for
English language, in 'an official acknowledgement of the role and status
of English' (Do Huy Thinh 1999, p. 2) and in a requirement that gov
ernment officials study foreign languages, usually English. Do (1999,
p. 2) states emphatically that 'in contemporary Vietnam, there has never
been a stronger, clearer decision concerning foreign language education
policy and planning made at the highest-level (sic) authority.' To name
just a few, English has been decreed to be the 'chief foreign language
to promote among state managers and employees (Vo 1994), a compul
sory subject for the majority of secondary students (V. C. Le 1999) and
has tended to be introduced at an earlier age (Tsui & Tollefson, 2007b),
from the third grade (T Nguyen 2009); and teaching the language
has been coupled with images of 'desirability' and 'fashionability' in
contemporary Vietnam (Phan Le Ha 2008, p. 3). Just as in the south
of the country, during 1955-1975, English has become the language of
educational opportunities and employment prospects, yet on a much
larger scale and at an official level in today's Vietnam. Although English
in Vietnam does not seem to directly signify social class, it does act as
a gatekeeping tool in society, particularly with regard to employment
and education. Many jobs require a certificate in English, and promo
tion at work now has English proficiency as a criterion (Nunan 200.3).
The high status of English has thus resulted in those who do not have
sufficient competency in the language feeling excluded from positions
which may lead to power.
It would be naive to believe that English could be circumscribed by
governmental regulations or thrust upon Vietnamese by mischievous
'Western' forces. Despite the nationalist fervour that persistently coun
tenances national languages, there is hardly any country not affected
by processes of globalization and, thereby, the English language. In
certain Asian countries, such as Pakistan and Malaysia for instance,
English was supplanted gradually with Urdu and Malay, respectively.
In Malaysia, the status of English has been consolidated, through its
Language Policies hi Modem-day Vietnam 239
widespread use as a medium of instruction (Simpson 2007, p. 15). In
Vietnam, before the 'Doi Moi' (revitalization) policies, when English
was stigmatized as the language of the 'enemies', during the era of the
anti-American war, English language learning and teaching still found
a way to proliferate. Gayle (1994, pp. 287-288) offers a number of
examples where Vietnamese learners could find ways to learn English
without necessarily flouting the directives of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam in the North, such as through the BBC or Voice of America
(VoA) radio, or the provision of scholarships for students to study
English in Asian (rather than 'Western') countries. Nowadays, English
is extending its reach to ethnic minorities in Vietnam. Different writers
and researchers (H. H. Pham 2004; Pham & Lam 1999; Vu, Le, Chu &
Tran 2007) have all pointed out that, due to the expansion of tour
ism, ethnic minority children in Sapa (a town in Lao Cai province, in
Northwest Vietnam), despite limited formal education, currently enjoy
authentic and naturalistic acquisition of English given wide exposure to
tourists and can demonstrate impressively fluent English speaking skills
alongside their own ethnic language, while their Vietnamese remains
very rudimentary.
These examples elaborate that such a language 'of the once colonizer'
or 'the once enemy' has been much more tolerated in times of globaliza
tion or, as Bianco (2003, p. 34) claims, that the revival of English from
a state of 'banishment' to a somewhat neutral tool of international
communication has become a widespread trend across Asia and Africa.
Despite refuting the assumed neutrality of languages, we would not
deny the radical changes in English language status in Vietnam, and
argue that such a shift has been facilitated by the attempts to 'neutral
ize' English, particularly by raising its imageas having pragmaticvalue,
as a key to success in a globalized age (Abhakorn 2003, p. 86). These
efforts have proven successful so far, as they skilfully mask the cultural
politics of English and have constructed a 'safe' space for the language
to thrive without apparently posing a threat to the national language.
Although English is being strongly promoted with the government's
recent ambitious language policy, which has mobilized around $US2
billion from governmental and non-governmental sources to imple
ment English language education at all levels startingat grade 3 by 2020,
this increasingly dominant role of English does not go without being
challenged. Concerns about language harmony and multilingualism in
Vietnam have been raised by academics and the public in the face of
the government's foreign language policy favouring English exclusively
(Phan 2007; Nguyen 2011). These concerns also point to a tendency
240 Plum Le Ha, Vu Hai Ha and Bao Oat
to make the Vietnamese language appear 'corrupted' and 'polluted' as
more and more people mix Vietnamese with English, in both formal
and informal settings. People worry that Vietnamese might lose its sta
tus as the language of knowledge transfer, when English is introduced
to school children at such an early age, in grade 3. Vietnamese cultural
identity could then be at risk if English and its associated cultures and
values 'conquer' Vietnam together with the rapid increase in the number
of people who learn the language in the country. These concerns are still
valid today. This is because although Northern and Southern Vietnam
in 1954 and 1975 might have adopted different views on the written
form of Vietnamese, since 1945 the Vietnamese people have consist
ently employed and promoted Vietnamese as the national language in
the country through which, despite political differences, a unified cul
tural national identity of Vietnam has been constructed and projected.
However, the picture is much more complicated than the black and
white question of whether or not Vietnam should promote English, and
whether or not Vietnamese is losing its official and dominant position.
The next and final section offers some insights into the issue.
Concluding remarks
Since 1945, the introduction of top-down interventions through
language policies and reforms has greatly assisted in the social as
well as historical construction and attachment of nationalism to the
Vietnamese language. In a continent where a national language is
strongly associated with nationalism, sometimes even considered
'sacred' (Simpson 2007, p. 17), and in a country which has undergone a
multitude of struggles and successfully deployed 'nationalism' as a pow
erful weapon against military and cultural invasions, nationalism and
the status of the Vietnamese language have remained relatively secure.
Thereby, M. H. Le & O'Harrow's concluding remarks (2007, p. 441) are
not without strong grounds:
Despite this increased interest in the outside world and the concomi
tant, perhaps inevitable, incorporation of foreign loans into Vietnamese
as it grows in the 21st century, it seems likely that Vietnamese will
remain very strong for the foreseeable future and continue to function
as one of Southeast Asian's most successful national languages.
We would venture a contradiction against the suggestion that 'giving
equal space to both the national language and the "foreign" language
Language Policies in Modern-day Vietnam 241
in the schooling system supposedly solves the dilemma' (Abhakorn
2003, p. 87), since the space for each is not equally distributed, in either
theoretical or practical terms. Thus, we contend that although English
is gaining more popularity in Vietnam, it remains a foreign language,
at least for the foreseeable future in Vietnam, not only because ol
the enormous clout of nationalist consciousness, but also for the fact
that English language education should not just be dealt with from a
'macro' level of culture and ideology only, but also at a 'micro' level of
pragmatic concerns such as teacher training, resources and curriculum,
which are predicaments and limitations today (V.C. Le 1999). This
understanding, however, does not mean that any effort that takes
the situation in the opposite direction will solve all problems. In fact,
various attempts and initiatives have been introduced to use English
as a medium of instruction on a smaller scale, notably the recent
16+23 Project of Vietnam National University (Hanoi). English was to
become the medium of instruction in a wide range of courses, includ
ing Vietnamese linguistics in English (Thanh 2010; VTO 2008). This
is not to mention the fact that while new generations of Vietnamese
students are expected to be competently bilingual to cope with courses
in English, many are not ready for the English-in-the-classroom ideal
since the quality of English language education in the country still
leaves much to be desired.
At this point, it could be concluded that English and Vietnamese
should hardly be seen as an either-or option in Vietnam today, just as
the globalization and nationalism they represent, respectively, are likely
to remain in a state of pull and push for the immediate future. It is
important to see from this chapter that they are not the only forces in
contemporary Vietnam. We need to see both sides of globalization and
nationalism and thus seek a new methodological approach that breaks
away from the prevalent 'global-local', 'them-us', 'English-Vietnamese'
binaries, or risk confining ourselves within what we would term a
'false dilemma' between cosmopolitanism and neo-colonization (Chen
2010). We thus stronglyview each Vietnamese person today as bringing
his or her own subjectivity to the positioning of the self among vari
ous trajectories. In the same vein, we see the principle task of a critical
educationist as implementing a process of 'conscientization' which can
be linked to Freire's (2009) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and 'developing
consciousness ... that is understood to have the power to transform
reality' (Taylor 1993, p. 52). It refers to critical awareness to help
individuals become proactive in their own negotiations of identities
and values, while being exposed to competing forces, including the
 242 Plum Le Ha, Vu Hai Ha and Bao Oat
English-Vietnamese language debates discussed above. Likewise, minor
ity languages in Vietnam appear likely to continue to play their roles in
the lives of ethnic communities and the country as a whole, while these
communities are likely to incorporate English language education into
their own education via their access to Vietnamese.
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Epilogue - The Dwindling
Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
of Southeast Asian Societies:
Comparative Reflections from an
Anthropological Perspective
Christian Giordano
For the most part, the chapters of this volume deal with the waning
linguistic diversity in Southeast Asia consequent to a centuries-old
process that may be defined as a 'long duration' one1 (Braudel 1958,
p. 725) because it basically spans three successive epochs but which,
nevertheless, should not be viewed as stages of a simplistic evolution
ary pattern. The first epoch is the colonization period, which affected
the entire area analyzed in this volume's chapters, concomitant with
the rise of the capitalist world-system that divided the world into a
dominant center, located in imperial and colonizing Europe, and sev
eral colonized and subaltern peripheries (Wallerstein 1974). The second
period relates to the subsequent nationalization of each of the region's
societies, especially after achieving independence. The third period cov
ers today's increased level of globalization that impacts Southeast Asia
significantly, as is also evidenced in the chapters of this volume.
The three periods are linked to each other since they share asymmetri
cal socioeconomic, political and cultural relations that hold between
Southeast Asian societies and the West, in this case represented chiefly
by specific European countries, viz., France, the Netherlands, Portugal,
Spain, the United Kingdom and, at a later stage, the USA. Asymmetry
has not only resulted in a centuries-old socioeconomic disparity in rela
tion to this book's themes, but also the political and cultural dominance
of the West over the entire Southeast Asian region. The politics of cul
tural imposition, specifically linguistic and educational, should not be
set apart from the more political and socioeconomic practices of domi
nation. In line with postcolonial theoretical approaches (e.g. Hall 1992;
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Bhabha 1994; Spivak 2008), this chapter discusses unequal relations
between hegemonic and subaltern societies during the three epochs
mentioned above. Southeast Asian subaltern societies, as is true of other
245