Once upon a time: A temporal study of storytelling in a multilingual community

Abstract

This research examines the changing nature of the stories shared with children in families of Vietnamese ancestry now living in Sydney. The study aims to understand everyday storytelling practices and to explore the significance of the stories developed over the lifetimes of family members. It is a temporal study of evolving language use within a contemporary, multilingual community. Sociocultural traditions of learning and language use provide the theoretical foundations for this research, offering insights into the ways that families use storytelling as a social and cultural activity. Ecological theories inform the analysis of change in contemporary transnational societies, providing a framework for the temporal dimensions of experience, including both chronological, clock time and a non-linear, personal notion of time to account for the acquisition and employment of storytelling resources within the family. The methodology adopts ethnographic and ecological approaches, analyzing participants’ perceptions of changes to and variability within their storytelling practices. Data were collected through a combination of semi-structured interviews, participant observation in a play group and the recording of storytelling in the home. A chronosystem research model (Bronfenbrenner, 1986) provides a framework for analysis, allowing for consideration of changes within the person and their environment, and especially the dynamic relation between these two processes. Storytelling offers educators valuable insights into the home and community resources of students, information which can strengthen and enrich school language programs and counter the deficit view that marginalizes linguistic skills and risks English language learners’ underperformance in language and literacy. Stories told to Vietnamese–Australian children reflect the complex pattern of meanings constructed of experiences and trajectories over time and space within a globalized society. Storytelling represents some of the rich literacy learning that occurs within the home, providing opportunities for children to learn about their heritage languages and the traditions and histories of close and extended families.