SOLL Staff Series: an Interview with Dr Trang Nguyen

Felicia Lee

Dr Trang Nguyen is an Australian Research Council DECRA fellow currently working on language discrimination of migrant communities in the Australian context. Trang’s passion to engage in issues of social justice and citizenship in relation to language can be observed in the research that she is involved in.

Felicia interviewed Trang about her research interests and projects, her success in the application of the DECRA, and her advice for aspiring researchers.

***

Could you tell us a little bit more about your background, and your research interests? Also, what are some motivations for you that led to the research interests that you’ve mentioned?

I began my career as a language teacher at a small college in a mountainous valley area of Vietnam. During that time, I had opportunities to work with a number of linguistic minority youth. When they were students in my classes, and started being aware of people speaking more than one language in my working and wider living environment. At that time, I thought that my minority students’ multiple languages might be a “problem” for their study and social integration, and that is a common mindset about linguistic minorities among majority people, including me, in the region, but it’s good that I no longer maintain that belief now!

Many years after, when I was doing my PhD at the University of Queensland, I grasped the idea of “language and identity” and brought these people into my research focus simply because of the feasibility of the proposed study’s data collection. That is, I could easily invite my former linguistic minority students to join my project as research participants. I didn’t have special motivations for choosing this or that topic for my PhD then. I didn’t even know that this study area would help expand my knowledge frontiers and engage me in broader research on multilingualism and linguistic diversity later on. I think the area you choose to work on when you are at an early stage of becoming a researcher is very important, as this may, to a certain extent, decide whether you want to go further with it after your PhD or not. I feel privileged to have entered the process of learning about how different languages function in society, institutions and people’s daily lives, that contributes to who I am now as a researcher.

In efforts of gaining more research experience, building my track record, and looking for opportunities post PhD, I expanded my reading and writing beyond the boundaries of the PhD themes, and touched whatever topics I felt relevant to the data I could utilise at that time, such as language and social cohesion, language management, or language policy, to name just a few. I then succeeded in getting a postdoc position where I could continue my research on multilingualism in a Sinophone context, but this time I focused on international students, who are also bilingual. I wrote about these people’s language learning/practices across intercultural zones, and their language ideologies in a neoliberal world. Recently, I have been engaging more directly with the issues of social justice and citizenship in relation to language.

After years of doing research, I feel that now I play around with a wee bit of (so many) different things. This is, probably, “breadth” rather than “depth” in terms of knowledge and expertise.

And what are some projects that you’re working on right now?

In the most recent project, I move on to the context of Australia, but keep working on my favourite research subjects – linguistic minority people who speak two or more than two languages, or “folk” bilinguals, in the words of Joshua A. Fishman in his book, who must learn the majority language to participate in the mainstream society. In Australia, recent migrants speaking English in the wider society and a language other than English at home can be categorised as folk bilinguals. Migrants’ language life in the host country is not always an easy or streamlined process. They may face barriers and discrimination because of the language(s) they use. When it comes to language discrimination, there are a lot of elements in it. But my major aim is to learn whether these people sometimes experience uncomfortable situations related to language, ranging from being verbally abused to feeling like they are treated unfairly, because of the language they use.

This sounds like a myth to many of us, but if we step out there, we will see that language discrimination does occur (and I am not the first researcher who attempts to explore this issue in the Australian context). However, language discrimination is still left understated and under-recognised by the public, compared with other forms of discrimination such as racism or sexism. But if language discrimination also has consequences for people’s wellbeing, similar to how racism or sexism does, we need to acknowledge its existence, and think about how to cope with it. Migrants’ feeling of being disconnected from the Australian (linguistic) community due to such discrimination may be one of these consequences. If I can provide some empirical evidence of this phenomenon through the project, this may be a good start for having strategies for dealing with the issue later on. It is important to make sure that migrants are well connected with their new homeland, and are not distracted by things such as discrimination, right?

***

Your research projects are so meaningful and I’m sure your research will help these minority linguistic communities gain a stronger voice. So let’s talk about the DECRA. What prompted you to apply for DECRA?

This is an interesting question. But if you want to stay here in the Australian academia, and you know a bit about how the system works and what may provide early career researchers here with some advantages in seeking out their future prospects, you will understand what may prompt many people to apply for the DECRA. The top reason is, the DECRA is a prestigious grant award that you can earn only once in your lifetime, of course. And is it cool to have a funded project on your favourite research topic, and work on it as part of your paid job?

What were some challenges that you faced while applying for the award, and how did you overcome them?

Perhaps the biggest challenge that I faced when I started thinking about applying for this award is, I had very limited knowledge of how Australian Research Council (ARC) grant applications should look like and what factors can make the applications attractive and strong to be considered for funding. I did not know many people around me who have experience with ARC (especially those within my research discipline) or who can provide me with detailed guidance on where I should direct my writing and what tips and hints I should apply to make my proposal compelling and stand out from the crowd. I was like a person groping around in the dark for something I did not know much about!

But it was a long learning process and at the end of the journey, no matter if you are successful with your application or not, you will gain some new skills, accumulate some new research ideas, and have an opportunity to reflect on yourself through the process of writing the proposal and arguing for your promising potential as a researcher.

What do you think contributed to the success of your application?

I think 90% of the success of a grant application is dependent on the quality of your project proposal and yourself as a highly capable researcher, and 10% comes from “the luck of the draw”. But how to show that to those who will examine and assess your application and persuade them that you stand out from other candidates, it’s an art! Not everyone can realise that 90%, so you may need tips and hints that help you “supercharge” your writing.

As I mentioned earlier, I had very limited knowledge of ARC applications so I just relied on colleagues. I reached out to colleagues and requested their feedback on my writing. I am the one who prepared the first draft of my application but the final draft was “polished” and completed by contributions from so many people. You can see, the success of this application is the fruit of intellectual exchange and endeavour, and I really appreciate colleagues’ generous involvement in the process. So if you write a similar application, don’t be shy, try to talk to people and ask for their help. To be successful at an early stage or any stages of your career, you can’t go alone, you need support from colleagues.

***

Finally, what advice would you give to early researchers or even PhD students who are keen to apply for the same award? Also, any general advice to aspiring researchers who are looking to stay in academia?

PhD students who are keen to apply for the same award? Well, I think the award is just an option in your career path post-PhD. Your PhD candidature is probably the best time where you can start thinking about if you like doing research or what else you will do after the PhD. If you do want to pursue a research career, I think it is really important to build a strong track record to stand out from others in today’s extremely competitive humanities and social sciences world.

I am an early career researcher with little experience in academia, and I may not be in the right position to provide “general advice” to other researchers. Perhaps senior academics can have better advice on how to successfully gain entry to and stay in academia. But I believe in one thing that, probably, applies to most people in their career path: “you are what you think”. I learnt these inspiring words from a senior colleague in an online discussion several years ago, which have become important life lessons for me. I can’t cite him here, but I may share some of his thoughts (and I believe that this is what he also wants to do to gently advise young people): no matter where you are from, what you did in the past, and who you are now, that’s not really important. What’s more important to you is: who you want to be in the future.

You are asking about me and my career, so I take myself as an example of the idea “you are what you think” (although I may not necessarily be a typical example): I imagined myself obtaining a PhD scholarship, and I did. I imagined myself turning my dream of studying abroad into reality, and I did. I imagined myself successfully completing the challenging PhD, and I did. I imagined myself getting a postdoc position in another country, and I did. I imagined myself winning one of the most prestigious research grants in Australia, and I did! I am never the best or the outstanding among my friends and colleagues. But I believe in the power of the mind, that can turn your wishes into objectives and help you to achieve them. Imagine who you want to be, then behave and conduct yourself precisely what you expect of that person. Either way you think, you will become. Here I need to say many thanks to the senior colleague again for these wonderful words!

Of course, things are not easy at all, and they are never easy. You can’t achieve something after a night. There will be a lot of hard work, struggles, challenges, failures, sadness, and disappointment. But just keep directing yourself towards the one you want to be. Those who do research on identity (including myself) may suggest that these imagining, thinking, expecting, and self-directing processes can be seen as constituents of one’s “constant quest for identity” where one is looking for their “ideal self”. So, have you ever asked yourself this question: what is my future ideal self?

Wow, I have never thought about it that way! I should definitely start imagining myself achieving greater things in life! Well, thank you so much for the very inspiring stories and words of wisdom that you’ve shared, Trang!

Thank you, Felicia.