Critical approaches to LPP—A reflection on language policy making

        Language, Power, and Society

                                                                                         Yang ke

As the human being in the society, nobody can escape the social, cultural, political and economical influences from the outer world. The only difference is how much influence he or she receives. Viewing the structures of the economic, the political, and the social as subtext, Jameson states that the subtext not merely as a passive ground which the text reflects or as a series of determinate contradictions but as a “political unconscious” (Jameson 20). “Everything is ‘in the last analysis’ political” (Jameson 20). It is from this understanding of history and other narratives about ideological influences that I combine Hymes’ ideas on speech and language (1996) with the English education realities and practices in China.

According to Hymes (1996), language can be seen as a set of resources which is available to human beings and is deployed in variable circumstances. It is important to realize that every act of language use is interacted with all kinds of social and cultural factors. So whenever people intend to study language, he or she should think carefully and seriously. In his essay Speech and language: on the origins and foundations of inequality among speakers (1996, chapter 3), Hymes shows the readers the differences between a linguistic notion of language and an ethnographic notion of speech, which leads to the further understandings towards the language actual use in society.

Hymes states that in terms of “adaptive growth” (Hymes 1996 17), “languages are potentially equal” (Hymes 1996 17). Since “all languages are equally adapted to the needs of those who use them” (Hymes 1996 17), the practical usages and different needs deeply situate language in a web of relations of power. Thus inequalities came into being and affect the development of languages consequently. This is especially true in understanding the role of English in communist China.

Today, it is an undeniable fact that English has become a global lingua franca (Crystal, 2003; Kachru, 1998, 2005). As the most commonly spoken foreign language, language of media, technology, and science, English is taught and learned all around the world. No exception in China. Although China shifts its emphasis on English education only after 1979 when the Cultural Revolution ended, after more than three decades’ effort and Chinese’s desire to increase the country and themselves’ competitiveness in the world, the number of English learners in China is over 300 million and keeps rising. Scholars (Crystal, 2008, p.5) state that mainland China has the largest English-leaning population in the world. In addition, English has become the only foreign language which is taught and learned in primary and middle school in China. In contrasting with the prosperous English study phenomena, after a thorough research, I think most of the foreigners will be surprised by the efforts been put by Chinese students in their several years’ English study, but they will also be shocked by the ineffectiveness of Chinese students’ English learning process.

In relation to common Chinese’s diverse responses to English study and compulsory social requirements for English certificate, the prosperous English learning atmosphere was created and keeps creating by Chinese government’s language policy in English education. I could not help thinking whether this will affect Chinese’s sense of national identity and the use of mother tongue. According to the theories of modern linguistics, language is not only a tool or a media, but a basic structure, it has the ability to organize new words and to restrict the human’s thinking structure, thinking mode. So the prevailing English study in China can be said as a reform happens with the language and should attract scholars’ attention and further study.

Bibliography:

Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language (2^nd ed). Cambridge: Chambridge University Press.

David Crystal presents the readers very informative accounts of the rise of English as a global language from the perspectives of history, current status and potential of English as the international language of communication. In terms of the future of English as a world language, English on the Internet, and the possibility of an English "family" of languages, the author gives detailed demonstrations and explanations. He also alerts the native speakers to think about their future positions in this global English-speaking world.

Crystal, David (2008). Two thousand million? English Today, 24 (1), 3-6.

Hymes, D. (1996). Speech and language: on the origins and foundations of inequality among speakers. In Ethnography, Linguistics and Narrative Inequality: Toward an Understanding of Voice (pp. 25 – 62). London: Taylor and Francis.

Jameson, Fredric. (1981) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Kachru, B. (1998). English as an Asian Language. Links & Letters, 5, 89-108.

Kachru, B. (2005). Asian English beyond the canon. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

In terms of further understandings of world Englishes, Braj Kachru demonstrates valuable insights on the forms and functions of English in Asia, its acculturation and nativization, and the innovative dimensions of Asian creativity. Kachru believes that anglophones in Asia have the right to determine the direction of their own varieties of English. He is for the idea that Asians have the right to establish their own canons of English and correctness.

Tollefson, J. W. (1991). Revolutionary language policy. In Planning language, planning inequality: language policy in the community (pp.136 – 166). New York: Longman.