The shadow of the shadow
Yang ke
It is interesting to find out what could be conveyed by languages, I mean the same things that have been demonstrated or talked by different languages at the same time. The news under the title of “Literacy and Development within China’s Minorities” by Alexandra Grey in The China Beat on March 20, 2012 and other articles written in Chinese are such a case.
After discussing the relationships among literacy, schooling, development and ethnic identity, Alexandra Grey states that “literacy is not a set of skills independently learnt regardless of context, nor is it simply synonymous with schooling”. Through comparing the illiteracy rates in minority-language population and their Han counterparts, the author concludes that discrimination against both minority cultures and their languages exists. Furthermore, the author argues that the Chinese government’s Mandarin language policy bring harms against ethic diversity, too. Although there are bilingual educations in minority areas, the twofold requirements sometimes make minority children either lack of minority language or Mandarin literary knowledge which will damage their sense of identity and overall development in the long run.
On the contrary, the reports and articles in Chinese newspaper and TV (http://news.eastday.com/china/kpyj/tpz/index.html http://58.131.64.3:8010/pgyw/xsdt/nr.jsp?code=pgyw_xsdt&id=ba03c083357ae76c01360eadae0c0011 ) which covered the same issue put their emphases on different aspects. Most of them paid more attention to the possible benefits which will be enjoyed by minority population due to Chinese government’s bilingual education. The main tune is let the whole country see the harmonious reality in China language education.
Frankly speaking, I experienced hard time in reading the newspaper articles about Chinese language policies recently due to the articles in Chinese and in English give me totally different pictures, which dragged me into the deep fog. In general, the articles written in Chinese I read recently more or less just advocate government language policy and appeal for the schools, government offices and the media to enhance awareness of a standard usage of Chinese—Mandarin (Putonghua). As the instructional language in schools, the official language in government and media and the basis of the writing system around the whole country of China, Mandarin overweighs other “dialects” in China.
Take the long history in which the land of China, territorially defined in various ways throughout the centuries and inhabited by people who speak differently into consideration, it is understandable that the Chinese government has been attempting to have one unified language and use this language standardization to achieve more efficiency and certainty in administrations and ties different nationalities together in the vast land. It seems here there is a strong connection between a common language and nationalism. According to Gellner (2006 49-59), the intervention of politics in language education can achieve some effects in unifying the state and the nation, it is true in China. To a certain extent, the unified Mandarin use in all works of life in China enables the society has more opportunities to develop and work with more efficiency. At the same time, people should also keep a clear mind in treating and keeping other dialects in China fairly.
As Hymes(1996) mentions, language covers all those aspects about power, identity, opportunities and nationalism. Unfortunately, the reality is the politics plays too much in China. Although there are debates as to whether those above-mentioned active standardization efforts may eventually render extinct various dialects and their associated cultural nuances, the politics and power play silence all those against voices.
The sociolinguist T. Yasuda (2006 130) who states that the connection between culture and language as “the integration of culture and language”. Yasuda holds the idea that language, as one of the factors of culture, has very important position in the formation of identity and is one of the factors of identity, too. Personally, I think the following explanations can shed some clues to offer the possible reasons for the problem in China. First, the widespread English in this global world made China realized that some of its unique cultures have been eroded and eventually disappear due to people’s changing attitudes towards English and Chinese. So the government tries her best to have favorable language policies towards the Chinese language domestic and took great pains to set the Confucius Institute to diffuse the Chinese language abroad in order to keep Chinese culture and identity.
Second, in order to get lights from the shadow of English—the world lingua franc, Chinese government accidentally use the dominance of Mandarin cover the sky of the minority languages in China. The various minority groups in China thus have to struggle between their native languages and Chinese for the sake of maintaining the former for their heritages and identities and learning the latter for quality education and socioeconomic advancement. The whole process is just like a vicious circle. In relation to those outer countries’ experiences in coping with the spread of English, Chinese government can learn some lessons from them. Otherwise, there will never appear sunshine .
References:
Gellner, Ernest. (2006). Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Hymes, D.H. (1996). Speech and language: on the origins and foundations of inequality among speakers. The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Tollefson, James W. (1991). Revolutionary language policy. Planning language, planning inequality. Harlow: Longman. Chapter 6, pp. 136-166.
Ysauda, Toshiaki 安田敏朗. (2006). Tougo Genri tositeno Kokugo 統合原理としての「国語」 [National Language as a principle of social unification]. Tokyo: Sangensha.
Other sources:
UAA concerned by top Chinese official's comments on language policy in East Turkestan (Fri, 06/05/2009)
The reports and articles in Chinese newspaper and TV about Mandarin
Thanks for posting your first assignment Yang Ke. What you found in your comparison between Chinese language and English language newspapers is very interesting. I have a few questions/suggestions for your assignment. Please consider them if and when you choose to revise your assignment:
ReplyDelete1. What is the main argument ("thesis statement") that you are trying to make? The argument has to be based on the data that you have, i.e. the newspaper articles in Chinese and English that you collected. So far, an interesting theme that I see is the difference between the Chinese and English language newspapers. Is this something that you would like to develop into a fuller argument? If so, I don't quite see how the latter part of your paper (paragraph 5/6 onwards) fits with the earlier part.
2. I noticed that you tried to shift your focus to English in the latter part of your paper. As I said earlier, I don't see the fit between this and what you said earlier. In this course, you don't necessarily have to write about English.
3. If you are going to compare the newspaper articles in English and Chinese, provide a substantial analysis of these articles that ties in with the argument that you are developing. If your focus is on the difference between the two, discuss the significance of this difference: How do the Chinese newspapers portray language? What assumptions do they make about language, Mandarin, minority languages, etc? How does this reflect (or not) official language policy? For the English newspapers, ask the same questions: How do they portray language? What assumptions do they make? How do they reflect (or not) official language policy?