Language Power and Hierarchy: Multilingual Education in China 9781441142351, 9781472593627, 9781441172396

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Language Power and Hierarchy

Also Available From Bloomsbury Language in Education, edited by Rita Elaine Silver and Soe Marlar Lwin Learners in Japanese Language Classrooms, Reiko Yoshida Multiculturalism and Education, Richard Race Multilingualism, John Edwards Semiotic Landscapes, edited by Adam Jaworski and Crispin Thurlow Social Identities and Multiple Selves in Foreign Language Education, edited by Damian J. Rivers and Stephanie Ann Houghton Teaching and Learning Chinese in Global Contexts, edited by Linda Tsung and Ken Cruickshank Understanding Silence and Reticence, Dat Bao

Language Power and Hierarchy Multilingual Education in China Linda Tsung

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 Paperback edition first published 2016 © Linda Tsung 2014 Linda Tsung has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-4235-1 PB: 978-1-4742-8344-1 ePDF: 978-1-4411-7239-6 ePub: 978-1-4411-5574-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tsung, Linda T. H., 1953Language power and hierarchy : multilingual education in China / Linda Tsung. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-4235-1 (hardback) 1. Linguistic minorities--Government policy--China. 2. Multilingualism--China. 3. Languge policy--China. 4. Bilingual, Education--China. I. Title. P119.32.C6T78 2014 370.117’50951--dc23 2014025685 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solution, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents List of Maps List of Figures List of Tables Foreword Preface List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction 2 Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power 3 Maintaining the Mongolian Language in Inner Mongolia 4 Becoming Bilingual and Trilingual in Xinjiang 5 Multilingualism and Multilingual Education in Qinghai 6 Vanishing Multilingualism: Linguistic Vitality and Pilot Bilingual Education Programs in Yunnan 7 Rethinking Multilingualism: The New Literacy in Guangxi 8 Challenges and Barriers for Multilingualism and Multilingual Education Bibliography Notes Index

vi vii viii xi xv xix 1 23 59 91 123 147 173 195 213 237 239

List of Maps Map 3.1 Map 4.1 Map 5.1 Map 5.2 Map 6.1 Map 7.1

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Qinghai Province Locations of autonomous prefectures and cities in Qinghai Yunnan Province Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

61 92 124 125 148 174

List of Figures Figure 3.1 Mongol and joint primary schools in IMAR 1947–65 66 Figure 3.2 Mongol and joint secondary schools in IMAR 1947–65 66 Figure 3.3 Mongol primary (MP) and Mongol secondary (MS) schools 1980–201071 Figure 3.4 Class hours for learning Chinese 75 Figure 3.5 Grades when Mongol students start learning Chinese in primary school 75 Figure 4.1 Primary mother-tongue instruction schools (1991–2005) 98 Figure 4.2 Secondary mother-tongue instruction schools (1991–2005) 98 Figure 4.3 Primary schools based on LMI between 2005 and 2009 in Xinjiang101 Figure 4.4 Secondary schools based on LMI between 2005 and 2009 in Xinjiang 102

List of Tables Table 2.1 Classification of languages in China according to the State Language Commission Table 2.2 Chinese dialects Table 2.3 The Tibetan languages and the ethnic population Table 2.4 Burmese languages and the ethnic population Table 2.5 Tai languages and the ethnic population Table 2.6 Miao-Yao languages and the ethnic population Table 2.7 Turkic languages and the ethnic population Table 2.8 Mongolic languages and the ethnic population Table 2.9 Tungusic languages and the ethnic population Table 2.10 Indo-European languages and the ethnic population Table 2.11 Austronesian languages and the ethnic population Table 2.12 The language hierarchy in China Table 2.13 Minority population in the autonomous regions Table 2.14 Radio broadcasting in minority languages Table 3.1 Mongol population in China (2010 census) Table 3.2 Population in IMAR (1953–2010) Table 3.3 Student enrolments between 1947 and 1965 Table 3.4 Language instruction in primary schools Table 3.5 Students in MMI and CMI secondary schools in 1980 and 1992 Table 3.6 Mongolian instruction schools 1980–95 Table 3.7 Student enrolment in Mongolian instruction schools Table 3.8 Mongol schools and students in IMAR in 2010 Table 3.9 Teachers’ education background Table 3.10 Primary school Chinese textbooks Table 3.11 Chinese textbooks for junior secondary (Year 7–9) schools Table 3.12 Chinese examination papers in 2011 Table 4.1 Student enrolments at ethnic schools in 2005 Table 4.2 Primary and secondary schools based on LMI in Xinjiang in 2009

25 27 29 29 31 32 33 34 34 36 36 38 43 45 60 64 67 70 70 71 71 73 79 86 86 88 99 100



List of Tables

Table 4.3 Student enrolments in different language instruction schools in 2009 Table 4.4 Pathways for Uyghur students Table 5.1 Cities and autonomous prefectures in Qinghai Table 5.2 Estimated degree of endangerment of the Salar language Table 6.1 Fifteen distinctive ethnic minority groups in Yunnan and their language use Table 7.1 Zhuang dialects and the population of speakers

ix

102 103 125 127 159 177

Foreword Language is power. That, at least, is one conclusion that we can draw from looking at the ways that beliefs about language use and the dominance of some languages over others create fights across the world. Having a language is an intimate part of anyone’s identity, and closely linked to their notions of their role in the world and the way that the wider world sees them. But beyond this, language is also an integral part of how that world is structured and seen. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work, particularly in his celebrated Philosophical Investigations, explores the senses in which there is not a world ‘out there’ mediated to us as subjects via the medium of language. Language, in fact, is that world, a reality of its own, something as concrete as a stone or a house. This book is about the world of languages in China. It is a world which is surprisingly rich, but at the same time also sparse. Linda Tsung makes clear that there are maybe 400 languages, separate and complete, which are currently spoken in China, meaning that the boast in the current constitution of the country being a multi-ethnic, and therefore a multi-lingual one is, on this level, true. But it is also a country which, since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, has undergone a number of starkly different shifts in the tolerance which policy makers and politicians have shown towards this constellation of languages. Golden ages like the 1950s when there was encouragement and exploration of linguistic diversity were succeeded by the rupture of the Cultural Revolution from 1966, which imposed uniformity on almost everything, including, unsurprisingly, language. To stand out in the Cultural Revolution decade for anything except one’s adoration for Chairman Mao was a bad idea, and so Mandarin became the linguistic default. The issue today is the sort of privilege that is given to Mandarin as a national ‘lingua franca.’ But as Dr Tsung makes clear, it is also more than this. Mandarin, or ‘Putonghua’ (ordinary or universal language), is the language that modern citizens have to speak if they want to really become national business people or succeed in government or academia. The brute choice for those in ethnic minority languages families and areas who wish to have their children taught in any language other than Mandarin is that they will be disadvantaging them in the vast market that China now is, where the value of the standard national

xii Foreword

dialect, despite the fact that over 40 per cent of modern Chinese don’t speak it with any fluency, is high, and increasing. That is a tough choice for any parent to make, and many put pragmatism before passion, opting to send their offspring to schools where Mandarin is the language of tuition. That is the language in which students will need to be examined if they are to take the notoriously difficult college entrance exams. Market China often seems like a scene of battle – a battle between interest groups, classes, ethnic groups, and different elites. In this battle, advantage has to be sought everywhere to have any chance of being ahead in the daily competition people wage against each other. Facility in Mandarin has high currency in this conflict, and those who lack it carry an increasingly big disadvantage. It is clear as this book proceeds that when we talk about language, we are never very far from discussion of politics. Aristotle famously said that humans are political animals. And they do their politics in words. Words are the most political things there can be. This ranges from the way words are said, the socio dialect they are spoken in, right to the very language in which they are conveyed. For contemporary politicians in the PRC who are steering their country now through the tough and risky transition to middle income status by 2020, stability ranks many times above diversity. Rhetorically, leaders like Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao when they were in power from 2002 to 2013 would celebrate the diversity of their country, and the officially designated 56 ethnic groupings danced ecstatically during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. But scratching the surface just a little means that things are almost invariably not what they first seem. The 56 figure which is religiously repeated on so much material was arrived at by central state diktat in the late 1950s when ethnographers and officials were sent out to the provinces with quotas to capture people in specific groups. Those dancing happily before the world’s eyes on 8 August 2008 were subsequently proved to have been professional dancers largely of the majority Han ethnicity. In the China of the twenty-first century, society and the economy seem to be in perpetual ferment – but control is never far from the surface. Modes of control range from the vast (and expensive) state apparatus of surveillance and security, to the regimes which are (with mixed results) targeted at social and digital media, to the most fundamental level of all – control over the very language that people can speak. And the easiest way for politicians to achieve that would simply be to have people by and large speaking one language rather than many. As Dr Tsung makes clear, China is now very much in an anti-diversity period as far as language goes.

Foreword

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When we look at the grassroots situation, we move from generalities and abstractions to the real lived experience of people in modern China who are experiencing this delimiting of the space for the use, learning, and experience of their own languages. The great advantage of this book is that Dr Tsung has worked in places across China, in amongst this diversity, right at the forefront of the language battles, and so her perspectives are profoundly informed not just by academic study but by seeing and living with people who are teachers, policy makers, and students in the language world of modern China. Everywhere offers different perspectives and nuances. In market China, where Darwinian survival of the fittest (and that usually means the most numerous) reigns, there are languages which are doing well, languages that are just about getting by, and languages that are, to all intents and purposes, dying or dead. Manchu is barely spoken now – maybe a dozen people left to speak the tongue of the Qing Imperial household from 1644 to 1912. The Muslim Hui ethnic group don’t even have their own language. Mongolian survives, though the younger generation are largely able to speak only in Mandarin. There are dozens of other languages which are threatened, to just about existing. This looks and feels like a process assisted by deliberate policy acts to ‘clean’ up the language complexity of China and have a vast act of linguistic streamlining. The problem is, put bluntly, that taking someone’s language from them is a spiritual as much as a political or economic excision. We are what we eat, but the same applies to what we speak. Speaking the way we do in the language we do is as intimate a thing as the food we like or the clothes we want to wear or our choice of friends and life partners. So depriving any community of this hallowed property is brutal. Functionally, the world would be an easier place if everyone everywhere spoke the same language in the same way. But that would be a world without colour or variety, a pretty inhuman place which would look mechanical. In market China, many marginalized groups have had their cultures, their traditional homes, their economic practices taken from them. Facilitating social conditions that simply disincentivize or actively legislate against the languages certain people speak is a brutal thing to do. But there are plenty of seemingly respectable public intellectuals in China like Ma Rong of Beijing University who think that this is acceptable. Maybe in the next decade, diversity will make a comeback, and before it is too late some of the richness of the different languages across China will be protected, nurtured, and valued. This is as much about changing the metropolitan mindset in Beijing, as rigorously wedded to ‘progressive’ ideas that are often, in practice, not so progressive as chattering elites anywhere else in

xiv Foreword

the world. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang want to see an urban, service sector, confident China. But there is nothing in that vision that precludes a China with its language richness preserved. Perhaps the mental journey people need to make is to see these languages as a part of China’s uniqueness and its cultural and historic richness, not as some great drag on the forces of modernity which are being pursued so aggressively. Dr Tsung’s methodical, meticulous and wellpresented journey through the language space of modern China shows a place which is simply different to most journeys we are used to reading about. It also shows a political and cultural challenge which is complex but very urgent. This book draws together key insights and analysis and is a timely addition to a vast conversation, inside and outside modern China, about where the tracks of modernity finally lead to. And as she shows, there is no reason why the terminus of all of this has to be a place speaking the same way in the same tongue. A China with many languages and respect between those languages will be a richer place, in every possible sense of that word. Kerry Brown Director, China Studies Centre and Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney Team Leader, Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN) Associate Fellow, Chatham House, London

Preface In many countries multilingualism is part of peoples’ daily lives, something that comes naturally. Many people speak a number of languages or dialects at home with their family and friends while speaking a different language with their colleagues at work. In the global world today people frequently move to different locations and countries for study, work, business and family reasons, becoming multilingual consciously from education or non-consciously from day-to-day activities which have become part of their daily lives. The benefits of this multilingualism are many. China is one of the most multilingual countries in the world. Growing up in China, I have been fascinated by people who speak many different languages. Officially there are 52 languages spoken by the legally recognized 56 ethnic groups. In practice there are more than 400 languages being spoken by people in China. Multilingual education has been a norm since 1949 and has contributed significantly to the maintenance of a rich multilingualism in China. The family home is one of the main domains for children becoming bilingual or multilingual. My family is a common example. Born in Beijing, my mother tongue is Mandarin, or Putonghua as it became when it was classified in the 1950s by the government of China as the standard national language (Putonghua means ‘common speech’ in English). My parents normally spoke Putonghua with us at home and their colleagues at work. When I was a young child I discovered that my parents had a “secret language”, they spoke Russian when they discussed something they did not want us to understand, a language they learnt from their high school and universities. My father spoke Shandong dialect to his parents; my mother spoke Xiang dialect to her parents. My grandfather also spoke French as he had studied in France in the 1930s, and, since his research specialty was Tibetan studies, he was fluent in the Tibetan language. From being in this multilingual family I have been motivated from my childhood to learn different languages, such as Russian, English, Japanese, Tibetan, Xiang and Cantonese. Multilingual policy and practice can help promote a harmonious society, enabling people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to realize their social, cultural and economic potential, enriching the lives of individuals and their communities. By contrast, a monolingual policy in the face of a

xvi Preface

multilingual population sees people excluded from basic civil rights, education and career opportunities. Similarly, from a government perspective multilingual policies and practices which are largely accepted by different language groups within the population promote civil harmony, while policies and practices which are not acceptable to those minority language groups have the potential to promote disharmony and unrest. An important component in any nation in its pursuit of presenting a language policy that maximizes its multilingual ‘assets’ and minimizes discontent is the quality of its civil foresight and flexibility in adapting to developing needs and expectations within its population. The multilingual education system is a fundamental tool for the development of such policies. Multilingual education policy can dictate what languages will be used as a medium of instruction or taught as a subject. Policymakers usually define the duration of teaching and prescribe which age groups gain access. Clearly, language policy and education processes are linked as students use language to acquire knowledge and concepts, solve problems, organize information and ideas, share and explore discoveries, formulate hypotheses and express their personal views. These outcomes are crucial elements in harmonious communities and civil society. China’s multilingualism is not static and its movement in one direction or another is a result of many influences which can be at a macro or micro level and may include political, economic, cultural, geographical and social factors. The dramatic rise in economic development in China has accelerated inequalities and widened tensions, particularly in areas largely populated by minorities. In response to this rising economic development, in recent decades the government has shifted towards a more monolingual policy in education. While perhaps well intentioned in the context of promoting immediate economic benefits on a macro scale, the policy has had serious detrimental effects for minority communities. Under pressure from the dominant language, maintaining multilingualism in minority languages continues to be difficult and the passing on of those languages to the next generation increasingly challenging. Schools demand Chinese learning, job markets overwhelmingly demand the Chinese language and parents are forced to decline minority language education schools in favour of Chinese-instruction schools for the benefit of their children’s future careers and economic wellbeing. Language Power and Hierarchy: Multilingual Education in China outlines and reflects on the linguistic status, situation and education practice in China in the context of rapid economic and social changes in the last three decades.

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This book is based on a number of case studies and empirical fieldwork in multilingual regions and provinces in China, especially the autonomous regions and counties. Attention is paid both to the attributes of minorities and to the mediation of policy and performance, recognizing that national and local policies may be conceived for rhetorical or political reasons. This book also identifies challenges which lie ahead resulting from the recent rapid economic and social changes, the impact of globalization and concerns over language rights issues and educational inequality. The eight chapters discuss a range of interlocking themes. Chapter 1 reviews multilingualism and multilingual policies and educational practice internationally and is followed by an account of multilingualism in China, its diversity, hierarchy and power relationships in Chapter 2. Multilingual practices differ sharply between the south and north in China. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are devoted to case studies in northern China, two autonomous regions: Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the province of Qinghai. Although Qinghai is not an autonomous region there is a significant Tibetan population concentrated in the Tibetan autonomous prefectures within the province. The major issues explored are the political status, educational policies, and attitudes towards the Mongolian, Uyghur, and Tibetan languages in their home regions. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on two areas in the south of China: Yunnan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Yunnan is not an autonomous region, but it was once one of the most multilingual provinces in China. Currently many minority languages have become endangered because of lack of support from the government and communities; while Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has invested large financial and political resources in promoting the new Zhuang script it is still debatable which direction the language of the Zhuang, China’s largest ethnic minority group is heading. Chapter 8 concludes with a perspective on the future, the challenges and prospects in the new era under President Xi. This book will be valuable for anyone working with multilingual education in China and some other Asian contexts and those situations in which respect is a valuable tool. As a Chinese educator, I hope that what has been reflected in the book can be accepted both within China and in other societies. I sincerely hope the Chinese government will value its multilingual resources and promote a truly harmonious multilingual dream of China. This book would have been impossible without the help, support and encouragement of many people. First I wish to express my deepest appreciation to

xviii Preface

Professor Kerry Brown for his Foreword and support. I wish to thank my colleagues Professor Bonnie McDougall and Anders Hasson for their encouragement throughout, their valuable suggestions and comments, Professor Uradyn Bulag of the University of Cambridge for his knowledge and insights into research on China’s minorities. I am also indebted to many Chinese government officials, academics, educational administrators, teachers, parents and students who gave me tremendous assistance and valuable time. I wish to extend my thanks to them. I would also like to thank Chris Jackson for his valuable suggestions on reading the text, his assistance in proofreading and formatting the book. To Bloomsbury, my Publisher, I owe my appreciation, in particular, Mr Gurdeep Mattu, Mr Andrew Wardell and their production team for their enthusiasm toward the book, their patience and their support at every stage. Lastly, my family has as ever provided me with much support. Special thanks to Annie, Katie and Geoff for tolerating with grace the time I have spent in China collecting data and in my office working on my text. They have been a constant source of encouragement. Linda Tsung The University of Sydney

List of Abbreviations CASS CC CCP CCTV CI CMI GZAR GWD HDI HKSAR HSK ILO IMAG IMAR KMT LHR L1 L2 ME MMI NGO NZSL PRC RMB SIL TAR TEE TMI UN UNESCO WTO XAR

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Confucius Institute Classrooms Chinese Communist Party Chinese Central TV Confucius Institutes Chinese Medium Instruction Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Go West Development Human Development Index Hong Kong Special Administration Region Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi [Chinese Language Proficiency Test] International Labor Organization Inner Mongolia Autonomous Government Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Kuo Min Tang [Nationalist Party] Linguistic Human Rights First Language Second Language Multilingual Education Mongolian Medium Instruction Non-Government Organizations New Zealand Sign Language People’s Republic of China Renminbi [Chinese currency] Summer Institute of Linguistics Tibetan Autonomous Region Tertiary Entrance Examination Tibetan Medium Instruction United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Trade Organization Xinjiang Autonomous Region

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XMPS XMSS XUAR YEC YELC YKAP YMLO ZSK

Language Power and Hierarchy

Xilinhot Mongolian Primary School Xilinhot Mongolian Secondary School Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region Yunnan Education Commission Yunnan Ethnic Language Commission Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture Yunnan Minority Language Ordinances Zhuangwen Shuiping Kaoshi [Zhuang Literacy Proficiency Test]

1

Introduction

Multilingualism has emerged as a norm in the world during the past two decades. There is growing evidence that globalization is an important force for increasing the multilingualism of both individuals and societies. The developments in the use of media and the Internet, people’s mobility, migration, business and finance movements, and ideologies all affect the way in which multilingualism is developing locally, nationally and internationally. Multilingualism is a relatively recent phenomenon in many countries today, due to current globalization and the flow of migrants. New immigrants bring with them many languages and cultures which contribute great cultural diversity in their countries, such as in Australia, US, UK and many European countries. Migrants eager to learn the language of their adopted home, in order to participate in the economic activities, seek employment and education. The current government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) promotes the country as a harmonious, unified society with 56 distinct ethnic groups who speak more than 400 languages. The government seeks to create a climate wherein different ethnic groups and social cultures respect or tolerate one another and coexist with no prejudice or discrimination. The reality that lies behind this objective is that there is a linguistic hierarchy and inequality between all language groups. The current fast economic development and globalization have accelerated these inequalities and widened tensions. China’s multilingualism is not static and its movement in one direction or another is a result of many influences, which can be at a macro or micro level and may include political, economic, cultural, geographical and social factors. This book will examine multilingual norms and multilingual education in China from both historical and modern perspectives. In particular it will look at current multilingual practice at both the macro and micro levels, language policy

2

Language Power and Hierarchy

in the official discourse and public practice in the schools. It will identify the realities of China’s multilingualism, including its unique multilingual education policies and practice, and draw conclusions about future directions and debates. In this chapter the theory surrounding concepts and definitions of multilingualism is discussed. Multilingualism is not static in any societal environment and its movement in one direction or another is a result of influences that are many and varied. These influences can be at a macro or micro level and may include political, economic, cultural, climatic, geographical and social. They are universal and apply to a lesser or greater degree in all multilingual societies. To put the Chinese situation in context, this chapter will also look at examples of how other multilingual societies and countries have responded to these influences. Multilingualism is not just about individuals, but also a society, a community, or a country. It can be defined broadly as the act of using multiple languages, or promoting the use of multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers (Tucker, 1999). A broad definition of a multilingual person is one who can communicate in more than one language, be it actively (through speaking, writing, or signing) or passively (through listening, reading, or perceiving). More specifically, the terms bilingual and trilingual are used to describe comparable situations in which two or three languages are involved. Multilingual communities are those in which people normally speak more than one language. They may use one common language to communicate with each other in their own community, but use a different language to speak outside the community and use a different language in formal situations such as schools and workplaces. Multilingualism is the norm for many countries in the world. Either the phenomenon has resulted from historical reasons, such as wars and colonization, or from contemporary issues such as globalization, immigration and transnational economic cooperation or development. Edwards states that multilingualism is a powerful fact of life around the world, a circumstance arising, at the simplest level, from the need to communicate across speech communities (Edwards, 2009: 447). Multilingualism in society is defined by Kloss (1966) as something that grows from the grass roots. People naturally use different languages with different groups. To them multilingualism is a fact of life; children grow up to naturally acquire different languages. Multilingualism, language status, power and markets are closely linked. As Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 236) point out, for the individual bilingual person

Introduction

3

languages coexist in his/her repertoire, but for the multilingual society languages compete for registers, for power, for acceptability, for social status. An education system is a training place for graduates who have language proficiency in one or a number of languages in the workplace. Bourdieu (1991) introduced the notion of ‘legitimate language’. He argues that it is necessary for a language to gain legitimacy within a particular linguistic market. Language legitimization takes place through the institutions of the state, and especially through education. He saw education as a key site for social and cultural production and for the imposition of a particular symbolic order. He believed that educational and linguistic markets are ‘unified’, which implies that the languages the schools are teaching are decided by the language market and language value, which is regulated by the economic and labour markets. Bourdieu (1977) has also analyzed language value in society by evaluating the symbolic power relations between speakers. He argues that language value is governed by the structure of the market, which is to say that speakers formulate utterances according to the appropriate social rules and norms of a specific context. Bourdieu argues that: We learn that the efficacy of a discourse, its power to convince, depends on the authority of the person who utters it, or what amounts to the same thing, on his ‘accent’ functioning as an index of authority. (Bourdieu 1977: 653)

It can be seen from this argument that the legitimacy and authority of the certain language(s) speaker will reflect the social, political and economic conditions and status of certain language speakers. Bourdieu (1991) reinforced this assumption later in his book Language and Symbolic Power. He believes that the labor market will determine the linguistic value and school education will provide the language learners an access to the language required by the market. In this way, speakers gain linguistic capital if they demonstrate the appropriate language skills in legitimate contexts. Bourdieu further defines legitimate language thus: We can state the characteristics which legitimate discourse must fulfil, the tacit presuppositions of its efficacy: it is uttered by a legitimate speaker, i.e. by the appropriate person, as opposed to the impostor … it is uttered in a legitimate situation, i.e. in the appropriate market … and addressed to legitimate receivers; it is formulated in the legitimate phonological and syntactic forms, except when transgressing these norms is part of the legitimate definition of the legitimate producer. (Bourdieu, 1977: 650)

4

Language Power and Hierarchy

Whilst multilingualism is a social phenomenon, which is a fact of life in those communities where it exists, it is not in a static state and is always under pressure to respond to the tensions applied by political, economic and social imperatives. To use the multilingual reality as political capital, many countries have an official language policy that promotes multilingualism. Two or more languages are legally made to be official languages of the nation. Multilingualism is stated in government policy. In the post-colonial era some governments saw the need to legislate or impose a language to help create political harmony. The government of Singapore in its nation-building after independence imposed English and accepted Mandarin, Malay and Tamil for both political and economic reasons. English, the language of colonialism, served as a political instrument to unite the three ethnic communities and also leave space for each community to keep their own language. This multilingual policy aims to win over all the ethnic groups, to demonstrate a sense of ‘fairness’ and ‘linguistic equality’ to Singaporeans and to maintain ethnic harmony. At the same time Singapore aims to build the country as an international business hub, English as a lingua franca has gained economic benefits, as we have witnessed. While Singapore boasts four official languages (English, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay) each of these communities, Malay, Chinese and Indian, communicate with each other in English. Chinese don’t normally learn Malay and Tamil, the Indians and Malays don’t learn Mandarin. The only common language they share is English. The dominant language from the colonial power still retains its prestige in Singapore, whose multilingual policy gave English the ultimate position across all the citizens who speak many other languages. Singapore’s multilingual policy has been commended for contributing to the country’s economic success (Gopinathan, 1980). The use of English by Singaporeans is largely due to its promotion in the education system. The education system aims to create a workforce that is bi-literate in English and Chinese/Malay/Tamil (Wu, 2005). All students in primary and secondary schools are required to learn English as a first language; they also have to learn their mother tongue as a second language. They are offered Mandarin Chinese, Malay, or Tamil depending on their father’s ethnicity (Goh, 1979). While English is the core language of instruction in government schools, mother tongue languages are taught on a weekly basis. While ‘mother tongue’ typically correlates to the first language (L1) overseas, in Singapore, the Ministry

Introduction

5

of Education refers to it as the ‘ethnic language’ or the second language (L2) (Goh, 1979). This importance placed on English was reflected by many Singapore schools switching to using English as the medium of instruction. From the early 1960s until the late 1970s, students registering for primarily English-medium schools jumped from 50 per cent to 90 per cent (Huang, 2012) as more parents chose to send their children to English-medium schools. The use of English by Singaporeans is largely due to its promotion in the education system. The government acknowledges (Education Minister Ng Eng Hen in December 2009) the increasing trend of Singaporeans with English as their home language. For children who started primary school in 2009, 60 per cent of Chinese and Indian pupils as well as 35 per cent of Malay pupils predominantly speak English at home (Tan, 2009). Overall, English is the home language of 32.6 per cent of Singaporeans, but has the largest number of speakers if secondlanguage speakers are included (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2000). Border security and the preservation of ethnic harmony to preserve state stability and unity were the realpolitik behind Stalin’s support of minority groups’ languages and customs along the USSR’s long land borders. It is the same situation in China, where in the 1940s and 1950s, the PRC government accepted and legalized 52 minority languages and granted them official status in each designated autonomous local government area (see Chapter 2), in order to promote national unity, border security and state stability and maintain ethnic harmony, to win and gain support from minority people, as multilingualism was becoming not only a social but a political phenomenon governed by the government’s desire for nation building and political benefits. Officially government laws have protected all minority languages in China. For example, the Constitution of the PRC (1952, 1982) declared that ‘all ethnic minority groups have freedom to develop their languages’. The 1982 Constitution of China re-emphasized the rights of ethnic minority groups in language use, socio-cultural development and regional autonomy by claiming in Article 4 that: All nationalities in the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China’s nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited; any acts that undermine the unity of the nationalities or instigate their secession are prohibited. The state helps the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and cultural development in accordance

6

Language Power and Hierarchy with the peculiarities and needs of the different minority nationalities. Regional autonomy is practised in areas where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities; in these areas organs of self-government are established for the exercise of the right of autonomy. All the national autonomous areas are inalienable parts of the People’s Republic of China. The people of all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs. (People’s Daily online, 2004)

Since the handover of sovereignty to China in 1997, the Hong Kong government imposed Putonghua, the national standard Chinese, and accepted Cantonese and English as its official spoken languages and Chinese and English as its official written languages. This policy serves a number of political aims. Firstly, it aims to devalue the use of English as part of decolonization; secondly, it accepts Cantonese as the social lingua franca as 95 per cent of Hong Kongers speak Cantonese at home; finally the government aims to raise the status of Putonghua as showing loyalty to the national government of China. Schools in Hong Kong have to participate in these policies: Cantonese became the medium of instruction in most high schools instead of English, and Putonghua became a compulsory subject in schools. This policy is also implemented in the legal profession, media and other deliverers of government policy in order to make Hong Kong multilingual as well as a part of China. In this political context, Hong Kong has changed from the dominant English to become trilingual and biliterate. By adding the requirement of advanced Chinese language proficiency, the Hong Kong government has excluded the young South Asian migrants in Hong Kong from access to jobs in the public service, such as in the police force, which their fathers and grandfathers used to hold in colonial Hong Kong. South Asian minorities are often denied jobs, including menial labour, on the ground that they don’t speak Cantonese (Tinker-Sachs and Li, 2010). Many jobs in Hong Kong require applicants who can speak fluent Putonghua in addition to English and Cantonese. Over the last decades, we have witnessed language become a booming industry in a globalized economy. Languages are commercialized to make profit and aid business activities. The language choices and use patterns indicate the economic value and power of some languages over others. Language has its perceived ‘market value’, indicated by Coulmas as ‘language commodity’ (1991, 1992). David Li (2009) elaborated on language value and gave examples of three languages, English, Chinese and Arabic, which have gained economic value in

Introduction

7

the current globalized economy. English as a world commercial and business language, the knowledge of which has not only benefited those who speak English as their first language (L1), but also provided opportunities to English speakers as a second language (L2). A higher level of English proficiency in English L2 societies enables its speakers to take jobs away from their English L1 counterparts (Li, 2009). As Western firms from, for example, the US or UK set up their call centres in India in order to cut costs, 50 million proficient English speakers in India benefited from this language industry and gained valuable ‘linguistic capital’ (Bourdieu, 1991, cited in Li, 2009). As many business activities such as call centres moved offshore, ‘Britain’s Communication Workers Union expressed fears that 200,000 British jobs might be lost by 2008. The threat is becoming an issue in the United States also, where 400,000 jobs have already shifted abroad and studies suggest 3 million may disappear by 2015’ (South China Morning Post in Hong Kong (26 January 2005, C11, cited in Li 2009). The second example David Li gave concerned the tourism industry, where hundreds of German business and shop owners were eager to learn Chinese in a small town, Trier, because they wished to welcome visitors from China when they visit Marx House, where Karl Marx was born (Li, 2009). The third example related to Muslim tourists in Malaysia. In order to attract Arabic-speaking and wealthy visitors from the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Oman and Jordan, Malaysia created special measures to make Arabic-speaking tourists feel happy and welcome. ‘Welcome signs and announcements in Arabic and more than 500 Arabic-speaking university students work in Kuala Lumpur’s five star hotels and tourist agencies to help make travellers comfortable’ (Li, 2009). David Li used these three examples as demonstrations of how language-use patterns are promoted in the globalized economy. Scholars indicate there is a close relationship between the vitality of a nation’s economy and the vitality of its national language(s) (Coulmas, 1991, 1992; Edwards V., 2004). The linguistic market in China has favoured Chinese as the national language since the market reform and subsequent fast economic development of the 1980s. The teaching of Chinese as a second language is now booming as many students arrive in China to learn Chinese. The promotion of teaching Chinese outside China is carried out by organizations such as the Office of Chinese Language Council International, otherwise known as Hanban, which oversees the running of Confucius Institutes (CI) and Confucius Classrooms (CC) worldwide. Hanban hopes to establish 1,000 CIs and CCs by 2020, with at

8

Language Power and Hierarchy

least 100 million foreign learners around the world learning Chinese (Zhu and Li, 2014). The boom in learning English in China has created a huge language market in English language teaching and tutoring and translation services. There are 440–650 million English learners and users in China, the largest English learning/using population in the world (Jiang, 2002, Bolton, 2003; He and Zhang, 2010;). As of 2003, there were around 50,000 tertiary English teachers and 19 million tertiary English students in China (Wu, 2004). It is estimated that the number of learners of English in China exceeds 300 million, about a quarter of the country’s 1.3 billion people (Dai, 2007). Most of the products, including movies, from China exported to the Western world now come with English translations. The linguistic market for ethnic minority languages has dramatically declined. India, a newly formed state in 1948, saw fit to recognize through its constitution the fact that it was a highly multilingual and diverse country. Individual mother tongues in India total 1,576 (1991 census); According to the 2001 census, 30 languages are each spoken by more than a million native speakers; 122 by more than 10,000. Article 345 of the constitution authorizes several states of India to adopt as ‘official’ the language of that state, which people of that state can then use in all dealings with all branches of the local, state and federal governments. Until the Twenty-First Amendment of the Constitution in 1967, the country recognized 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Meiteilon and Nepali. Individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic lines, are free to decide their own language for internal administration and education. However, nowhere in the constitution or legislation in India is English imposed or offered as an official or state-sanctioned language. Yet for interstate, international commerce and for the vast middle class, English is the major language spoken by Indian people (Schiffman, 1996). Organically, because of the material benefits it potentially endows its users with, be they commercial gain or social mobility, English has maintained its existence in India past the colonial era and is a vital part of its multicultural diversity. Landlocked and with much longer historic roots, Switzerland sits at the crossroads of Europe, bordered by Italy, Austria, Germany and France. While Switzerland has developed as a homogenous society, its multilingual development not only recognizes its proximity to neighbouring countries but also reflects the economic drivers of its community.

Introduction

9

Switzerland is a very successful multilingual community. As a centre of international banking the Swiss have gained linguistic resources and capital to serve their powerful customers. They have economic motives to learn and use English and many European languages, especially their neighbours’ languages. From a political perspective, like India, the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1987 Section 116 specifies what languages are official and national and reflects the geographical reality of the country: German, French, Italian and Romansh are the national languages of Switzerland. German, French and Italian are deemed the official languages of the Confederation. (Hughes, 1954: 128) There is no distinction between official and national languages, but only three of these languages maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the federal administration of the Swiss Confederation: German, French and Italian. Switzerland’s four languages are equally supported at the federal level, but they have a disproportionate amount of social, economic and political power. At the canton level, each language shows clear linguistic dominance for one variety and the four languages are in any event, nothing like equal in cross-community utility. The German region (Deutschschweiz) is roughly in the east, north and centre; the French part (la Romandie) in the west and the Italian area (Svizzera italiana) in the south. There remains a small Romansh-speaking native population in Graubünden in the east. The cantons of Fribourg, Bern and Valais are officially bilingual; Graubünden is officially trilingual (Schiffman, 1996: 51). At a canton level children living in each region are required to learn the dominant language. English is not the official language, but it has become the main foreign language taught in schools in many cantons (Tognina, 2002). Native speakers number about 64 per cent (4.6 million) for German (mostly Swiss German dialects, though Swiss Standard German is used in writing and in a few official contexts in speaking), 20 per cent (1.5 million) for French (mostly Swiss French, but including some Arpitan dialects), 6.5 per cent (500,000) for Italian (mostly Swiss Italian, but including Lombard dialects), and less than 0.5 per cent (35,000) for Romansh. There are 80 per cent of Swiss who are multilingual in languages including English. Social and cultural factors also play important roles in multilingualism. As Ruqaiya Hasan (2007) has said, people do not own languages; languages own people. The promotion and widespread use of English have threatened multilingualism and multiculturalism. As language is the ‘soul of culture’, to lose the language is the way to lose the culture and social identity. English has

10

Language Power and Hierarchy

been described as ‘a killer language’ (Price, 1984, 2000) of other languages and cultures in the world. Both national and indigenous minorities have been actively fighting for their language rights; these rights have been reinforced by UNESCO and the International Labor Organization (ILO). A number of conventions and declarations have been produced by them: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN 1966, 1976) ILO Convention 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal peoples in Independent Countries (1989) The UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992) The United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1994) The Draft International Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions (2005).

This international pressure to protect human rights, including language rights, of national and indigenous minorities has given platforms to protect minority languages being endangered under the pressure of dominant languages. Language rights have been recognized by many multilingual countries to ‘manage language conflicts, including those that arise in situations of bi- or multilingualism as a result of social injustice, exclusionary practices, and other inequities in the production and distribution of linguistic resources’ (Patrick, 2005). The discourse of linguistic human rights (LHR) has included heated discussion among scholars in support of language endangerment or language ecology movements (Asad, 2003; May, 2005: 319, Patrick, 2005: 372). The LHR movement is associated with international mobilization for language rights, language revitalization and language protection. Patrick argues that ‘nation-states act in their own interests when they grant rights and enact laws, as reflected, for example, in who counts as what kind of political subject with what kind of rights. This means a nation-state’s own interests may conflict with its granting of language and other rights to indigenous minority groups’ (2005: 372). The LHR movement approach is particularly useful in the study of China’s language rights for national minorities, to seek to answer questions such as how

Introduction

11

such language rights are granted and enacted to ‘manage’ language conflict in China’s multilingual settings. There are two sides to LHR. On the one hand indigenous minorities have the right to learn the dominant language; they need to master the dominant language in order to access greater employment opportunities, social mobility, and the dominant economic resources and benefits. On the other hand indigenous minorities have the right to maintain their own language, in order for them to protect their cultural heritage and pass on their language to the younger generations. One solution is for minorities to be bilingual or multilingual, so they will enjoy both dominant and minority language rights. Such a solution seems ideal, but there is a third argument, that continued attachment of speakers to smaller languages only hinders their adoption of the dominant language and thus their integration into dominant economies and forms of social life (May 2005: 333–7). The nation-state may opt to support minority language rights for political reasons, or majority language adoption at the expense of the minority language to suit its own goals. In certain instances the promotion of minority languages in the work domain has been very active in the past decades. A successful model has been the Welsh language, ‘an established minority language’ in the UK (Edwards, 2004). Although the Welsh Language Act was promulgated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1967, giving some rights to the use of the Welsh language in legal proceedings, Welsh has gained vitality in the last few decades. The aims of the Welsh Language Board were to implement a ‘grounded language action plan’, publicize tangible incentives for speaking Welsh and educate the public about the cognitive, linguistic and cultural benefits of bilingualism (Baker, 2003). The use of Welsh has been promoted in many domains, including education, law and business. Welsh speakers wear badges to encourage other Welsh speakers to use Welsh in public places. Most of the public signs in streets, shops and companies are in Welsh and English. In the business sector, Welsh has been used in marketing activities, such as advertisements, brochures and leaflets; bilingual packaging and labelling goods as made in Wales (Edwards, 2004: 162). The most important factor for Welsh to gain vitality is because Welsh-English bilinguals have more opportunities to gain employment in government, education, media, business and commerce. This has made ‘many Welsh-speaking and English-speaking parents believe their children will have better employment prospects in a country where increasing numbers of jobs in both public and private sectors require bilingual and biliterate skills’ (Edwards, 2004: 109–10).

12

Language Power and Hierarchy

In recent years, the Welsh-speaking communities have started to use the emergence of the new language domains such as the Internet and social media to promote the use of the Welsh language. An online questionnaire conducted shows that Twitter has become a new domain for the production and consumption of Welsh language, as well as facilitating new connections between members of the Welsh-speaking community (Jones, Cunliffe and Honeycutt, 2013). Another example is Maori-English bilingual development in New Zealand. The status of the Maori language was fought for and gained successfully by the Maori protest movement, which aimed for the promotion of Maori language and culture. Both of these had been generally ignored by the education system and New Zealand society in general, and schoolchildren were actively discouraged from speaking Maori in school (the 1867 Native Schools Act decreed that English should be the only language used in the education of Maori children and this policy was later rigorously enforced (Maori Language Commission, 2014). The Maori protest movement was led by Maori Members of Parliament, who saw the advantages of their people becoming fluent in their own language to compete with the dominant English. Most Maoris used to speak their language in rural communities, but Maori became endangered because of urbanization after World War II, which produced a generation of Maoris who mostly grew up in non-Maori environments and were therefore less exposed to the Maori language. In addition, many Maori parents felt that it was much more important for their children to be fluent in English and made no attempts to pass on the Maori language. As a result, many leaders of the Maori protest movement were not fluent in Maori and felt that this was a major cultural loss. Under pressure from the protest movement, in 1987 the parliament of New Zealand passed the Maori Language Act, which gives Maori official language status and gives Maori speakers a right to use it in government and public places such as in parliament and court. It also established the Maori Language Commission to promote the language. All government departments have MaoriEnglish bilingual names, bilingual stationery, and public places have bilingual signs. New Zealand Post recognizes Maori place names in postal addresses. Maori-English interpreters are employed during sessions of parliament and by government agencies. As a result the number of very fluent adult speakers has increased to about 9 per cent of the Maori population, or 29,000 adults. A good example was in 2009, when opposition parties held a filibuster against a local government bill, and those who could recorded their voice votes in Maori, all faithfully interpreted (The New Zealand Herald, 15 May 2010).

Introduction

13

Studies of multilingualism often focus on the problems which arise from multilingualism in a society. These include language impairment, reading and writing disabilities, lack of competence in high stylistic registers which is required in the upper strata of society, inadequate rhetorical skills, misunderstanding in intercultural communication, the struggles of learning a foreign language, communication in high stress situations or under difficult conditions (Auer and Li, 2009). Other studies also indicate poor educational outcomes are blamed on multilingualism (Tsung and Cruickshank, 2008). Minority communities facing demands to become literate in languages other than their own are finding themselves under pressure from the dominant tongue. In turn, this forces them to reassess the value of their mother tongue. Many minority languages are little used today or have become extinct, although others have strengthened their status in recent years, drawing on a revived community interest and spirit, and new educational and cultural opportunities. Research shows that there are important educational advantages in being multilingual, particularly when bilingual students can also become biliterate, or literate in two languages. The more your bilingual students can use both their languages in curriculum learning, the better. The two languages support each other and are interdependent, and bilingual speakers have some cognitive advantages over those who know only one language (Cummins, 1987, 2000). There are a number of discourses closely linked to multilingualism: the discourse on minority and majority, the argument about the dominance of language or common languages; the discourse on national and indigenous minorities, with the argument of territorial and language struggles; the discourse on language rights and linguistic human rights, with the argument of language legitimacy; the discourse on language markets, with arguments of language values. The idea of majority and minority is a ‘floating concept’ in historical development. When the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour in 1788, the Aboriginal people of Australia were the majority, although each tribal group spoke its own language, and British settlers were the minority people. After 200 years of immigration the Aboriginal people have become a tiny minority, representing only 3 per cent of the population (670,000) of Australia (2011 census). Similarly in New Zealand, the Maori were the majority group before European habitation of the main islands. In China, the Mongols in Inner Mongolia are a minority group in their homeland as a result of centuries of Chinese immigration. Migration, such as seen in Australia, the United States, Canada, and Europe also creates minority groups. Some minority groups are regarded as minority

14

Language Power and Hierarchy

groups nationally, but they are majority groups within their home regions, such as Tibetans and Uyghurs in China. In many colonized countries the dominant language is that of the colonizer, which gives it its symbolic power. Population size and the language of common communication by the local people do not decide this power. The examples of India, Singapore and Hong Kong have shown there is no interconnection between English and the common languages spoken by local citizens. Even in a decolonizing period, the dominant English remains the co-official language with local languages in many post-colonial countries. Some multilingual countries do not have a national language, but have official languages, such as in New Zealand. There are several languages of New Zealand. English is the dominant (95.9 per cent) and de facto national language, spoken by most New Zealanders. The country’s two official languages are Maori (4.1 per cent) and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) (0.63 per cent). The concepts of national and indigenous minorities are confusing, but are important and require definition. National minorities are migrants who moved to new countries and adopt their new countries as their home, generally still retaining tremendous personal and social connection with their homeland. Indigenous minorities live in the only home they have ever known, in which they may have been faced with language struggles and dispossession of their lands and have resisted and/or accommodated new forms of power and the rise of state regulation and control (Patrick, 2005). The Framework Convention defines national minority for the Protection of National Minorities (Council of Europe’s Framework Convention). A national minority can be theoretically (not legally) defined as a group of people within a given national state (Smihula, 2009: 45): 1. Which is numerically smaller than the rest of the population of the state or a part of the state; 2. Which is not in a dominant position; 3. Which has culture, language, religion, race etc. distinct from that of the majority of the population; 4. Whose members have a will to preserve their specificity; 5. Whose members are citizens of the state where they have the status of a minority; 6. Which has a long-term presence in the territory where it has lived. Indigenous minorities are linked to the land, ‘having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, and their cultural or

Introduction

15

historical distinctiveness from other populations that are often politically dominant’ (Coates, 2004: 12). The word indigenous is derived from the Latin etymology meaning ‘native’ or ‘born within’ (Klein, 1966). It refers to any ethnic group or community in reference to some particular region or location that they see as their traditional tribal and land claim (Blaser et al., 2004). The World Bank gives a description of indigenous peoples (operational directive 4.20, 1991) as follows: Indigenous peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics: a) close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas; b) self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group; c) an indigenous language, often different from the national language; d) presence of customary social and political institutions; e) primarily subsistence-oriented production.

The major difference between these two definitions is the land, as item six for the national minorities and item ‘a’ for indigenous minorities. Early Chinese migrants who came to Australia in the 1800s ‘have a long-term presence in the territory where they have lived’ but not ‘close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas’ which the Aboriginal people of Australia have. Like other migrants, such as Italians, Greeks, Germans in Australia, they are national minorities, only the Aboriginal people are an indigenous minority. In China, minorities are referred to as national minorities instead of indigenous minorities, although most of the minorities, apart from Russians, claim their ancestral homelands where they live, such Bai in Yunnan, Yi in Sichuan, Uyghur in Xinjiang and Mongols in Inner Mongolia. As recently as 2003 China claimed it had no ‘indigenous peoples’ (Summers, 2007: 245). The PRC government has refused to recognize any minority groups in China as indigenous, fearing that international organizations might codify rights for indigenous peoples that it does not consider ‘appropriate’ for those non-Hans (Corntassel and Primeau, 1995). This is in contrast to the nationalist government in Taiwan, which has classified 13 groups of indigenous minorities (Li, 2008). The use of the terminology ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ minorities has created some misconceptions. It has de-linked the minority people from their land or territories. All the territory belongs to the PRC; all the people are the masters of their

16

Language Power and Hierarchy

motherland. This concept aims to reinforce the national unity of the PRC. The term ‘indigenous people’ has negative connotations, as it implies that minorities are indigenous people and the Han are not. However, Bulag (forthcoming) reported that the Qing dynasty initially organized its territory into three large ethnic categories: mengdi (Mongol land), qidi (eight-banner land), and mindi (civilian land). Under this division, the Han were the indigenous of the civilian land, and the Manchu claimed they were the indigenous of the eight-banner land. It has been generally understood by scholars that the Han were the indigenous people of the Middle Kingdom, the territory occupied by the Qin, Han, Tang and Ming dynasties. The use of the term ‘national minority’ blurs the fact that minorities have close historical ties with their homeland. This also gives the government power to move more Han people to the minority regions and take more resources from the minority’s areas legally. On the other hand the stereotype of indigenous people as having ‘primarily subsistence-oriented production’, as defined by the World Bank, is used to refer to many national minorities who are indeed indigenous minorities in China. The government regards indigenous patterns of living and harvesting, such as hunter-gatherer and nomadic lifestyles, as being primitive and backward. The role of language in education is closely linked with nation building and ideologies of government. Language is a kind of channel, means and resource for minorities to access education. Heller argues that certain language practices are considered legitimate in education while others are not (Heller, 2010). Education plays an important role in constructing particular regimes of language and in regulating access to language resources in multilingual settings. Heller and Martin-Jones (2001), drawing on their research, made the following observation: Educational choices in such [multilingual] settings, whether regarding structures, programs, practices, or materials, are clearly much more than choices about how to achieve linguistic proficiency. They are choices about how to distribute linguistic resources and about what value to attribute to linguistic forms and practices. They are choices that are embedded in the economic, political and social interests of groups and that have consequences for the life chances of individuals as well as for the construction of social categories and relations of power. (Heller and Martin-Jones, 2001: 419)

National minorities in China have been faced with making choices between their own language and the dominant Chinese language. Minority students have to learn many languages, such as their mother tongue, Chinese and English,

Introduction

17

and they are learning through a second language (in most cases Chinese). The key issue is, for some bigger minority groups such as Tibetans and Uyghurs, to choose whether they go to a school where the medium of instruction is Chinese or a minority language. The smaller minority groups such as Salar or Jino have no choice. Their native language is not offered as the medium of instruction in school, not even as a subject to learn their own language. There is a power hierarchy between the bigger and smaller minority groups, as well as languages with literacy and languages which only have oral forms. In the case of China, state regulation may provide a minority language with legitimacy, but not all can be said to be legitimate in the education system. There is a clear linguistic hierarchy in terms of language legitimacy and the language market which is controlled by the authorities. In my study of the school experiences of South Asian students in post-colonial Hong Kong, I observed that there has been a contradictory approach in schools. When the Hong Kong government promotes mother-tongue education, it only includes the majority’s mother tongue; it does not consider mother tongues of the South Asian students. As the government education authority Education Bureau (EB) makes clear, ‘Our public-sector schools will not adopt ethnic minority languages as the MOI, for this would not be conducive to the learning of Chinese and English by ethnic minority students’ (Education Bureau of HKSAR, 2006). On one hand the government agreed that first language support is extremely important for gradual immersion in the second language (cf. Cummins, 2000), but the policy ignored mother tongues of South Asian students in schools. Such shortcomings unavoidably create more barriers against the students’ success in school. Multilingual Education (ME) typically refers to ‘first-language-first’ edu­ cation, schooling which begins in the mother tongue and transitions to additional languages. Typically ME programs are situated in developing countries where speakers of minority languages tend to be disadvantaged in the mainstream education system. There are two models of Multilingual Education. MM

MM

Strong Foundation – Research shows that children whose early education is in the language of their home tend to do better in the later years of their education (Thomas and Collier, 1997). Strong Bridge – includes a guided transition from learning through the mother tongue to learning through another tongue. This is an essential difference between ME programs and ‘mother-tongue education’.

According to Thomas and Collier (Thomas and Collier, 2002), subject instruction in the minority students’ mother tongues, at least through grade five or six, is

18

Language Power and Hierarchy

the most important factor for academic success for students with limited proficiency in the majority language. Related to the emphasis on a child’s mother tongue and by taking languages which were previously considered ‘non-standard’ and making active use of them in the classroom, is the implicit validation of his/her cultural or ethnic identity. Multilingual education in that sense underscores the importance of the child’s worldview in shaping his or her learning. Studies of ME programs (UNESCO, 2003) suggest that instruction take place in the following stages: 1. Stage I – learning takes place entirely in the child’s home language. 2. Stage II – building fluency in the mother tongue. Introduction of oral L2. 3. Stage III – building oral fluency in L2. Introduction of literacy in L2. 4. Stage IV – using both L1 and L2 for lifelong learning. ME proponents stress that the second-language acquisition component is seen as a two-way bridge, such that learners gain the ability to move back and forth between their mother tongue and the other tongue(s), rather than simply a transitional literacy program where reading through the mother tongue is abandoned at some stage in the education. The multilingual education in this approach emphasizes first-language-first, with the child studying their own culture in the classroom and then bridging to the second language. In addition to the basic theory of Paulo Freire on critical pedagogy, Gramscian theory on education, Lev Vigotsky’s scaffolding and Piaget’s theory of cognition are applied in multilingual education. The unique thing in this approach is to involve the community in creating their own curriculum and to minimize the theoretical hegemony, thereby creating a new set of people who believe in creating and sharing knowledge for the society rather than limiting it to the theoreticians. In this book I will use a rather wide concept of multilingual education to refer to national governments that adopt multiple languages for their education policy to cater for the multilingual population, either as a medium of instruction or language subjects of indigenous peoples. Delivery of language policy in education at the micro level has a significant role to play. Language is fundamental to education: no matter what the subject, students acquire new concepts through language instruction. Students use language to acquire knowledge and concepts, solve problems, organize information, share experiences and discoveries, formulate hypotheses and explain

Introduction

19

personal ideals. As a subject of learning, language is closely linked with other areas in the curriculum. Decisions have to be made with regards to who will teach the language(s), at what point in the educational system, through what methodologies, with what materials, and at what cost. Generally speaking, different goals in government language policies will lead to different school language programs and different outcomes.

Model 1: Mother-tongue education – first-language-first In most developing countries, the model of first-language-first is promoted by UNESCO to give children first-language literacy. This model is also called mother-tongue education. It has been promoted for both political and educational reasons. Politically, the model of mother-tongue education has been used for nation building, such as post-colonial Hong Kong. In terms of educational aims, the work of Hakuta (1986) provides clear evidence that a child who acquires basic literacy or numeracy concepts in one language can transfer these concepts and knowledge easily to a second or third or other later-acquired language. Other scholars such as Gonzalez (1998) and Cummins (2000) also point out the need to develop basic functions of literacy, numeracy and scientific discourse in the first language to the fullest extent possible while facilitating transfer to the second language.

Model 2: Mother-tongue enrichment programs This program is for immigrant Finnish minority children in Sweden. Under this program school authorities were obliged to grant mother-tongue learning at least two hours weekly for those students who wanted it (Narrowe, 1998; Winsa, 1999). Mother-tongue studies are a compulsory school subject at both comprehensive and upper secondary levels. Supporting the mother tongue for the personal, cognitive and academic development of the students and preserving the cultural identity of students belonging to other ethnic groups then became an important educational goal (Lindberg, 2007: 76). Enrichment programs have an additive approach aimed at developing and building on the students’ language resources in both their languages in a long-term perspective (Genesee, 1987).

20

Language Power and Hierarchy

Model 3: The transitional bilingual programs in the United States The transitional bilingual program is also referred to as subtractive bilingualism, which refers to situations in which an additional language is acquired at the expense of the language already acquired, with negative effects on cognitive growth and personal development (Lambert, 1977). These transitional programs aim at a quick transition to the mainstream. This often implies short-term supportive instruction in the students’ first language before the students are transferred into mainstream classes. The proponents of transitional programs believe language minorities will acquire an education and a second language easily and quickly simply by exposure.

Model 4: The immersion bilingual programs in Canada Immersion programs were started in Canada in the 1960s in response to a perceived need among the English majority that French instruction at school was not providing students with sufficient French to function in that language on a day-to-day basis. From these beginnings immersion programs have been developed for use by majorities (in Canada, English speakers) to learn a second language (French). As Lindholm (1990: 91) states, ‘while the model has been successful with language majority students, its appropriateness with language minority children has been strongly called into question by most knowledgeable researchers (e.g. Hernandez-Chavez, 1984)’. The term ‘immersion’ in the language educational context implies the ignoring of L1 in schooling and the use of L2 as the language of initial instruction. Mother-tongue education can also have a political dimension, when it is used as a part of nation building for regions or countries which used to be colonies, such as in Hong Kong. When Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, the language policy in education was to promote mother-tongue education with Cantonese as the medium of instruction. Mother-tongue education is also a human right, as Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) states, but when migrant children arrive in a host country, their mother tongue is often not valued in the new context.

Introduction

21

In assessing the use of bilingual education to further the education experience in children in L2, educators must also be aware of the impact this bilingual education will have on the child’s literacy. This impact will depend on the individual experience of each child and perhaps, to a certain extent, the attitudes of the minority community – is he bilingual, has he attended pre-school, is the language in which she is to be literate L1 or L2, is there bilingual support at home and so forth. As Bialystock (2001: 180) states: For children whose experience is in only one of the languages, it is probably the case that this experience (i.e. literacy) is presented through the weaker of the two and not the language of the home. This is the language in which the children might be at the greater risk for possessing inadequate grammatical knowledge and insufficient background concepts of literacy, print and text. Under these circumstances the weight of evidence forces the conclusion that there will be a cost to literacy. Children will find it more difficult to acquire the skills and be more restricted in the levels they can achieve.

Cummins (1981: 29) defines the principle of interdependence between first and second languages as follows: To the extent that instruction in Lx is effective in promoting proficiency in Lx, transfer of this proficiency to Ly will occur provided there is adequate exposure to Ly (either in school or environment) and adequate motivation to learn Ly.

Cummins highlights the correlation between L1 and L2 literacy skills. A number of research studies have also documented a moderately strong correlation between bilingual students’ L1 and L2 literacy skills in situations where students have the opportunity to develop literacy in both languages. Cummins (2000: 190) proceeds to elucidate the second component of crosslingual interdependence: Linguistic knowledge, on the other hand, does transfer across languages in a more direct way than underlying operational or conceptual knowledge. Letter recognition among languages that share a Roman orthography is one example. Clearly, cognate relationships across languages also provide opportunities for transfer of linguistic knowledge.

In the research review conducted for the World Bank (Dutcher and Tucker, 1997), the following common threads were identified in successful programs that aimed to provide students with multiple language proficiency and with access to academic content material:

22 MM

MM

MM

MM

MM

MM

Language Power and Hierarchy

Development of the mother tongue is encouraged to promote cognitive development and as a basis for learning the second language. Parental and community support and involvement are essential. Teachers are able to understand, speak and use with a high level of proficiency the language of instruction, whether it is their first or second language. Teachers are well trained, have cultural competence and subject-matter knowledge, and continually upgrade their training. Recurrent costs for innovative programs are approximately the same as they are for traditional programs, although there may be additional one-time start-up costs. Cost-benefit calculations can typically be estimated in terms of the cost savings to the education system, improvements in years of schooling, and enhanced earning potential for students with multiple language proficiency.

In this book I will adopt the framework above to explore questions about how China’s large or small minorities react to globalization and the language challenge. How does the national language influence ways of thinking and reasoning, ways of seeing ethnic identities, ways of expressing feelings? How does this affect small minority language groups? How do they influence other modes of education? How has multilingualism been practiced and developed through education in China?

2

Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

China comprises 56 legally recognized ethnic groups or nationalities. The dominant group, the Han Chinese, has been classified as Han or Hanzu (Han nationality). The remaining 55 ethnic groups have been classified as shaoshu minzu (ethnic minorities). For example, Zang or Zangzu are the Tibetans, Weiwur or Weiwurzu the Uyghurs, Manzu the Manchus and Mengzu the Mongols; even people who migrated to China before 1949 have been given a classification. For example, the Koreans are classified as Chaoxianzu, taking the name of the last royal dynasty of Korea (Choson in Korean Romanization). The small Russian minority is also officially classified as Eluosizu. On China’s identity card, there is an item for minzu (ethnic group), that is to say the card holder’s official ethnic classification. China is a multilingual country with a large number of languages and dialects. Since classification of different types of speech as separate languages or as dialects of one language is difficult and somewhat arbitrary, it is hardly possible to state definitively how many indigenous languages are spoken in China. While languages were never included in China’s national censuses either before or after the establishment of the PRC, the PRC government controls the classification of languages through its State Language Commission. However, this official classification may be regarded as somewhat conventional and arbitrary and possibly influenced by political and cultural considerations since many languages are classified as dialects of a language, notwithstanding the fact that these so-called dialects are mutually unintelligible. The 1.3 billion Han Chinese comprising 92 per cent of the population speak the Han language, which includes Mandarin with some variations, and up to nine or more dialects that many scholars still debate. The remaining 113 million speak more than 400 languages and are described as minority nationalities. The

24

Language Power and Hierarchy

State Language Commission has officially distinguished 80 to 120 minority languages (State Language Commission, 1995: 159). Nonetheless, Wang, based on his survey of minority languages during the 1950s, believed that there were more than 100 languages spoken in the south-west alone (Wang, 1995). Sun, Hu and Huang state that at least 128 different languages are spoken among China’s minorities (Sun et al., 2007). Chen Baoya from Beijing University believed there are more than 130 languages and that most are not recorded (Chen, 2005). However, Crystal believed there are nearly 300 languages in the TibetanBurmese branch (Crystal, 1987: 310). Many Chinese scholars I have spoken to share his views. Linguistic diversity is the reality which has been accepted by the national government. However, since the 1950s the government has engaged in both corpus and status planning to make Putonghua (common speech, Modern Standard Chinese) the national language for all the ethnic groups of China. Paradoxically, at the same time, the state has advocated a doctrine of language equality among the classified languages of the officially recognized ethnic groups. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology of language equality is based on Lenin’s policies, which supported ethnic and language equality. He insisted that those who did not recognize and insist on ethnic and language equality, or who did not fight against ethnic suppression and for equality, were not Marxists or even democrats. Under this ideology there is no place for ‘national language’. The CCP therefore decided to use the term Putonghua (common speech) as part of its overt language policy in the 1950s rather than the earlier term guoyu, ‘national language’. The CCP’s covert policy that Putonghua should become a national language has become a government discourse since the 1990s. To classify ethnic groups, language was used as a key indicator, based on Lenin’s and Stalin’s doctrines. Stalin followed Lenin’s approach when he developed his language policy as a means of helping resolve the multi-ethnic problems faced in the Soviet Union. He pointed out that solving ethnic problems required the promotion of ethnic equality via the people’s own languages and schools. Stalin also argued that only when people used their own language could they achieve significant progress in cultural, political and economic development (Stalin, 1950). In addition to the above goals of language policy, language was also regarded as one of four important criteria for ethnic identification. Stalin (1950) expressed the following views: A nation is an historically evolved, stable community of people, based upon the common possession of four principal attributes, namely, a common language,



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

25

a common territory, a common economic life and a common psychological make-up manifesting itself in common special features of national culture.

These four principal attributes were very much adopted in the PRC’s identification of the 56 ethnic groups and the classification of languages in China. Scholars in China have generally classified the languages of China as belonging to four language families: Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, Indo-European and Austric. Within these, several branches and sub-branches are also identified. The Sino-Tibetan family, which has the most speakers, has four main branches: Han Chinese, Tibeto-Burman, Thai (Tai) and Miao-Yao (Bloomfield, 1967; Dai, 1994; Ma, 1954). Many minority languages in northern and western China belong to the Altaic family, with three branches: Turkic, Manchu-Tungusic and Mongolian. A small number of speakers belong to the Iranian and Slavic branches of the Indo-European family (see Table 2.1). While the northern and western languages tend to have agglutinative structure, the minority languages in southern China are more diverse with a tendency toward monosyllabicity and a rich profusion of tones (Ramsey, 1987: 164–5). A large number of these languages in the south of China do not have written scripts. A total of 54 languages are classified as belonging to the 56 ethnic groups, except the Hui and She, who speak Putonghua and do not have their own languages. Manchu, belonging to the Tungusic group of languages, is almost Table 2.1  Classification of languages in China according to the State Language Commission Language families

Important sub-groups

Languages

Sino-Tibetan

Chinese Tibetan Burmese Thai (Tai) Miao-Yao Turkic

Putonghua and 6 Chinese dialects 3 languages 14 languages 9 languages 2 languages: Miao, Yao and dialects 6 languages: Uyghur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar, Salar 5 languages: Manchu, Xibe, Hezhe, Oroqen, Ewenki 6 languages: Mongolian, Daur, Dongxiang, Tu, Bonan, Yugur Korean Tajik Russian 3 languages: Wa, Blang, De’ang Gaoshan

Altaic

Tungusic Mongolian Indo-European Austric

Korean Iranian Slavic Austro-Asiatic Austronesian

26

Language Power and Hierarchy

dead. This one-language, one-ethnic group approach is based on political rationales, not linguistic evidence. It is purely a convenient, superficial and symbolic application of the state’s ideology. Some Chinese and Western linguists disagree with this classification and believe more languages can be distinguished (Bradly, 2005; Mullaney, 2011; Wang, 1995). To further put in context the language environment in China it is helpful to look at the current status, numbers and locations of speakers of the four families. In that context a discussion of the hierarchy and power relationships between languages becomes possible.

The Sino-Tibetan family Chinese language/s Chinese is often referred to as Hanyu, the Han language, or Zhongwen, the Chinese language. The Chinese language is often divided into two sections, Mandarin (in a wide sense) and the dialects. Mandarin, which is spoken by 70 per cent of China’s Han population (Norman, 1988: 190), has four subgroups: 1. Northern Mandarin: spoken in Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and part of Inner Mongolia. 2. North-western Mandarin: spoken in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and parts of the western regions of Inner Mongolia. 3. South-western Mandarin: spoken in Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, north-western Guangxi and the north-western corner of Hunan. 4. Eastern Mandarin: spoken in Central Anhui, Jiangsu north of the Yangtze River, and Nanjing. These four Mandarin groups are not exactly the same as the standard Chinese language promoted by the government. That is Putonghua, or Mandarin in a narrow sense, which is based on educated speech in Beijing. The phonology and lexicon among these four subgroups are very distinctive. Of the subgroups south-western Mandarin is the most homogeneous, while the north-western group displays the highest degree of diversity (Norman, 1988: 191). The different versions of Mandarin are, however, intelligible to other Mandarin speakers although sometimes confusion arises between speakers. Most Chinese determine a speaker’s home area from accent and vocabulary.



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

27

Apart from Mandarin, there are six major so-called Chinese dialects spoken in the south: Wu, Xiang, Min (Hokkien), Yue (Cantonese), Gan and Kejia (Hakka). The pattern of linguistic diversity in Chinese is the result of the geographical characteristics of China’s north and south (Ramsey, 1987: 22; Sun, 2006: 29). As Ramsey points out, ‘this remarkable linguistic difference between a unified north and a fragmented south is a measure of how much life and society have been affected by geography’. Sun explains that mutually unintelligible dialects are spoken in the areas south of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River because ‘people there were barricaded by mountains and rivers highly unfriendly to travel in pre-modern times’. In terms of power and prestige these southern dialect groups can be arranged in the following order beginning with the most vigorous: Cantonese, Min, Kejia, Wu, Xiang and Gan. Because the northern Mandarins are mutually intelligible, while the ‘dialects’ in the south are not, many linguists have argued that the latter should be regarded as separate languages (Kane, 2006; Ramsey, 1987). Such academic arguments are supported by many people in Hong Kong, as Cantonese is regarded as an individual language which enjoys higher status as a de facto official language alongside English and Mandarin. Cantonese is a language of public media, government, business operations and education, and a medium of instruction in the mainstream school system in Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region Table 2.2  Chinese dialects Dialects

Locations

Wu

Shanghai and southern bank of the lower 80 million Yangtze River Hunan province 65 million Guangdong province, Guangxi Zhuang 150 million Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao and Chinese diasporas in US, UK, Australia etc. Fujian province, Hainan province, Taiwan 45 million and Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asian countries Jiangxi province 44 million Guangdong province, Fujian province, 30 million Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Guizhou

Xiang Yue (Cantonese)

Min (Hokkien) Gan Kejia (Hakka)

Source: Wikipedia: Chinese language

Est. no. of speakers

28

Language Power and Hierarchy

(HKSAR). Furthermore, in the past 30 years the increased status of Cantonese has made the language ‘go up north’ (bei shang 北上). The success of special economic zones in Shenzhen and the Pearl Delta has given Cantonese the cachet of symbolizing wealth and riches, and this has been adopted by many northern Chinese. Cantonese loan words are used by speakers in Beijing, such as dadi (take a taxi), laogong (husband), maidan (bill in restaurant) etc. Min (Hokkien) and Kejia (Hakka) dialects rank next in hierarchy and are used by many overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines etc. Among Wu dialects, the Shanghai dialect holds a very prestigious position because of its geographical, political, economic and social status. The government decided to promote Putonghua as the national language in 1953, continuing the policy of the previous ROC governments that had promoted 国语 as the national language since the 1920s, and both the subgroups of Mandarin and the southern dialects have been suppressed and have not been allowed in official domains such as schools and public media. This impelled people in Guangzhou to protest in support of their rights to the use of Cantonese for public purposes in 2010. In recent years there has been a resurgence of the use of dialects in mass media. An example is how the Internet now plays an increasingly prominent role in promoting and disseminating the use of dialects among urban educated youth. Liu (2011) explores how the urban educated youth promote dialect on the Internet to challenge the hegemonic language, standard Mandarin. The conventionally disdained dialects have been explored as a fashionable, edgy youth language in China, and Internet-savvy youth employ local dialect to articulate a distinct local identity in their negotiation with a dramatically globalizing culture. Many efforts have been made to revive the dialects and rescue them from being marginalized and threatened with elimination under the powerful pressure of the promotion of Putonghua and English. In his article ‘Dialect in the age of the Internet’ (Wangluo shidai de fangyan), the writer Li Rui (2002: 47) expresses great consternation at the possibility that the Internet will have the effect of making Chinese dialects challenge and compete with the dominance of Putonghua and even hegemonic English.

Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibetan language holds a strong position because of its population size and political status in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). According to China’s 2010



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

29

census, there were at that time 6.28 million Tibetans in China. The Tibetan language is the lingua franca in TAR, as well as in the Tibetan autonomous prefectures of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Tibetan is widely used for daily communication, and in social and religious activities in most Tibetan communities. In addition, two languages are regarded as related to Tibetan: Lhoba and Monba. Table 2.3 shows the number of people registered as Tibetans and related groups in 2010. We should not assume that all of those so registered actually spoke minority languages. Table 2.3  The Tibetan languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Tibetan

6,282,187

Lhoba

6,283,682

Monba

6,210,561

Total

6,296,430

Burman languages There are 14 Burman languages, but most of these are in the process of vanishing, as is the case with the Tujia language, despite a Tujia population of 8.3 million. The government made some efforts to create scripts in the 1950s, referred to as xinchuang wenzi (newly created scripts), for languages without written forms, and in some cases for languages with ‘old scripts’ based on Chinese characters, as in the case of Zhuang, or created by Western missionaries. Such old scripts were used in religious domains. The strategy of script creation has failed because there are no domains for these languages to be used in either private and public contexts. Table 2.4 shows the number of people registered as belonging to Burman-speaking or originally Burman-speaking groups and the ethnic population in 2010. Table 2.4  Burman languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Yi

  8,714,393

Tujia

  8,353,912

Bai

  1,933,510

30

Language Power and Hierarchy

Languages

Population

Hani

  1,660,932

Lisu

  702,839

Lahu

  485,966

Naxi

  326,295

Qiang

  309,576

Jingpo

  147,828

Pumi

   42,861

Achang

   39,555

Jing

   28,199

Jinuo

   23,143

Drung

    6,930

Total

22,775,939

Tai languages The Tai languages consitute the biggest minority language branch in China. There are nine officially recognized Tai nationalities: Zhuang, Dai, Dong, Bouyi, Li, Gelao, Maonan, Mulam and Shui. Most of their languages are in decline and threatened, except the Zhuang language. The Zhuang are the largest minority group in China with a population of 16.92 million (2010 census). Their language is an official language alongside Chinese in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR). It is generally asserted by Chinese scholars that all Zhuang are bilingual in Chinese and Zhuang. The Zhuang language with a variety of dialects is widely spoken in the GZAR and Yunnan, in most social and public activities, including media and broadcasting, which is offered in the standard Zhuang language. The second large language of this branch is referred to as the Dai language in Yunnan. Dai people live in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture and in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan. There are four dialects of the Dai language, the main dialects being spoken in Dehong (referred to as De Dai) and Xishuangbanna (referred to as Xi Dai). In concentrated Dai communities in Xishuangbanna, the Xi Dai language is used in daily life and at all social occasions. However, the De Dai is reportedly endangered in Dehong, as many Dai use Chinese in both private and public domains. The Dai script is derived from the Indian Devanagari alphabet and differs from region to region.



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

31

The languages of the remaining seven groups are in decline. The Dong people, also known as the Kam, mainly live in Yuping Dong Autonomous County in Guizhou. The Bouyi people also live mainly in Guizhou. The Li live mainly in six Li autonomous counties in Hainan province. There are four other ethnic groups with a population of less than 1 million: Gelao, Maonan, Mulam and Shui. They have had a long association with the Han people and all said to speak the local Chinese dialect and Putonghua. Some of them also speak Miao or the Chinese Hakka dialect. Table 2.5  Tai languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Zhuang

16,926,381

Dong

  2,879,974

Bouyi

  2,870,034

Dai

  1,261,311

Gelo

  550,746

Mulam

  216,257

Maonan

  101,192

Li

11,463,064

Shui

  411,847

Total

26,680,806

Miao-Yao languages (also known as Hmong-Mien) Some scholars are in doubt as to whether the Yao, with a population of 2.79 million, are a branch of the Miao people. The Yao speak several different and unrelated languages, but, as noticed by scholars in the 1950s when they conducted a linguistic survey (Wang Jun, 1995), most Yao people speak the Miao language. At the same time, other Yao also have a language of their own, while some speak a dialect of the Zhuang language, Lajia. Most Yao live in Guangxi and have switched to using the Chinese and Zhuang languages. Miao is the most dispersed minority language, being used by 9.42 million people occupying six autonomous prefectures in four different provinces: three in Guizhou, one in Hubei, one in Hunan and one in Yunnan. The Miao language has three very different dialects: the dialect of western Hunan Province, that of eastern Guizhou Province, and that of Chuan-Qian-Dian, (Sichuan, Guizhou

32

Language Power and Hierarchy

and Yunnan). These dialects differ considerably from each other, so much that speakers from the different communities cannot communicate. There are actually three Miao languages that are not mutually comprehensible. Table 2.6  Miao-Yao languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Miao

  9,426,007

Yao

12,796,003

Total

12,222,010

The Altaic language family Turkic languages: Trans-national speakers Six Turkic languages are spoken in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province, as well as in Central Asian countries bordering on Xinjiang. These are Uyghur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar and Salar. Speakers all share the Muslim religion. The Uyghurs are the dominant minority in Xinjiang and the Uyghur language is the regional lingua franca and widely spoken by Kazak, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar and Tajik with a total of both native and non-native speakers of more than 11 million. Outside China there are more than 300,000 Uyghur speakers in Kazakhstan, and 90,000 in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (Dwyer, 2005). The Kazak language is the official language of the Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, and of Aksai Autonomous County in Gansu, with 1.46 million native speakers. It is also widely used by Xibes, Salars, Tatars and Uzbeks for daily communication. The Kirgiz language is the official language in Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous prefecture in Xinjiang, with 186,708 native speakers. In addition to their own language the Kirgiz people living in the south of Xinjiang speak Uyghur and use the Uyghur script. Those in the north of Xinjiang speak Kazak and use the Kazak script. Small groups of Kirgiz people also live in Heilongjiang Province, speaking either Chinese or Mongolian. The number of Tatars and Uzbeks living in China has fallen in recent years, with some leaving for Central Asian countries. Those in China live mainly in Xinjiang. A small number of middle-aged and older Tatars or Uzbeks still speak



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

33

their own languages at home. Many others are bilingual, speaking Uyghur or Kazak besides their own language. There are also some Tatars and Uzbeks who have switched to using only Uyghur, Kazak, or Chinese. Many young and educated Tatars use Chinese. The language spoken by the Salar people is close to the Uyghur language. They live mainly in the Xunhua Salar Autonomous County of Qinghai Province, but can also be found in Gansu Province and in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Table 2.7  Turkic languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Uyghur

10,069,346

Kazak

  1,462,588

Kirgiz

  186,708

Salar

  130,607

Uzbek

   10,569

Tatar

    3,556

Total

11,863,374

Mongolic languages in decline There are six languages in the Mongolic language branch: Mongolian, Daur, Dongxiang, Tu, Bonan and Yugur. Mongolian is an official language along with Chinese in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR), in two autonomous prefectures in Xinjiang and in one prefecture in Qinghai Province, but the Mongols are a minority group in IMAR and their language has become very much weakened in recent years. Most Bonan, Daur and Dongxiang people speak Chinese and their languages are endangered. It is interesting to note the Yugur people use two totally different languages: the western Yugur language, a Turkic language of the Altaic language family, used by the people who live in the western part of the Sunan Yugur Autonomous County; and the eastern Yugur, a Mongolic language, used by the Yugur people living in the eastern part of the autonomous county. The Tu used to speak a language belonging to the Mongolic group. Due to a long and close association with the Han and Tibetan people, many Tu people speak Chinese or Tibetan and use Chinese and Tibetan scripts.

34

Language Power and Hierarchy

Table 2.8  Mongolic languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Mongolian

5,981,840

Dongxiang

  621,500

Tu

  289,565

Bonan

  20,074

Yugur

  14,378

Daur

  131,992

Total

7,059,349

Tungusic languages: Language death and shift Five Tungusic languages have vanished or are vanishing: Manchu, Xibe, Ewenki, Hezhe and Oroqen. Manchu is regarded as a dead language, as most Manchu people have shifted to using Chinese, except for fewer than 100 aged Manchu in Aihui and Fuyu counties in Heilongjiang Province. Other languages in this group are at the endangered stage. In Xibe communities in Xinjiang, people older than 70 speak Xibe, while most young people speak Chinese. Some Xibe people living in mixed ethnic communities also speak Kazak. Most Ewenki and Oroqen people, who live in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region and in Heilongjiang Province, have also shifted to using Chinese. Most of the 5,354 Hezhe people, who live in Heilongjiang province, speak Chinese.

Table 2.9  Tungusic languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Manchu

10,387,958

Ewenki

   30,875

Oroqen

   88,659

Hezhe

    5,354

Xibe

  190,481

Total

10,703,327



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

35

Korean: Successful bilinguals With a population of 1.83 million the Korean ethnic group is mainly based in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (YKAP), in the north-east next to the North Korean border. Koreans migrated to China in the seventeenth century and have made Yanbian their homeland, where they are separated by the Tumen River between China and North Korea. As a trans-national group they have maintained their language culture strongly. Even living surrounded by Han people outside YKAP, they have not been assimilated by the Han but have maintained their language and culture very well. One of the reasons is that 90 per cent of Koreans have adopted the Christian religion, and the Korean language has been used extensively in their religious activities. At the same time they have mastered higher proficiency in Chinese and become truly bilingual. As Koreans do not create any trouble for the government and have consistently achieved impressive educational outcomes higher than the Han people, they are regarded as mofan minzu (a model ethnic group) in China (Gao, 2010). Koreans have benefited significantly in China’s market economy as, being bilingual, they have been employed by companies in which South Korea has invested.

The Indo-European language family There are two languages in this category, Russian and Iranian (Tajik). The Russians have migrated to China since the seventeenth century; a large group came to China as refugees during the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War between 1917 and 1922. There had also been a large influx of Russian Orthodox refugees following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Russians have been classified as a minority group, and live mainly in Xinjiang with a population of 15,393. They have shifted to using Uyghur, Kazak, or Chinese depending on where they live. In the 1980s, many of them migrated to Australia and other Western countries as refugees. The Tajik people in Xinjiang speak one of the Iranian languages. They mainly live near the Chinese border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although they are generally counted as one homogeneous group in China, there are actually three different languages among them. Sarikol Tajik is the dominant language, spoken by perhaps 25,000–30,000 of the Tajiks in China. Wakhan Tajik is the next most populous group and is spoken by perhaps 5,000 Tajiks. Finally, the Tor Tajiks are Turkic-speaking. They have Tajik customs, clothing,

36

Language Power and Hierarchy

and racial characteristics, but speak a variety of Turkic that is very similar to Uzbek and Uyghur. Many Tajik people can also speak the Uyghur language and most of them write in Uyghur. Table 2.10  Indo-European languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Tajik

51,069

Russian

15,393

Total

66,462

The Austronesian family There are four ethnic groups speaking languages belonging to this language family, the Wa, Blang, De’ang and Gaoshan. The Wa mainly live in five autonomous counties in Yunnan. When living in concentrated communities they commonly speak their own language, and use Chinese to communicate with other ethnic groups. The Blang and De’ang people live in Yunnan. Lacking their own written languages, the Blang and De’ang people use the scripts of the Dai and Han people. The Gaoshan people speak a number of languages related to the Indonesian group of the Austronesian language family. As they mainly live in Taiwan, they were relatively unknown to the Chinese linguists when they classified the Gaoshan people, but for political reasons this minority was not left out in order to conform with the one-China policy that claims Taiwan as part of the PRC. In recent years, linguists in Taiwan have concluded that there are between nine and 13 groups of these Yuanzhumin (indigenous people) speaking a variety of Austronesian languages in Taiwan. (Huang, 2013; Li, 2008). Table 2.11  Austronesian languages and the ethnic population Languages

Population

Wa

429,709

De’ang

420,556

Blang

119,639

Gaoshan

114,009

Total

573,913



Multilingualism in China: Linguistic Diversity, Hierarchy and Power

37

The recognition of minority languages by the government authorities in China mirrors the classification of its ethnic groups. Under the CCP’s ideology of language equality, each ethnic group should have one language which enjoys official status, including the majority Han people. There is no language legally designated as the national language, just a common (tongyong) speech, Putonghua, to be used by all the people of China. Ironically, Putonghua was not the common speech when it was given this name in the 1950s, in fact less than 5 per cent of people spoke this Mandarin variety in China. However, under the state language policy carried out by senior government officials such as Premier Zhou Enlai, Putonghua has been promoted as the de facto national language. It sits at the top of the languages hierarchy and enjoys political, economic, educational and social power above all other languages in China.

Language power and hierarchy The power of language is regarded as symbolic capital by Bourdieu (2005). He argues that individuals dispose of a socially structured linguistic habitus which they acquire in specific fields and markets which constitutes a kind of symbolic capital (2005: 20–2). Language therefore is conceived in terms of symbolic power, which determines the positioning of the individual or ethnic group in the social and economic markets. In other words, the market generates the social or economic value connected to a specific language; so that the values assigned by markets are transferred to the language values. However, individuals or ethnic groups are not equally well equipped, since their linguistic habitus is generally acquired in different social and economic domains such as education, administration and the legal system. The Chinese government legitimizes specific languages which are used in education, administration, the legal system and economic life, creating a language hierarchy. A Chinese scholar argues ‘equality on the surface and inequality in actuality’ in his interviews (Interview, 2013). Among the minority languages, in terms of prestige and power, those of large minority groups with strong traditions of writing enjoy higher status. The intrinsic status which these characteristics endow the language with has been reinforced by the state, which has designated them as official languages in autonomous regions and prefectures. In the education system these languages have the advantage of the mother tongue being adopted as the medium of instruction and of bilingual

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education being undertaken in schools. Minority languages with weak traditions of writing, such as those with newly created scripts, generally have lower status, as do languages with few speakers even if they have a written language. Such languages have little or no official support in the education system, either as a medium of instruction or as a language subject. The national government has been promoting Putonghua as the common speech since the 1950s. In the last 20 years, Putonghua has been written into government legislation as a language law. The discourse in government circles has changed to use a new Chinese term, ‘guojia tongyong yuyan (wenzi)’ (the national common language and script). However, this longer term is just a euphemism for Putonghua and the Chinese written language. Why does the government use this covert discourse? I believe that the government is still in two minds about its current policy, which is in conflict with or even opposed to the early ideology of language equality. Zhou (2013) argues that the different uses of the terms Putonghua and the national language (guojia tongyong yuyan) in Chinese official discourse demonstrates how Putonghua has evolved from a common language of the Han to the national common language of all Chinese citizens. He argues that the new term effectively subjects minority Chinese citizens to a new linguistic criterion required for Chinese citizenship, bespeaking the state’s shift from its Soviet model of multinational state-building to a Chinese model of one nation with diversity (Zhou, 2010a). Under this official language policy there is no language equality at county, prefecture, province, or autonomous region levels; there is also significant unequal treatment for languages on one hand and their so-called dialects on the other; languages with legally recognized status and languages without official status. The following table shows the political and administrative language hierarchy.

Table 2.12  The language hierarchy in China Tier

Status

Languages

1 2

National Regional

3

Local

Putonghua and Chinese written language Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian and Zhuang in four autonomous regions and Cantonese in the special autonomous regions (Hong Kong and Macao) Minority languages in 30 autonomous prefectures, 120 autonomous counties and 1,173 autonomous townships.



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The evolution of a language hierarchy has affected languages within each tier and affects institutional support, such as education, administration and media in local, regional and national contexts. Putonghua has the highest value and prestige because the government has made it the de facto national language. Together with the Chinese written language, Putonghua is used in any official situation such as the legal system, education, media, all administration and almost every workplace. While the state has been promoting Putonghua since the 1950s, the promotion of Putonghua was written into the Constitution of the PRC by the fifth National People’s Congress in 1982. It declared that the state promotes Putonghua which is in common use nationwide (guojia tuiguang quanguo tongyong de Putonghua). Deng’s market reforms strengthened the argument for the utilization of Putonghua as a medium of inter-ethnic communication between Han and minority nationalities. Putonghua has also become a practical necessity for minority nationalities in the dominant Chinese society and an essential test of national patriotism. A restructuring of the former Central Committee for Script Reform in 1985 saw it replaced by the State Language Commission. This restructuring strengthened the implementation of the Putonghua policy in education. Large-scale Putonghua promotion in the education system began from 1986. In that year, the State Education Commission and the State Language Commission held a joint National Conference on the Promotion of Putonghua, which aimed to promote Putonghua at the national level, in particular, in the education system. Deputy Premier Wan Li addressed the opening of the conference. He emphasized that: China is a multi-national country. Putonghua is the best communicative vehicle to unite all nationalities. Putonghua not only benefits social communication and the market economy, but also improve basic education and enhances the quality of education (State Language Commission, 1986).

Putonghua was given the status of a national language in the 2001 PRC National Common Language and Script Law (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia tongyong yuyan wenzi fa) and it is now a super language (guojia tongyong yuyan) while minority languages are described as supplementary (Zhou, 2011b). Thus, the Chinese model of one nation with diversity requires, through a new discourse, minority citizens to learn and speak Chinese or, more precisely, the national common language (Zhou, 2013). Linguistic power directly relates to multilingualism in the education domain, where the government at all levels possesses more power regarding language

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teaching and the medium of instruction in schools. The power asymmetries affect language-learning attitudes and indicate a close relationship with cultural ideology. In China, many minority languages receive less positive interpretation, which appears closely related to the symbolic power of Putonghua and the Chinese written language. This is in direct contrast with the early language education policy, where the PRC government made extra efforts to stress that minority people had no obligation to learn Chinese or Putonghua. The discourse on minorities’ non-obligation to learn Chinese, for example, is well represented in the PRC Ministry of Education’s three-point decision on language education for minorities in 1951 (China, 1991, 28–40): 1. In minority communities with commonly used languages, such as the Mongol, Korean, Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazak communities, etc, primary and secondary schools should use native languages as the medium of instruction for all courses; 2. Minority communities without writing systems or with imperfect ones should begin to create or reform their writing system, and at the same time adopt Chinese or a customarily used language as the medium of instruction on a voluntary basis; 3. and Chinese should be offered only on demand and on a voluntary basis in schools in minority communities. The 1986 policy made it compulsory for minorities to learn Chinese. In a rather subtle way, state officials used a soft approach to emphasize the value of Putonghua for minorities. Liu Bin, Deputy Director of the State Education Commission, stated: Putonghua is to provide common benefits to all nationalities in China, to enhance national unity and mature learning, and to develop the economy and culture of each nationality. Putonghua is not only the common language of the Han people, but furthermore Putonghua has become a common speech between the Han and other minority nationalities. Each nationality, using its own language, should also know Putonghua (State Language Commission, 1986).

Here, in Liu Bin’s view, Putonghua brought benefit and profit to minority people and the state. He also believed Putonghua, as a common language, was a key element to the maintenance of quality human resources for China and that it therefore had to be promoted in the education sector. Putonghua policy targeted schools as the policy delivery vehicle. The State Education Commission



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took strong measures to ensure that every school in China implemented its Putonghua policy by promoting it as the medium of instruction. The 1986 conference confirmed that the political goal of the government was to achieve better inter-ethnic communication by using a common speech for all nationalities. According to Liu Bin, minority nationalities need to become bilingual in both their own language and Putonghua. This was to be implemented from within the education system and all teachers were required to develop professional language skills in Putonghua. The implementation of Putonghua in the education system has had an impact on minority language as the medium of instruction. Current policies on Putonghua and minority languages are not in harmony with the principle of language equality and have created a conflict of interest and problems for schools implementing both the national and provincial/regional policies. New trends in bilingual education have emerged in attempts to accommodate both the national and minority interests. Strong measures were introduced. From 2000 the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK, Chinese Proficiency Test) began to be used by the education authorities in all regions and provinces as a benchmark for minority students entering higher education or the workplace, thus increasing the status of Putonghua as not only embodying political power as the national language of China, but also being intrinsic to educational and economic power to access further education and employment. After three decades of the promotion of Putonghua as a national language in all corners of China, the government has switched to a tougher discourse in recent years. Hu Angang, a leading government policy adviser at the Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University, one of China’s most influential think tanks for the national government, in 2011 called for a di-er dai minzu zhengce (second-generation ethnic policy), urging the government to undertake stronger measures to enforce Putonghua learning (Hu and Hu, 2011). The ‘second generation ethnic policy’ is the subject of heated debate. The influence of the policy is already evidenced in the trend in language education planning. In Chapter One of its 2010–20 development plan, the PRC State Language Commission explains that (State Language Commission, 2012): To promote the national common language and script is to enforce the basic requirements of the state’s laws, to maintain national sovereignty, to facilitate social and economic development, and to strengthen the solidarity of the Chinese nation and its soft power.

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For this citizenship requirement, the PRC State Language Commission outlines in its 2010–20 plan that one of its goals is to enhance Chinese citizens’ language and script proficiency level. Specifically, the plan requires (Article 4 of Chapter 2, State Language Commission, 2012): Chinese citizens who receive an elementary education should be generally able to use Putonghua, standard Chinese characters, and Pinyin; those who receive a secondary education should achieve the required proficency in the national common language and script – a better ability to use Putonghua and standard Chinese characters for communication …

The government requires that all Chinese citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, meet the stated standards in national common language proficiency. Guided by the hegemony of the state’s current discourse on the Chinese language, Chinese citizens are now expected to speak the national common language in the construction of their Chinese identity. The impact on minority citizens needs to be further explored (see Zhou, 2010a, 2011b). The regional languages with large populations of speakers and well-developed scripts are becoming threatened under the pressure of the national language, Putonghua, and the global language, English. Languages with regional status form the second tier of the language hierarchy. Uyghur for Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Tibetan for Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), Mongolian for Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR), Zhuang for Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR) and Cantonese for Hong Kong and Macao Special Administration Regions. The only autonomous region with no language status is the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), as the Hui, having no language of their own, use Chinese, though many claim they speak a Dungan language, identical to northwestern Mandarin, which is also spoken by Han Chinese and others in Ningxia and adjacent areas. It is also worth mentioning that although these languages are supported at the regional levels, only three of them, Uyghur, Tibetan and Cantonese, are used extensively in the primary and secondary education system as mediums of instruction. However, this situation is changing with a current strong push towards Chinese learning. The use of the Mongolian language in the basic education system is in critical decline, though the Zhuang language has been promoted as a medium of instruction in school. The status of the regional languages has been weakened under the strong Putonghua policy push. Whether these regional languages can survive will be



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very much influenced by the population factors and power relationships of the autonomous regions. The following table shows the population in the five autonomous regions in China (Table 2.13). By absolute population size the hierarchal ranking is: 1) Zhuang; 2) Uyghurs; 3) Mongols; 4) Tibetans; and 5) Hui, but the political power is a reflection of the percentage of the population in the region. Tibetans are the majority population in TAR, and the Tibetan language is regarded as having more political power than the other groups in the region. The second most powerful regional language is the Uyghur language as the minorities in XUAR outnumber the Han and the Uyghur population is the dominant group among other minorities. Uyghur hold the political power also because Xinjiang was designated as a ‘Uyghur Autonomous Region’, which also indicates the position of the Uyghurs as the major population group when the autonomous region was established, but the large Han transmigrations in 1951, 1957 and 1964 have diluted the dominance of the Uyghur in their homeland (Interview, 2013). Population figures are problematic because Han transmigration since 1949 (both state-sponsored and self-initiated) has fundamentally altered the ethnic population balance in China. This has left fewer autonomous spaces for non-Han culture and rendered minority representation largely symbolic and hollow. The sheer scale of Han society ensures that the PRC’s minority protections remain under constant threat (Leibold, 2013). The third regionally important language is the Zhuang language, although the Zhuang people are not the dominant group (at 39 per cent) in their autonomous region, despite their numbers being over 16 million. The Zhuang mostly use Putonghua, but the Zhuang language still holds symbolic official status. The fourth regionally important language is the Mongolian language. Even though Mongols are a minority in terms of population in the region, the Mongolian language still remains important as an official language in Inner Mongolia. Table 2.13  Minority population in the autonomous regions Autonomous regions Tibet (TAR) Xinjiang Uyghur (XUAR) Inner Mongolian (IMAR) Guangxi Zhuang (GZAR) Ningxia Hui (NHAR)

Ethnic minority population in 2010  2,115,192 13,063,334  4,166,523 16,577,766  1,549,068

Minorities as percentage of total nationalities (%) 96.32   59.9 19.42 39.24 33.27

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Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region (HKSAR) is not normally discussed in the context of minority nationality regions by scholars in China or internationally. I choose to do this because the comparison will highlight the significant difference between language power and autonomous regional laws in China and Hong Kong. The question of who decides the language use in public domains is the test of the implementation of autonomous laws. The difference between the operation of the local laws in the autonomous regions on the mainland and local laws in Hong Kong is significant. The situation in Hong Kong is a reflection of Deng Xiaoping’s one-country two-system policy. This difference in operation makes us understand more clearly that the autonomous regional law on the mainland has not been as fully implemented as the state would have us believe. Although the ethnic composition of the Hong Kong population is predominantly Han (95 per cent), because of its unique history, it is worthwhile to compare Hong Kong’s language practice with that of mainland minority regions in terms of language policy, language use, medium of instruction in schools etc. Cantonese is regarded as a dialect and is not legally classified as an independent language in mainland China, but it is de facto one of the official spoken languages of Hong Kong. It is used in Hong Kong at official meetings such as the Legislative Council, in the broadcast media, and in all government schools. The role of English became a second (or auxiliary) official language since 1997. It seems that the Hong Kong Basic Law primarily refers to written languages: Chinese and English. The written Chinese in the public sphere in Hong Kong is largely the same as the written standard in Taiwan, which uses traditional Chinese characters. The simplified Chinese characters are used on the mainland. The situation in Macao is in most respects similar to that of Hong Kong, although Portuguese rather than English has the status of the second official language. Language power is also evidenced in the public media. Radio and television broadcasting services provide far more programming in Putonghua than in ethnic minority languages (and other Chinese dialects). While Putonghua is dominant at the national level, there is some broadcasting in the main minority languages at the regional and local levels. (See Table 2.14 below). The remaining 50 recognized minority languages all have official status in their designated prefectures, counties and townships, but a distinction is made between languages with a written script and those without. Those languages with traditional written languages as external support, such as Korean and Kazak, enjoy a higher status in the areas where they are spoken than languages with no such written tradition. The Koreans have been successful in promoting their language because of their links with North and South Korea, and their



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Table 2.14  Radio broadcasting in minority languages Stations

Languages

Duration

1. Channel 8: The voice of ethnic minorities, Central People’s Broadcasting 2. Sichuan People’s Broadcasting 3. Tibet People’s Broadcasting 4. Qinghai People’s Broadcasting 5. Heilongjiang People’s Broadcasting 6. Tibetan Channel, Gannan Prefecture, Gansu 7. Xinjiang People’s Broadcasting

Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazak and Korean Tibetan and Yi Tibetan Tibetan Korean Tibetan

20 hours per day

Uyghur, Kazak, Mongolian, Kirgiz

19 hours per day Not available Not available Not available 7 times per week Not available

persistence in preserving their cultural identity linked with their past educational accomplishments. The Kazak and Kirgiz in the north and Yi in the south are able to preserve their languages by having them used as a medium of instruction in schools. However, in recent years the situation has not been promising for many of the minority languages. The Kazak and Kirgiz people can only use their languages as the medium of instruction in schools in designated prefectures. In other areas, Chinese is the medium of instruction in schools. Since 2000, the prefectural status of these languages has been slowly eroding as the government promotes bilingual education policy with the emphasis on Chinese. Yi is the official language in Xichang and Zhaojue in Sichuan alongside Chinese, but there are other varieties of Yi languages with less status. As one of the indigenous minority groups in the south-west, the Yi mainly inhabit Ninglang-Xiao Liangshan (Small Cool Mountain), Chuxiang, Wuding, Zhaotong and Lunan in Yunnan, and Xichang in Sichuan and Zhaojue Weining in Guizhou. Official and academic papers suggest that the Yi speak six dialects, including the northern dialect, Nusuo, also called Liangshan Yi (the official classification); the central dialect; and Lipuo (or Lipo). Some 40 per cent of vocabulary is shared among those Yi dialects. Grammatically, some of these dialects are very similar to Tibetan and Japanese, which place verbs at the end of sentences, with the central dialect closer to Lisu and Hani than to the northern dialect. However, some of the dialects are mutually incomprehensible. The Yi scripts also show differences across dialects. Only one of these varieties of Yi, the Liangshan Yi language and script, is used in schools in Xichang, a further indication that the language has been ranked based on its status in the hierarchy.

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The Jingpo and Dai have been actively promoting their language through religion but are rarely supported in the school system in Yunnan. Many languages without traditional written scripts have gradually become endangered, despite their local official status. For example, the Salar language in Xunhua has become endangered (Ma, W., 2011). Bradly (2005) has stated that most of the many languages spoken by the large and widely distributed Yi in China are endangered. One such is Sanie, spoken by about 8,000 people from a group of over 17,000 near Kunming in Yunnan. In surveying the area around Kunming, Bradly and his team located Sanie and a number of other undescribed and in most cases unreported endangered languages. The government of Yunnan Province recently admitted that many languages in Yunnan have become endangered and adopted a language policy to protect them (Yunnan Daily, 2013). As discussed above, the ranking of a specific language or languages provides the language-specific values. The issue of language as a resource of power is closely connected with the question as to which language provides their speakers with what degree of power (Schjerve and Vetter, 2012: 140). There is a clear ranking among the 52 languages in China regarding their actual use and their presumed utility. In the economic area the markets largely confirm the power asymmetries between Chinese and minority languages. The markets strongly reflect the way the power of the Chinese language is managed by companies. When Ma Rong (2013) suggests ‘let the market decide the value of the language’, he seems to be acquiescing in the increasing dominance of Chinese. However, as the markets are controlled by the national government and regional governments, they are not freely competitive. In Tibet, for example, markets have been dominated by Putonghua speakers even though 95 per cent of the population in the Tibet Autonomous Region are Tibetan speakers. Are most of the traders in the markets Han Chinese? Are the local authorities somehow able to either exclude Tibetans or make them speak Chinese? Has there been an influx of traders from outside Tibet? If so, has it been promoted by the authorities or is it due to spontaneous market forces? It is not uncommon in other parts of the world that immigrant ethnic groups are disproportionately successful in trade.

Language loss, endangerment and revitalization Language loss has been both a historical and a current problem in China and in the rest of the world. For instance, in the Tang dynasty (608–917), Xianbei,



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Jie and Bei Yue and other languages disappeared. The Manchu language was a powerful, prestigious language in the Qing dynasty, but it was already dying in the late Qing period and its demise was hastened by the fall of the dynasty. It is reported that less than 18 people in their 60s are now using this language (Bai, 2005). The loss of the Manchu language was the product of the Qing court’s segregation and migration policy. One of the measures taken by the Qing court was to enforce a segregation policy in the Manchu homeland in the northeast. In Manchu military garrisons located in different parts of China, a tight segregation policy was also carried out. In the north-eastern homeland of the Manchus the Qing court maintained a policy of segregation throughout their ruling period. The Qing government forbade Han immigration and restricted contacts between Manchu and other groups in the north-east, aiming to preserve the purity of the Manchu identity. The consequence of this segregation policy was that, within 150 years of Manchu conquest, the Manchu people living in the homeland became isolated. They lived in impoverished conditions and depended on government handouts for survival (Rigger, 1994). The segregationist policy carried out in the Manchu banner garrisons ‘legally and physically segregated [the Manchus] from the Han and from their frontier cousins’ (Rigger, 1994: 200). Manchu language loss was the outcome of Han immigration. In the mid-nineteenth century the Qing court began to encourage immigration into the north-eastern Manchu homeland (Lee, 1970). Closer contact with the Han, which followed migration, contributed to the Manchu language shift to Han. As Rigger points out, by the end of the Qing period the Manchu frontier had become an ocean of Han immigration in which the tiny, impoverished Manchu banner population was drowning (Rigger, 1994: 202). A law which forbade intermarriage between the Han and the Manchu was laid down by the founders of the Qing dynasty. While the law was generally effective it was frequently violated in the garrisons of the south. This segregation policy was comparatively effective, as Crossley (1990: 71) has argued, because the Manchus in many ways preserved both an independent way of life and a unique culture within the garrison community. Mongolian language loss also partially occurred among those Mongols who settled and took to farming and intermixed with Chinese settlers. Most of them lost their language and became Chinese speakers in the Qing dynasty. Only those Mongols in the shrinking pastoral areas, where Chinese penetration was lacking, continued to speak pure Mongolian (Bulag, 2003). Current language loss is taking place among those languages that have no official status which are used in social and informal contexts. They include

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widely used Chinese dialects such as Cantonese and Wu, which are used in workplaces, social settings and informal situations in their respective regions but are not allowed in schools. They also include more than 100 languages and dialects which are used among smaller populations. While many Chinese dialects in recent years have been revived within the Internet domain, many languages have become threatened and endangered, especially those languages that had no fully functional writing systems before 1949 and have had limited or no bilingual education since then (Huang, 1992; Zhou, 2000). One of the minority languages identified as endangered is Tujia in Hunan province. With a population of more than 9 million in 2003 the Tujia language was an official language but was only spoken by less than 3 per cent of Tujia people (Dai and Tian, 2003). Many private efforts spent in reviving the language, such as the preparation of a dictionary and booklets, have all failed (Dai and Tian, 2003). It is estimated this language will vanish in the next generation as the Tujia younger generation adopt Chinese. Most She and Gelao people have shifted to using Chinese in recent years. A further three languages, Yi, Mulao and Hakesi, (弈, 木佬, 哈卡斯) are regarded as extinct. Sun Hongkai (2006) states that more than 20 languages are on the edge of extinction; seven languages are used by less than 100 people. I had the opportunity to join Professor Dai Qingxia from the Central University for Nationalities and his team as they investigated and recorded an endangered language, Xiaodao, which had fewer than 50 speakers in the community in 1983. Most of these people have shifted to using Jingpo as they live closely among Jingpo people and have adopted the Christian religion and attend a church where Jingpo priests conducted the services (Tsung and Dai, 2005). In 1992, Sun and Xu from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) started a project, which was supported by the national government, entitled ‘Newly discovered languages in China’. These languages are all endangered. Led by Sun and Xu this project has recorded more than 50 languages, and some texts in these languages have been translated into English, French and other languages. In the past decades Chinese scholars and linguists have recorded more than 100 endangered languages which are not officially recognized and they have published many academic papers, but they cannot stop more languages from dying in China. Many of these vanishing languages are of officially recognized minorities in theory, legally protected by the government. However, in practice they are not used in the education system and any other public domains, and they are, in particular, not valued in the rapidly evolving markets and economic



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life. Languages spoken by a small population and without written scripts are seriously threatened. Sun has reported that there are 15 languages used by 100–1,000 people, 41 are spoken by 1,000–10,000 people, 34 are spoken by 10,000–100,000 people; 17 are spoken by 100,000 to 1 million people; 10 are spoken by 1 million to 10 million people; and two languages are spoken by more than 10 million people (Sun, 2006). The rapid disappearance of minority languages in China has raised concerns both domestically and internationally. In China, there is no government policy to counteract language endangerment. Ongoing work is being undertaken by academics to build an endangered language database, preserving and recording the languages before they vanish. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has allocated as key projects the recording of these languages since 1992 and a number of research funds have been established by the academy to record languages. So far more than 30 languages have been recorded and been the subject of published monographs, including a published monograph on the Xiandao language in which I was involved for three years with colleagues. Since 2001 UNESCO has invested funds every year to record and preserve endangered languages in China. This type of work is valuable in terms of the fossilization of the heritage (baocun yichan), but a language is only alive when people use it. To fossilize these languages is meaningless. The PRC has a very different approach from that of other countries such as Wales and Ireland, where the endangered language is actively promoted by teaching it to the younger generation in schools and by the expansion of language domains to public signs, radios and TV programs. The Chinese government does nothing to promote the teaching of endangered languages and to enable passing them on to the next generation. Economic mobility and minority populations flowing to large cities have accelerated the process of minority language endangerment. Once these languages vanish they become only of historical interest, existing only in books or databases. While many Chinese scholars are concerned about the death of many small languages in richly multilingual China, Ma Rong, a professor at Peking University, has remarked that the death of a minority language might be a good thing, as it contributes to social stability and ethnic equality (Ma, 2010). Can a language be revived if it is threatened? The answer is ‘yes’ from international and national evidence. The Welsh and Irish have done this very well. There was also a successful case in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in the 1980s, where one of the elite Mongolian groups, the Tumed Mongols,

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had lost their language. An experimental kindergarten and primary school immersion program was set up and 59 six-year-olds were taught everything in Mongolian. Their teachers were recruited from the pastoral areas speaking pure standard Mongolian. Both children and teachers lived in a closed-off compound so children had a good language immersion environment (Bulag, 2003). This program was successful in terms of producing a new generation of Tumed Mongols who speak pure Mongolian, which their parents and grandparents had lost. The regional government and Mongol elite intellectuals and cadres made the Mongolian language revival possible because they ‘supported the establishment of the school and invested much emotional capital with political metaphors’ (Bulag, 2003; Bilik, 1998b: 72). However, it is difficult to revive a language without government support. Naran reported that in Shanghai a group of Mongols who wished to learn their language by private classes had to stop because of government officials’ intervention (Bilik, 2013). Bai (2005) has reported a privately run project to revive Manchu identity and language in the1980s by Manchu middle-class elites in Beijing. Their strategy had three parts: recreating ethnic identity by strengthening networks and cultural distinctiveness, pursuing ethnic economic development, and politically legitimating the group existence. As part of this identity building, ‘Manchu language fever’ was created by teaching and learning the Manchu language in privately run schools with students aged between 16 and 72. However, after six years, the Manchu language fever gradually waned and Manchu language schools were all closed (Bai, 2005). The failure of the Manchu language schools was due to the not-for-profit feature and financial constraints, as well as inadequacy of government support. These two cases of language revitalization in China are both examples of selfdriven groups conscious of their own identity, cultural and group legitimacy through keeping their language alive. However, there will not be a strong government push toward minority language revival under the government’s current goals of promoting a national language in China.

Language conflicts, language status planning and corpus planning Language status planning, as defined by Djite, concerns the deliberate choice(s) made by governments, or any other authority, with regard to the relationships between language and social life (Djite, 1994). At the language level, there



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is also corpus planning, which provides an explicit, usually written, form based on the selected norm. This involves the language corpus and general standardization procedures such as the writing of grammar and the selection of an appropriate lexicon. It is also concerned with intrinsic functions of the particular language itself, for example, the modernization of its vocabulary or the cultivation and creation of scripts. Ozolins (1993) argues that the policy of corpus planning should not be seen as purely a linguistic decision, but also a political decision. Conflict can be defined as diverging group interests and struggle over power. Linguistic conflicts are special cases of inter-ethnic disputes, which arise from multiculturalism. From research into China’s multilingualism it may be concluded that unequal power relations are general and a conflict-ridden debate characteristic of China’s multilingual society. The concept of multilingualism also gives rise to conflicting discourses, as these may be related either to multilingualism as economic capital or to multilingualism as an issue of human rights and equality (Sloboda, et al., 2009: 27) Recent conflicts about language are associated with the rising importance of the government’s goal of nation-building in China. The new president, Xi Jingping, has expressed his wish to achieve the ‘Chinese Dream’, which will place minority groups speaking other languages under great pressure to assimilate into the dominant single national language, Putonghua. If minority groups refuse and push back against this pressure by continuing to adhere to their language rights, tensions and conflicts will arise. Since the establishment of the PRC in 1949 there have rarely been language and ethnic conflicts reported in public until the years between 2008 and 2013, mostly under President Hu Jintao’s leadership. While Hu was calling for a harmonious society, there were bloody riots in Lhasa (the incidents on 14 March 2008), Shaoguan in Guangdong (2009) and Urumqi in Xinjiang (the incident on 5 July 2009) and protest in Qinghai (October 2010); furthermore the protest about Cantonese in Guangzhou (August 2010), the protest in Xilinhot in Inner Mongolia (May 2011), the Kashgar incident in Xinjiang (March 2012) and the Turfan incident in Xinjiang (June 2013). Most of these incidents involved direct or indirect ethnic and language conflicts. For example, the Shaoguan incident was reported as miscommunication between Uyghurs and the local Cantonese-speaking people, the protest in Qinghai was against the Qinghai government’s plan to switch the medium of instruction in schools from Tibetan to Putonghua. The protest in Guangzhou, known as the Hu Yue (protect Cantonese) movement, was against the local Guangzhou

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government replacing Cantonese with Putonghua for some news and other programs. This conflict between Cantonese and Putonghua can be seen as a struggle for symbolic power, which implies social hierarchies and inequalities among speakers. Some scholars in China maintain that the current ethnic policy is too soft, that minorities have been given too much freedom and too many rights and as a result the policy has failed to integrate all the Han and ethnic groups (Ma Rong, 2010, 2011; Hu Angang, 2011). Hu Angang, a professor at Tsinghua University, suggested that ethnic policy of early People’s Republic of China (PRC) is outdated and needs to be replaced by a ‘second generation of ethnic policy’. Let’s look at the early ethnic policy in terms of language policy. The government’s first constitution, ‘Common Guideline of the PRC’ in 1949, declared that ‘all minority nationalities have freedom to use and develop their own languages and scripts, and to maintain or reform their customs and religion’. As languages were treated as ‘ethnic markers’ in the political arena, those that had officially recognized languages gained the status of minority nationalities. In this way the process of language policy formulation went beyond linguistic significance. In the 1950s, the PRC’s language policies effectively gave minority languages official status in legal proceedings, administrative duties and educational instruction. The first PRC constitution was formally adopted in 1954, as the National People’s Congress did not exist years earlier. A policy was laid down that minority nationalities had the right to use their own languages in court cases and that the People’s Court should provide interpreters when required. Even in small regions that were home to multiple nationalities, local languages could be used for judicial decisions, proclamations and for other proceedings, as well as for legal documentation. In addition, the relevant minority nationality script could be utilized. The government also stated that authorities in the autonomous regions could adopt one of the commonly used minority languages for carrying out official duties and for correspondence with other groups. The selected language would also be used to promote local culture and education. Ethnic rights were abandoned during the Cultural Revolution between 1967 and 1977, but were reinstated afterwards. The 1982 Constitution of China re-emphasized the rights of ethnic minority groups to language use, sociocultural development and regional autonomy by claiming in Article 4 that: All nationalities in the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and



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develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China’s nationalities … Regional autonomy is practised in areas where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities; in these areas organs of self-government are established for the exercise of the right of autonomy … The people of all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs (People’s Daily online, 2004).

Based on my studies since 1995, and studies conducted by other researchers (Feng, 2007; Zhou, 2008) this early policy ceased to be implemented during the Cultural Revolution. The policy was only briefly implemented in the 1980s after Deng Xiaoping took over the leadership. There has never been any genuine language policy which has given minorities language rights and freedom to use their languages and scripts in the education system. However, the rhetoric continues. The national Constitution defines the legal status of ethnic minority groups in China. The National Program of China’s Mid- to Long-Term Educational Development 2010–20 reiterates that ‘the right to use and learn native languages and cultures shall be respected and protected’ (PRC government online, 2010). In addition the concept of bilingual education has been put into practice within the minority territories of China and guaranteed by various laws and regulations made by the central and local governments.1 The rights and interests of ethnic minority groups are protected and promoted by practicing regional autonomy of ethnic minority groups, creating and reforming ethnic minority scripts and setting up bilingual education schools, to name just a few such measures. However, from a deep reading of current statements by PRC leaders, one can notice a change of discourse in the policy and attitudes adopted towards minority groups. For example, Premier Wen Jiabao stated in his report to the 2008 National People’s Congress that: China is a unified, multi-ethnic country. We must promote unity among all ethnic groups and make a concerted effort to achieve prosperity and development for all. We will follow and improve the system of regional ethnic autonomy, promote economic and social development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas, and consolidate and develop socialist ethnic relations of equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony. (Wen, 2008)

While China’s multi-ethnic composition is a fact that the state cannot deny, and an inevitable item on the government’s agenda, the emphasis that the

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government gives to policies relating to the ethnic minorities changes with time. The Constitution of the PRC places more emphasis on the rights, freedoms and peculiarities of minorities, while Wen’s statement above stresses inter-ethnic relationships and unity. If there truly has been a change in emphasis, then one can ask: what has caused that change? If a change in discourse has occurred, then one should also ask whether there has been a corresponding change in the way state policy has been implemented. This perception of China as a state of ‘ethnic diversity within unity’ (Fei, 1989) suggests that stakeholders at the top level believe that national unity and harmony are the cornerstones of China’s socio-economic development and stable ethnic relations. Evidence of changes in discourse can be seen in the policy shift from mother-tongue education to Putonghua monolingual education.

New debates Hu Angang’s article calling for a second generation ethnic policy was influenced by Ma Rong’s views on ethnic policy. As a professor at Peking University and a ‘frequent adviser’ to the United Front Work Department (UFWD) (Carlson, 2009), Ma Rong has questioned the efficacy of the party-state’s current ethnic policies for a decade. He has called for gradual yet urgent adjustments (tiaozheng 调整) to forestall a possible national tragedy: the territorial/ethnic dismemberment of China. He insists that government policy is increasingly out of touch with global norms and Chinese tradition, and must alter accordingly (Ma, 2012). Ma Rong argues (2012: 168–91) that the fragile state of ethnic relations in China is now the nation’s ‘biggest social issue’. Through a range of what he sees as well-intentioned but ultimately misguided policies, the party-state has unwittingly created two Chinas: Han China and minorities China. The education system, for example, is divided into ‘ordinary schools’ for Han students and ‘minzu schools’ where minority students can be educated in their native languages from primary school through to university. This helps preserve languages and cultures but isolates minority students from mainstream society. The result, according to Ma Rong, is students with poor proficiency in the national language, Putonghua, who are unable to compete in the market economy and labor market. China should learn from this experience and ‘depoliticize’ (qu zhengzhi hua 去政治化) ethnic issues in order to consolidate its own national identity (Ma, 2009; 2012: 16–19). He suggests a new



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policy direction that would over time weaken (danhua 淡化) minzu-based consciousness and replace it with a collective sense of national belonging: … [The] administrative structure of autonomous areas should be maintained for a period of time but the sense of a ‘nationality’s territory’ should be reduced gradually. The dual system of schools in autonomous areas should continue, while various kinds of bilingual education facilities should be offered to all members of minority groups. The situation of ethnic stratification in Chinese society should be systematically studied and the government should establish programmes to help minority members who are disadvantaged in terms of language and other skills (Ma, 2009).

As mentioned previously, the two academics and leading policy advisers from Tsinghua University, Hu Angang and Hu Lianhe, in late 2011 appealed for a so-called second-generation ethnic policy that would attenuate ethnic identity (minzu rentong 民族认同) and strengthen a single shared national/racial identity (guozu renting 国族认同) (Hu and Hu 2011). Hu Angang and Hu Lianhe put forward the first systematic agenda for ethnic policy reform under the four main headings below: First, politically: eliminating group-differentiated rights and obligations to ensure the equality of all citizens. … Preferential state aid should be based on relative impoverishment rather than ethnic status and ethnic markers should be removed from identification cards, job and school applications [my emphasis], and other official documents. Second, economically: … the frontier regions have been the greatest beneficiaries of China’s economic reforms in terms of GDP and Human Development Index (HDI)-measured social welfare, but more is now required to remove institutional barriers to the free flow of capital, goods, information and labour; to increase competition, creative forces and entrepreneurial initiatives; and to reduce inefficiencies and regional gaps. Third, culturally: increasing focus on integrating different ethnic traditions into a collective civic culture and identity. This will require increased spoken and written use of the national language, guarding against religious extremism, greater attention to civic ceremonies fostering national identification, and other propaganda and media efforts consistent with these goals. Fourth, socially: enhancing the flow of peoples across administrative boundaries in keeping with the current wave of globalization, modernization and the increasingly free flow of information … new methods of increasing ethnic mobility,

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These four items aim firstly to protect the rights of the Han people; secondly to abolish the autonomous areas and turn them into ordinary provinces and encourage Han migration; thirdly to reinforce Chinese national identity and Chinese national language, and finally promote Putonghua education and joint schooling. These proposals have been the subject of heated debate in China. Some senior officials strongly support this reform (Leibold, 2013). Sautman argues that proposals to ‘curb minority rights’ ‘emanate from a small number of Chinese academics’ yet ‘reflect a prominent strand of thinking about ethnic policies’ (Sautman, 2010: 72; 2012: 26). Sautman detected in early 2012 a ‘subtle shift’ in policy following the recent unrest, with signs of a more populist and pragmatic approach to ‘improving people’s livelihood’ in frontier regions like Tibet and Xinjiang.

Conclusion China’s multilingualism is a powerful asset, not only as a language and cultural resource but as political capital in which the CCP has been seen to be a supporter of ethnic equality. In doing so it disassociated itself from the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), who were seen as oppressors by ethnic minorities. The CCP’s ideology won the trust and support of ethnic minorities. Bulag (2012) believes that China’s minorities were co-founders of the modern Chinese state and therefore all are masters of the country. It is true for some minorities and hardly true about the Tibetans. Power has all along been highly centralized under CCP rule, but there was a somewhat higher degree of equality between different ethnic groups in the early years of the People’s Republic than had been the case earlier – but probably also a great deal more interference in the life of the minorities as a collectivization. However, in the last decade we have seen a significant shift in discourse from both government officials and their advisers. The government is shifting its role from that of ‘protector’ to that of ‘producer’, in which the discourse shifts from ‘language equality’ to ‘language depreciation’, from ‘language rights and freedoms’ replaced by ‘services and economic development’. Putonghua as the ‘common speech’ is replaced by ‘state speech’. In this process the efforts to reproduce ‘multi-ethnic identities’ change to a focus on a ‘single nationality’, the efforts to



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produce ‘common prosperity’ change to efforts to produce ‘state commodities’, in which multilingualism in minority languages is understood to have no value at all. The CCP’s ideology of equality has shifted to an ideology of contempt, in which minority languages are regarded as backward and not suitable for modern society. In this chapter I have described multilingualism in China and the process of identification of the languages of minority groups. It is clear there are relationships between the power and agency, language and dialects that reflect the social realities and social inequalities in China. Language in isolation has no power. Speakers of languages can add and attach power to their languages from which some languages derive symbolic power and linguistic capital while other languages miss out. In the process of language identification in China the actor is the state. Although linguists conducted the language identification survey, the final decision was made by the government, which was guided by its ideology of language equality borrowed from the Soviet Union. On the positive side this ideology of language equality is not inconsistent with an ethnic classification that sees a common language as one of the characteristics of an ethnic group. There is thus one language identified with each of the officially recognized ethnic groups. Under this ideology it is possible for two ethnic groups to share one language, as is the case with Hui and Han, but it should not be possible for one ethnic group to have more than one language, although most linguists would regard that as being the case with several of the official ethnic minorities, such as the Yi, and even with the majority Han Chinese with their widely divergent ‘dialects’. In the process, those languages which did not fit in the categories were discarded and described as dialects rather than as languages. In fact, language inequality was created in the process of language identification. Although the 52 identified minority languages gained official status in the process of language and ethnic identification (scientifically placed into five language families), these languages were in effect given different status, being placed in a hierarchical order and ranked as national, regional and local. This ranking system, observed by myself and other researchers, is based on political discourse and the government’s implementation of how these languages are used and where power is attached to them. For example, Tibetan is not promoted as being a language the whole nation should learn, but Putonghua is. Uyghurs do not have to learn Tibetan and Tibetans don’t have to learn Uyghur, but they all have to learn Putonghua and written Chinese. It is clear that linguistic power has been bestowed on Putonghua as a nationally significant and powerful

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language, while it is only in their designated regions that Tibetan, Mongolian, Uyghur and Zhuang are significant and official languages. Language is a mobile resource and flows with speakers from place to place. It is a trans-national and trans-local tool for communication. The power of language can change from place to place, but Putonghua is a super-tool across China. Wherever you go in China you need to have Putonghua. On the other hand the Mongolian language has significant power in Inner Mongolia, but does not have the same power in other parts of China such as Xinjiang, Yunnan etc. Uyghur is the official language in Xinjiang, not in Guangdong or Qinghai. If Uyghur speakers travel to these places to work, their language loses its symbolic power. This argument of language hierarchical power has given those actors who want to promote Putonghua a strong stance. They have used it to argue for the enforcement of Putonghua learning among minorities and advocated that the minorities shed their own languages for the benefit of mobility and globalization (Hu and Hu, 2011; Ma, 2010). They advocate a new ideology of one nation, one language. They emphasize a national language for for the purpose of building a unified Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu). This predilection of the state for ‘one language’ largely ignores the human dimension of the issue it leaves in its wake. Languages are part of cultures and carry emotional capital, which cannot be measured using economic and mobility values. Speakers of the language are actors who decide the value of their language. Even those languages which have been undermined and are considered backward, useless and valueless by other groups have high value amongst their own speakers. Loss of language can be considered senseless and a humiliation and for this reason many ethnic groups, such as the Manchus and Mongols, have tried to revive their language. In this beautiful multilingual landscape in China, why do some of the actors wish to kill all the varieties to maintain one flower? It is unthinkable that the rich linguistic landscape of China becomes only one language. Is it possible that the unthinking, backward attitudes seen so clearly in the Cultural Revolution could re-emerge?

3

Maintaining the Mongolian Language in Inner Mongolia

In Chapter 2 I reported China’s multilingualism and linguistic inequality across languages and regions. The review focused on the macro levels of multilingualism and, at the policy level, in terms of language families, rankings of status and power positions, the linguistic loss, endangerment, revival, as well as linguistic conflicts in the framework of multilingualism in China. Studies of multilingualism cannot ignore the micro levels and multi-site perspectives where researchers will be able to see the real policy implementation and social and language practice. In this chapter I will focus on the first of the autonomous regions in China, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). I will give a brief introduction about the Mongols and their languages and explore how the Mongols have tried to keep their language in their homeland and why the Mongolian language has been in sharp decline since the 1980s. Who are the Mongols? Mongols are well known in central and northern Asia, as well as in Europe. The majority of Mongols (about 4.1 million in 2010) live in the Inner Mongolia Region in China, about 3 million live in the Mongolian People’s Republic (Outer Mongolia) and 983,000 live in Russia, with the remaining Mongols in other countries in Asia and Europe. There is clearly diversity within the Mongol identity. Their differences are both from historical origins and modern development influenced by being governed by different political systems and influenced by different cultural and social life depending on where they live. There are many subgroups of Mongols such as Buryats, Oirats, Kalmyks and Khakhas who speak a range of related languages, but all Mongols are bound by their language, history and ancestry connecting them to Genghis Khan and the days of the great Mongolian Empire from 1206–1368, which was the largest contiguous land empire in human history (Morgan, 2007).

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The Mongols share a glorious history connected to the Mongolian Empires. They controlled China for nearly 90 years. The Mongols established the Yuan dynasty (from 1279 to 1368). During the Yuan, Mongols controlled an area larger than today’s China including the Mongol homeland, which is roughly today’s Mongolian People’s Republic (Outer Mongolia) and the north-eastern part of Inner Mongolia (Bulag, forthcoming). Even after the collapse of the Yuan dynasty the Mongols did not lose their own original territory and were simply pushed back by the Han to their homeland. Following the Yuan dynasty the Han people established the Ming dynasty, during which they controlled only one-third of the territory of the Yuan dynasty. Ming power was not able to extend to the Mongol territory; instead it built the Great Wall to protect itself from constant threats from the north (Bulag, forthcoming). The majority of Mongols in China mainly live in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). Mongols also live across the country in Xinjiang, Yunnan and other areas. IMAR is the third largest territory in China in terms of its land area, occupying 1,183,000 square kilometres. IMAR is divided into 10 municipal cities, three prefectures and 101 banners or counties. It is located between China, the Mongolian People’s Republic and Russia (see Map 3.1). With a long border of over 4,220 kilometres, IMAR is of both political and geographical importance to China. The following table shows the distribution of the Mongol population. As can be seen from the table below, most Mongols living outside IMAR have become bilingual and lost their language under the pressure of the dominant Table 3.1  Mongol population in China (2010 census) Location

Population

Language use

IMAR Liaoling

4,170,800  669,900

Jilin Hebei Xinjiang Heilongjiang

 172,000  169,800  160,000  141,500

Qinghai

  90,500

Beijing Gansu

  37,500   15,800

Mongolian in nomadic areas, Chinese in urban areas 50–60% speak Mongolian or bilingual, 40–50% lost Mongolian language Same as above Lost Mongolian language No data 40% speak Mongolian and Chinese, 60% lost Mongolian language 40% speak Mongolian, Chinese and Tibetan, 60% lost Mongolian language Mainly bilingual in Mongolian and Chinese Mainly bilingual in Mongolian and Chinese



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Map 3.1  Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Chinese language, with unofficial information indicating that the loss of Mongolian among the current younger generation below 30 years old is almost 100 per cent. Whether this is true needs further investigation. In this chapter I will only focus on Mongolian language use in IMAR.

IMAR as a pioneer model for autonomous regions Outer Mongolia declared independence on 29 December 1911 ‘to protect the land, race and religion’ from the Chinese, as Bogda Khan justified Mongolian independence. Outer Mongolia had at that time the advantage of being majority controlled by one large Mongol group called Khalkha, plus some small Western Mongolian groups (Bulag, 2012). The failure of Inner Mongolia to seek independence or unification with Outer Mongolia was partly due to the Mongols in Inner Mongolia being much more fragmented with large numbers of smaller groups, but also due to the millions of Chinese settlers in the region who became wedges between various Mongolian groups (Bulag, forthcoming).

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The Inner Mongolian Autonomous Government (IMAG) was established on May 1, 1947, two years before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. It is arguable that Mongols were political assets to the CCP and the PRC would have been unable to succeed in its struggle against the nationalist Kuo Min Tang (KMT) without the support of the Mongols. The Mongols’ support of the CCP, not the KMT, was motivated by self-interest and a desire to protect their land, race and religion, similar to the Mongols in Outer Mongolia. Under the KMT government, some Mongolian banners and leagues were divided into Chinese provinces without the agreement of the Mongols: this created resentment among Mongols who felt their homeland was plundered by the Chinese. In order to win support from Mongols in Inner Mongolia, Mao Zedong in his speech ‘Proclamation to the People of Inner Mongolia’ in December 1935 on behalf of the CCP, promised to dismantle all the Chinese provinces and counties established in Inner Mongolia and restore the Mongolian banners and leagues (Mao, 1935; Bulag, forthcoming). The IMAG was renamed the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR) on 1 December 1949. Ulanhu (1906–88), a Russian-educated Mongol and CCP member from a Mongol subgroup of Tüme background, was appointed as the leader of the IMAR. Under his leadership the Mongols won the battle to dismantle the Chinese provinces and restore most historical Mongol land under a Mongolian administration in 1954. The merger of Inner Mongolia with a Chinese province, Suiyuan, also required Mao’s personal intervention, not least because Mongols presented their demand for unification as no more than an implementation of Mao’s 1935 promise. IMAR is not only the first prototype autonomous region, but it is also regarded as a successful model for policymaking and implementation. Since 1949, IMAR has been used as a model by the CCP for the establishment of other autonomous regions, such as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) on October 1, 1955; Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR) on 15 March 1958; Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR) on 25 October 1958 and the last, the Tibetan Autonomous Region, on September 1, 1965. Since its establishment the IMAR has been very peaceful and the government has trialed and implemented most of its policies in the IMAR before rolling them out to other autonomous regions. Such policies have included mothertongue education, ethnic-Han joint schools with separated ethnic classes and joint ethnic language curriculum development between regions and provinces.



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However, in recent years, there has been pressure for the IMAR government to follow Xinjiang’s practice. In a number of conversations I had with policymakers and academics, they said they believed that if Xinjiang had followed IMAR in its ethnic policy, there would be less ethnic unrest there. While a model autonomous region, the Mongol population is an absolute minority in its homeland, which is different from Xinjiang and Tibet. The political power of Mongols as masters in their homeland has been weakened by Han migrations to the region. The issue of Chinese migration is both historical and current, stemming back particularly to times of hardship and famine under the Qing dynasty. The Chinese migration waves from their homeland began in the Qing dynasty, when the Qing had to mediate between a growing pressure from the Chinese to move north for land, and Mongol nobles’ demands for Chinese labourers while maintaining a segregation policy. During the Kangxi era, each year 800 passports were officially issued to Chinese labourers to cross the border into Mongolia. In fact, the figure was much higher, as in June 1712, when Emperor Kangxi noted: As many as one hundred thousand civilians from Shandong have gone beyond the Pass for cultivation. These are all my common people, since they have gone beyond the Pass to make a living by cultivating land, where else can you let them go except to shelter them? But if they are not checked carefully, they will all become Mongols.

In the first and second year of the Yongzheng reign (1723–35), as famine struck Zhili (present-day Hebei) and Shandong regions, the emperor passed a decree encouraging famine refugees to enter Mongolia to make a living, granting them tax relief should they wish to migrate. Known as ‘jiedi yangmin ling’, that is, borrowing Mongol land to feed Han Chinese, this decree, while acknowledging the Mongol land tenure, brought in almost a million Chinese into Mongolia, giving them cultivation rights. According to Mongol archival data, in the regions of Rehe and Kharachin counties alone, more than half a million Chinese had settled in the first decade of the Yongzheng era (Bulag, forthcoming). In permitting the famine-stricken Chinese into Mongolia, the Qing authority attempted to release pressure upon itself, but Chinese resettlement into Mongolia created a Mongol minority in their homeland. Under the PRC government, IMAR has undergone large waves of Han immigration since 1949. As can be seen from the table below the Mongol population in IMAR was between 11 per cent and 17 per cent in the last 60 years since 1953.

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Table 3.2  Population in IMAR (1953–2010) Year Population

Han

Mongols

Other groups

1953 1964 1982 1990 2000 2010

  5,120,000 (83.9%) 10,729,400 (87%) 16,277,600 (84.5%) 17,290,000 (80.6%) 18,823,900 (79.2%) 19,650,700 (79.5%)

  888,200 (14.6%) 1,384,500 (11.2%) 2,489,400 (12.9%) 3,379,700 (15.8%) 4,029,200 (17%) 4,226,100 (17.1%)

  91,820 (1.2%) 220,000 (1.8%) 507,300 (2.6%) 786,800 (3.7%) 902,300 (3.8%) 829,500 (3.4%)

 6,100,020 12,334,100 19,274,300 21,456,500 23,755,400 24,706,300

In the modern era we can see that the large Han population increase was between 1953 and 1964, when Han immigration was doubled as the result of the government’s call for Han people to go to IMAR as ‘helpers’ to develop IMAR. During this time the recorded Mongol population increased by 64.1 per cent, as many people from Han and Mongol intermarriages reclaimed their identities as Mongols in order to enjoy government preferential policies. This trend of claiming to be Mongol has continued and is reflected in 2010’s national census (Interviews, 2012). Most Mongol scholars today are concerned about their language’s decline and endangerment and even imminent loss in China. This concern has been referred to by Bulag as, ‘linguistic anxiety’ (Bulag, 2003). The effort to maintain the Mongolian language, started in 1947 and mainly implemented through public language use and basic education in the Mongolian language, has not had the desired result.

Education through the Mongolian language Mongolian language education was very strong under Ulanhu’s leadership. He insisted all schools use Mongolian as the medium of instruction or teach it as a language subject at least. He also demanded that Chinese working in the IMAR should learn Mongolian. Based on the policy landmarks we can divide the education development of IMAR into four periods. The years between 1947 and 1965 was a period of fast development, also referred to as the first golden period; the years between 1966–76 were destructive as the Cultural Revolution ran its course; 1977 to 1998 was a period of rebuilding and is referred to as the second golden period, and lastly from 1999 to now there has been a fast decline in Mongolian language education.



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The first golden period (1947–65) The first golden period is sometimes referred to as the 19-year honeymoon. In 1947, the saying went, there were ‘three many’ in Inner Mongolia: many lamas, many temples and many illiterates. More than 85 per cent of Mongols were illiterate (IMAR Education Department, 1979). There were 3,798 schools, with 220,800 students including technical and teachers’ colleges, but no higher education institutions. Among them only 339 primary and secondary schools, with 16,900 students enrolled, used the Mongolian language as the medium of instruction or taught the Mongolian language as a subject (IMAR Education Department, 1979). The ‘Government guidelines’ in 1947 set out a clear aim to promote the Mongolian language: To promote Mongolian newspapers and books, to research Mongolian history and disseminate Mongolian language textbooks in schools and develop Mongolian culture (IMAR, 1979).

In 1949 the first education conference in the newly established IMAR also set out the same policy. From its establishment Mongolian education was in place from pre-school to high school in the IMAR. These schools used the Mongolian language as the medium of instruction and were referred to as Meng Xiao (Mongol schools). The following chart shows that Mongol primary schools (MP) developed faster than the Mongol and Han joint schools (M+HP) in the 19 years of education development of the IMAR during this golden period. In the secondary school sectors, Mongol and Han joint secondary schools (M+HS) had developed faster than the Mongol secondary schools (MS) except in 1965 (see Figure 3.2). Mongolian education grew impressively fast at an average yearly rate of 14.25 per cent for primary schools and 21.84 per cent for secondary schools. In comparison with the school numbers in 1947 there were 10.56 times more primary schools and 35 times more secondary schools in 1965. Most Mongolian children in Mongolian schools received their education in the Mongolian medium of instruction (MMI). The student enrolment statistics also reveal significant achievements in the MMI system. The IMAR government also tried to revive the Mongolian language by intensive training of Mongolian children through enforced learning at Mongolian schools. These children were supported by their parents, who had lost the language.

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Figure 3.1  Mongol and joint primary schools in IMAR between 1947–65 Source: Education Yearbook of IMAR (1979–94)

Ulanhu himself reflected this ‘linguistic anxiety’ as he fought against language loss. He took the Mongolian language as his political capital to win support from his people by giving speeches in Mongolian. He read Cyrillic scripts of the Mongolian language in his speeches. On May 1, 1957 Ulanhu spoke in support of Mongol development and culture. Many Mongols were moved to tears and

Figure 3.2  Mongol and joint secondary schools in IMAR between 1947–65 Source: Education Yearbook of IMAR (1979–94)



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Table 3.3  Student enrolments between 1947 and 1965 Year

Primary

Junior Secondary

1947 1965 Yearly increase per cent

  256,000    55,000 1,570,000 1,191,000 10.6 18.63

Senior Secondary   3,000 392,000 35.99

Source: Hu Chunmei, 2003 ‘Research to Minority Education Development’

could not forget his speech even after Ulanhu’s death in late 1988 (Bulag, 2003). They interpreted his speech, delivered in Mongolian, as being in defiance of the Han Chinese onslaught against Mongol culture (Bulag, 2003). This indicates the strength of the emotional bond between language and identity in Mongolia. In 1963 the IMAR government issued a regulation regarding Chinese requirements for Mongolian students in primary and secondary schools. In MMI schools from 1962 students could not go to the next grade or graduate from primary or secondary school unless they passed the Chinese examination. If they failed the Chinese examination they were given one more chance to pass the test.

The destructive period (1966–76) During the Cultural Revolution, it was reported by Mongol educational officials that 20 years of educational development in the MMI system was smashed to nothing. Many Mongolian schools were closed, some were demolished and all remaining were converted to Han schools as ordinary schools (putong xuexiao). Mongol scholars I have spoken to have given me their personal stories of attacks and discrimination. Bulag described the birth of his Mongol identity consciousness as coming to him as an 11-year-old during the Cultural Revolution when his family moved from a remote nomadic village to a city in the IMAR. There he was discriminated against by Han Chinese children; they chased him and threw rocks at him calling him ‘Chou Meng Tazi ’ (stinking Mongol-Tatar). Education in the Mongolian language was regarded as irrelevant as his sister had to repeat a year when entering a school in the city (Bulag, 2003). During the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution Mongol children of school age were only offered Chinese at school. Many Mongol children were given Chinese names by their parents to avoid having their children discriminated against. At school assessment and examination of Chinese reflected the politics of the time.

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The second golden period (1977–92) The re-establishment of Mongolian schooling started in 1977. The IMAR department of education issued ‘30 items of ethnic education’ for implementation in 1978. Mongol children in primary schools who spoke the Mongolian language would be taught in schools where Mongolian was the medium of instruction (MMI). Chinese was to be taught as a subject. Those Mongol children with no Mongolian language proficiency would be taught in schools where Chinese was the medium of instruction (CMI). The Mongolian language was to be offered in those schools as a subject. In secondary schools three models were offered: MMI for all subjects plus Chinese language as a subject; some subjects in MMI and some in CMI such as history, geography and politics; CMI for all subjects plus Mongolian language as a subject. The decision as to which model applied could be made by schools and teachers as well as be dependent on students’ Mongolian language proficiency. The policy also emphasized ‘the objectives of all models is for a quality education, and maintenance of Mongolian language teaching and learning’. This policy wording clearly demonstrates the importance the regional government placed on Mongolian language learning at that time. In 1981 the theme of promoting the Mongolian language continued to formally reach legal level. The IMAR fifth Peoples’ Congress passed further regulations indicating ‘Mongol schools must persist in teaching Mongolian language first and use MMI as the major model in order that students become Mongolian and Chinese bilingual at the same time as learning a foreign language [English]’ This bill was regarded as a trilingual education policy initiative and is still being implemented in schools as ‘trilingual education practice’. Many Mongol elites were against the bilingual education policy, foreseeing the underlying danger for Mongolian language maintenance. In 1981 Chuluun Bagan, a Mongol linguist, wrote to argue: Since the Mongolian language is in a social environment in which Chinese occupies an absolutely advantageous position, it faces the danger of natural assimilation every minute and every second. However, under such circumstances, if you still subjectively adopt so called ‘Mongolian-Chinese bilingualism’ encouraging only Mongols to learn Chinese and not Chinese to learn Mongolian, it is tantamount to using a covert administrative measure to restrict and limit the development of the Mongolian language, and it can only accelerate the process of the loss of Mongolian. (Chuluun Bagan, 1981: 122–3)



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Given the current situation, such a view was very perceptive. Mongol elites are still concerned about the loss of their language by the promotion of bilingual education in IMAR. They also actively promote Mongolian language learning for cognitive reasons. A leading Mongolian language promoter, Mr Shemamjil, whom I met in 1995, has been actively working on promoting the Mongolian language. He has had made a number of speeches since the 1980s explaining why Mongolian should be promoted for teaching Mongol children in schools. He argued that ‘encouraging those Mongol children who did not know Chinese to study Chinese directly resulted in a dismal situation in which they learned neither Chinese nor Mongolian well’. Another argument he made was that by ‘forcing Mongol children to learn Chinese was in fact wasting Mongol children’s talents, adversely affecting the development of the intelligence of the Mongol nationalities and negatively influencing the development of the economy and culture of minority regions’ (Shemamjil, 1990: 54). Bulag states that an anti-Chinese-language-learning sentiment spurred enthusiasm throughout Inner Mongolia to revive Mongolian language use in public and private (Bulag, 2003). However, this enthusiasm, like the Manchus’ language revivalism movement, gradually waned in the face of economic development in China as Chinese became the lingua franca of the markets. It is clear that Mongols who are Mongolian speakers need to become bilingual or even trilingual in order to compete with Chinese-only speakers in the market. A Mongol educational official, Wulan Tuke, reported in 1980 that 4,387 primary schools and 501 high schools used Mongolian as the medium of instruction. In 1983 the IMAR passed language bills requiring Mongolian to be used as the medium of instruction in Mongolian schools, but the implementation of this policy was regarded as a total failure. The following table based on information from the IMAR education department shows strong learning of the Mongolian language by Mongol children in 1980, with 83.48 per cent of Mongolian children attending MMI plus Chinese primary schools or CMI plus Mongolian language learning. By 1992 this number had fallen to 59.2 per cent of students undergoing instruction where Mongolian was the medium of instruction. As there is no information on student enrolments from 1981 to 1991, we can only assume the decline occurred before 1992, even in the golden era. In comparison with primary schools, the number of Mongol students in secondary schools receiving MMI instruction increased, but students receiving CMI plus Mongolian reduced. The total of students either receiving MMI and/ or learning Mongolian still reduced by 14.25 per cent in 1992.

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Table 3.4  Language instruction in primary schools Year

1980 1992

Primary MMI plus Chinese 252,446 234,656 –17,790

CMI Plus Mongolian Total Mongolian Students % 31,279 17,524 –13,755

339,860 425,977 +86,117

83.48 59.2 –24.2

Source: Ethnic Education Department of IMAR 2005

Table 3.5  Students in MMI and CMI secondary schools in 1980 and 1992 Year Total Mongol Students

MMI plus C

CMI plus M

%

1980 154,325 1992 188,448 +34,123

 79,857 105,107 +25,250

36,816 16.976 –19,840

79.03 64.78 –14.25

In order to maintain the Mongolian language in the education system the IMAR government set up Mongolian language pre-schools as a precursor for Mongol children to attend MMI primary schools. Some mobile pre-schools were also set up to cater for MMI primary schools in nomadic and remote areas. It was reported by the IMAR education department that there were 99 pre-schools with 10,894 children enrolled in 1992 in the region (IMAR Education Department, 2011).

Mongolian language decline period (1995–12) Following the government’s ‘Go West Development’ (GWD) in the 1990s, economic development changed IMAR into a rapidly developing economy, but at the same time Mongol school numbers reduced sharply. Wulan Tuke reports that as the economic reform gathered speed in China from the 1990s, the policy of minority languages as the medium of instruction in schools in various regions has faced problems. Despite continued government support of the Mongolian medium of instruction, many such schools changed to Han instruction. In fact, the number of students enrolled in the MMI schools has been in rapid decline. Wulan Tuke claimed that between 1980 and 1995, the number of primary schools with the Mongolian medium of instruction declined by 32.1 per cent, and high schools by 28.3 per cent. Students studying the Mongolian language in primary schools dropped by 23.7 per cent and high school students by 20 per cent (see Tables 3.6 and 3.7).



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Table 3.6  Mongolian instruction schools 1980–95 Schools using Mongolian as MOI

1980 (numbers) 1995 (numbers) Percentage reduction

Primary schools Secondary schools

4,387 501

2,978 359

32.1% 28.3%

Table 3.7  Student enrolment in Mongolian instruction schools Schools using 1980 (Student Mongolian as MOI enrolment)

1995 (Student enrolment)

Percentage reduction

Primary schools

108,010 (46.6% of all Mongol students) 258,082 (49.6% of all Mongol students)

23.7%

Secondary schools

283,725 (73.3% of all Mongol students) 11,6673 (66.8% of all Mongol students)

20.2%

The decline in Mongolian language education is both in student enrolments and schools. By the end of 2003, 1,286 MMI Mongol primary schools and 142 MMI junior secondary schools had closed (IMAR Education Department, 2005). By 2010 further decline in Mongol schools continued as they closed or were forced to become joint schools, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 3.3  Mongol primary (MP) and Mongol secondary (MS) schools 1980–2010 Source: Ethnic Education Working Manual, Book 1, Ethnic Education Department IMAR, Inner Mongolia Education Press, 2011.

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In 2012 when I visited IMAR there had been further declines in the numbers of Mongol primary and secondary schools. In fact only 140 schools remained as MMI schools. There were 171 Mongol/Han joint schools and 63 other Ethnic/ Han joint schools. These schools are Ewenki/Han joint schools (14), Oroqen/Han joint schools (13), Daur/Han joint schools (9), Russian/Han (2), Manchu/Han (5), Korean/Han (4), Hui/Han (16). Apart from the Hui/Han and Manchu/ Han schools the joint schools either used Chinese or the ethnic language as a medium of instruction. The four Korean schools used Korean as the medium of instruction (KMI) and taught Chinese as a subject. Of the 14 Ewenki schools five used MMI and nine used CMI. Among the 171 Mongol/Han joint schools nine were using CMI with Mongolian taught as a subject, while the remaining schools used MMI for all or parts of subjects and taught Chinese as a subject. The Mongols have lost this language-learning race. They were encouraging the use of more Mongolian language by Mongol elites for the benefit of knowledge and learning, but learning Chinese was promoted for economic and career benefit, which seems more attractive to parents who are concerned with their children’s future. The main factor causing the fast decline of Mongolian language education is lack of parental support. Many Mongolian parents have lost interest in this elitedriven movement. They ‘see little benefit in sending their children to Mongolian schools and opt for Chinese education for their children, hoping that this will lead to a brighter economic future’ (Interview data, 2012). Many Mongol parents feel they must collaborate in the destruction of their own language, as Bourdieu (1991: 7) has said in regards to the French peasants’ willing abandonment of their dialects in favour of the official language (Bulag, 2003). Wulan Tuke argues that two important issues affecting minority education are related to opportunities for higher education and employment. First, the tertiary entrance examination system has favoured those students schooled in the Han language and taught English. Students from Mongolian-medium instruction schools were disadvantaged, as they had not studied English, which the majority of tertiary institutions require. Further, the quota for accepting students educated through the Mongolian medium of instruction has been reduced yearly since 1980. There are not many employment opportunities for tertiary graduates who have good levels of spoken Mongolian and script but possess weak Han skills. Careers in Mongolian language newspapers and radio stations, and Mongolian language and research are limited. Instead of Mongol schools more bilingual schools were established, but most of these are CMI schools where the Mongolian language is offered as a subject. I



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was told that there were 538 bilingual primary and secondary schools in IMAR with 263,700 Mongol student enrolments in 2012. At the tertiary level in 2012 there were 16 institutions (26,864 students) out of a total of 41 having majors taught with MMI. Official statistics show a clear decline since 1992 in Mongol students who chose to learn Mongolian. Government promotion of boarding schools has also increased the decline. Since 1991 the IMAR government aimed to have ‘boarding school and scholarships for public primary and secondary schools’, the Liang Zhu Yi Gong policy (两主一公). Many schools in the nomadic areas were closed and children were offered scholarships to boarding schools in the big cities. Under this policy more students are enrolled in schools but less MMI instruction is received. As a result many Mongol instruction nomadic schools were closed and Mongol students joined boarding schools or transferred to CMI schools. As can be seen from the table below, only 40.5 per cent of pre-school Mongol children learnt the Mongolian language in pre-schools, more than 60 per cent of Mongol students went to CMI schools. A major reason for Mongolian language decline in education was the change in attitude by Mongolian parents who realized their children’s future economic wellbeing depended on a high level of Chinese education. Job markets have become occupied by Chinese speakers, so the economic value of Chinese is higher, and Mongolian has also lost its social and economic functional value. Those Mongols who are educated in Mongolian find their university level knowledge of Mongolian is no different to

Table 3.8  Mongol schools and students in IMAR in 2010 Pre-school Primary Junior secondary Mongol 181 Schools Mongol 80,134 Students MMI or 32,733 CMI+M Percentage 40.5% of Mongol students

Senior secondary

Technical colleges

326

123

51

19

317,923

167,898

125,180

34,012

119,633

 51,128

 43,828

 4,796

37.7%

30.5%

35%

14.1%

Source: Ethnic Education working Manual, Book 1, Ethnic Education Department IMAR, Inner Mongolia Education Press 2011.

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illiteracy. If they are unable to speak Chinese they cannot find jobs; almost all jobs are controlled by Chinese, even in the lower level of Mongol administrative counties (Bulag, 2003). The same factor has been confirmed by other researchers. An analysis of 282 interviews conducted by Iredale, Bilik and Wang et al. indicated that students taught in Mongolian have much fewer opportunities to find a job in cities (Iredale, et al., 2001: 128). The current employment status shows that 83.9 per cent of Han Chinese migrants to the cities were employed compared with 48.9 per cent of minority migrants, though this indicates a high rate of selection of student minority migrant households (Iredale, et al., 2001: 125–6). Such a discrepancy can be partially explained by the language factor: in Hohhot, where the Han Chinese are in the majority, Chinese is the language for most professional positions. According to a comparative figure of first-time employment involving university students taught in Mongolian and those taught in Chinese (Ma, 2007), Mongolian-medium students have a much lower employment rate than those of Chinese-medium (Bilik, 2013). Many Mongol scholars also blame the Mongolian language decline on there being no strong leader like Ulanhu. It was very difficult to fight for the Mongolian language in the education system. After the Cultural Revolution Ulanhu was in theory promoted as vice-chairman of the central government, in practice he had been removed from IMAR as its ‘jia kong’ (figurehead). As Mongolian language learning has been declining in schools for more than 20 years, Chinese language learning has been rising. In terms of the Chinese curriculum gradual increasing of study times has been imposed and has fluctuated as the political climate has swung to or away from either Mongolian or Chinese language learning. Chinese teaching in the MMI schools in IMAR has shown a trend from less hours to more, from late to early primary as the learning of Chinese creates higher demands on students. The following figure shows the class hours for the MMI primary and secondary schools between 1953 and 2010. The chart below shows how the class hours of teaching Chinese in primary schools fluctuate according to the political climate. In 1958 during the ‘Great Leap Forward’ Chinese teaching increased significantly. Students in MMI schools at the time were required to master 1,500 Chinese characters (as opposed to 800–1,000 previously). In 1980 there was resistance to learning Chinese by Mongols and the hours reduced to 816. Class hours were also increased in 2000 and 2003 as the students were then required to start learning Chinese from primary one. In 2010 the policy shifted again from Primary 1 to 2 and class hours reduced accordingly.



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Figure 3.4  Class hours for learning Chinese

The figure below shows at which grades MMI students in primary years have been required to start learning Chinese between 1953 and 2010. There are similarities between 1966, the commencement of the Cultural Revolution, and 2003, the GWD period, in which Mongol students were required to learn Chinese from Year 1 in primary school. Did this policy reflect the fact that the ideology of the Cultural Revolution, which forced Mongols to learn Chinese as soon as they entered school, was alive and well in 2003 as Mongolian in school reduced in importance? There was a slight adjustment

Figure 3.5  Grades when Mongol students start learning Chinese in primary school

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made in 2010 in which Mongol students were given one year to learn their own language first, especially those Mongol students who live in the nomadic areas and did not know Chinese at all. In 2000 a new trilingual policy was issued for MMI schools by the IMAR government. From 2001 students from MMI schools had to take Mongolian, Chinese, a foreign language and other subjects for their tertiary entrance examination (TEE). Mongolian and maths are out of 100 marks. The higher mark from Chinese or a foreign language can be selected to be included in the final result. The other lower language mark will not be counted but will be used as a reference mark. In 2003 the policy changed to include both language subjects in the TEE. From 2004 the IMAR has used a Chinese-language proficiency test for minority people (HSK for minorities) to replace the Chinese test for TEE. This test required students to pass level 3. The same requirement applied to Korean students graduating from KMI schools.

Case studies in Xilinhot In 2012 I visited two Mongolian schools in Xilinhot (or Shili-yin hota in the Mongolian language). Xilinhot is a county-level city and in the middle of the IMAR. This area is believed to be a territory belonging to the 15th generation of Genghis Khan. Currently 17 ethnic groups live in Xilinhot, with Han as the majority and 20 per cent are Mongol. Before 1949, Xilinhot was a centre for Mongolian religious education. In 1944, there were 801 lamas in Beizi Temple studying the 13 goals of religious education; which included medicine, arts, history and mathematics. Mongolian children commenced studying in first grade aged between 5 and 10. A lama normally graduated from the 13th grade at about the age of 30, and this was equivalent to a PhD degree in the Western education system. About 70 students receive this degree every year. There were no other Mongol schools outside the religious schools and more than 90 per cent of Mongols were illiterate (Xilinhot local history, 1999). Today Xilinhot is a centre for energy resources and tourism. There is a massive coal mine on the edge of town and wind-generating farms nearby. Xilinhot also has a thriving tourist industry with daily flights from Beijing and other cities attracting millions of tourists from both China and overseas. Mongolian culture and language are very prominent in the landscape with pictures, tapestries and monumental statues of Genghis Khan in every home, shop and street corner.



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Every summer tourists come to see Mongolian people wrestling, horse riding, engaging in costume contests, horse racing, etc. in the Nadam Festival, a Mongolian feast. Mongols celebrate and also show off this big summer festival by wearing very colorful costumes and colorful yurts are set up to serve food and sell trinkets and supplies. Tourists can stay at resorts where there is a large yurt for dining surrounded by smaller individual yurts for sleeping. The surrounding countryside is rolling grasslands populated by Mongols who have horses, sheep, goats, and some cows. Tourists are also served with Mongolian mutton, beef, horse milk wine, and other famous Mongolian food. By June 2012, tourist numbers reached 1.2 million, a 20.5 per cent increase above 2011 and income from tourism was 679,000,000 yuan, a 38 per cent increase on 2011 (Xilinhot Tourist Bureau, 2012). Most tourists were attracted to staying in yurts and visiting nomadic families who serve them Mongolian food and wine and sing Mongolian songs. They also ride horses and camels and participate in Mongolian dances and cultural activities. Mongolian culture, including language, has been commercialized as a tourist product. The Mongolian language and Chinese characters, as well as English, are displayed in government buildings, shops, road signs and many public places in Xilinhot. This public image has given Mongols some symbolic power to say that even as a minority they are indeed masters of their homeland. The fast economic development has brought Mongols economic benefits and social and cultural capital through the tourism industry. However, concurrent with this tourism boom many Mongols have had to move to Xilinhot because their nomadic lands have been taken by the energy companies for coal. My conversations with local Mongols reveal that these nomadic Mongols do not like city life and would prefer their traditional life in the grasslands. In 2012, there were 40,242 Mongol students enrolled in boarding schools in Xilinhot, among them 2,840 students from nomadic areas, aged 6–18. The majority of these students from nomadic areas were educated in MMI schools and they have limited Chinese. Because of their children’s schooling in Xilinhot, one of the parents, normally the mother, had to come with their children while the fathers remain in the nomadic areas to look after their cattle and sheep. This separation of couples has resulted in marriage breakdowns, which has created some social problems in Xilinhot. The two schools I visited were a Mongolian secondary school and a Mongolian primary school. Xilinhot Mongolian Secondary School (XMSS) was founded on 1 September 1984 and was an MMI school for students from 12 banners and counties in IMAR. It was the biggest Mongol school in the Xilin Glo prefecture. The school

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has good facilities. The teaching building was built in 1988, with funds of 1.5 million yuan being invested jointly by state, regional and Xilinhot governments. In 2001 the school expanded into another new building providing more teaching space as well as other facilities. In 2002 there were 92 staff and 549 students in junior secondary and 249 students in senior secondary. By 2012 student numbers had increased to 2,651, staff to 235 (203 teaching staff) and 44 classes. The majority of staff originated from Mongol backgrounds. Most students in junior and secondary high are from remote and poor agricultural and nomadic areas (81 per cent in the junior school). Of these, 61 per cent board at the school with the other students living locally at home or in outside accommodation. Xilinhot Mongolian Primary School (XMPS) was the first primary school in Xilin Gol Prefecture and was established in April 1949. At that time there were five staff and 85 Mongol students aged 13–20 from nomadic families. Mongolian was the medium of instruction. In 1984 the school was No. 1 Xilinhot Primary School but was renamed as Xilinhot City Mongolian Primary School in 2008 and became a key primary school. In 2012 the school had 1,086 students, including 217 boarding students, 28 classes, 85 teachers and other 22 administration and school maintenance staff.

Interviews with Chinese teachers A total of 28 Chinese teachers were interviewed, 17 from XMSS and nine from XMPS. Twenty-five Chinese teachers were descended from a Mongolian background, though four of them had one parent with a Han background, while only 3 teachers were of Han background. They were all born in IMAR, with three teachers coming from nomadic counties. Five of these teachers were male, 23 were female; three were above 50 years, 13 between 40 and 49, six between 30 and 39 and six were between 25 and 29 years old. The majority of teachers held a bachelor’s degree (four years’ study) in Chinese, seven held diplomas in teaching (three years’ study) and one teacher held a master’s degree. They had between two and 15 years’ teaching experience. They received three types of language instruction during their education, Mongolian medium of instruction (MMI), Chinese medium of instruction plus Mongolian (CMI+M) and Chinese medium of instruction (CMI). The above information indicates that MMI was the major mode for teachers’ primary education and CMI was the major mode for their tertiary education.



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Table 3.9  Teachers’ education background MMI CMI+M CMI

Primary

Junior Secondary

Senior Secondary

Tertiary

19  5  4

15  6  7

12  8  8

 4 – 24

Many teachers interviewed said they received in-service teacher training in various topics such as Putonghua training (17 teachers); theories and teaching methodology on second language teaching (nine teachers); new Chinese curriculum and assessment (21 teachers) and other training such as use of technologies etc. (five teachers). Most primary school teachers said they have fewer opportunities for in-service training than teachers in secondary schools. When they were asked to which language schools they sent their children, MMI or CMI, seven teachers reported they wanted to send or had sent their children to MMI schools. They explained that they were concerned that the Mongolian language was becoming endangered. As Mongols they felt it was their obligation to pass the language on to their children. They also said students would get better results for other subjects, so it would be easier for them to enter university. The remaining 21 teachers reported they were more likely to send, or had sent, their children to CMI schools or bilingual/trilingual schools. They said their children would have more opportunities when it came to competition for careers and also have a good mastery of the Chinese language. Some teachers believed trilingual schools would be better for their children. They believed Mongol students with better English-language skills can out-perform Han students in the career competition while at the same time maintaining Mongolian language and culture. One of the Mongol teachers explained his choice: I sent my child to CMI school because my wife is Han, we don’t speak Mongolian at home. It is a pity my daughter does not speak the Mongolian language. When we visited her grandparents in our home town I felt very embarrassed she could not talk to my parents. I had to be her interpreter, as my parents cannot speak Putonghua. But I want to be a responsible father for her future. She would complain if she could not find a job if I sent her to an MMI school. In general students graduating from MMI schools cannot compete with those from CMI schools.

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Another teacher also supported this view. She said: In the class that I am teaching most students are from nomadic areas. Their Chinese is very poor, so MMI teaching mode is good for them. But students in the cities, they all speak Chinese. Hardly any children from the cities go to MMI schools.

One teacher also explained why 40 per cent of the children enrolled in this MMI school are from the city: Most local students in the school are poor students who cannot pass in the CMI schools because their Chinese is not good, also their parents want them to maintain the Mongolian language. One other practical reason is while parents don’t need to pay for their children to go to a CMI school, our school is not only free but also students receive 4 yuan a day for food, free books and other government support. Therefore most students in the school are from lower economic backgrounds.

In summary, the teachers’ view of MMI schools seemed to be that they suit students who are from poorer economic family backgrounds, for poorperforming students, for the Mongols who want to maintain the Mongolian language and for those who wish to take advantage of government affirmative policies to assist their children to get to universities. It was generally agreed that these students are not able to compete with Han students for a career path. A number of teachers also expressed views on the reasons for trilingual education practice. As one teacher stated: I only have one child and I don’t want him to go to a trilingual education program. It is too much for a young boy to learn three languages at the one time. Chinese and English are from different language families, it is very hard for us Mongols to learn these totally different languages. I wish the school taught Japanese or Korean as these languages are similar to Mongol in grammar structure. However, there are no schools which offer Japanese teaching in Xilinhot.

Another teacher who sent her two children to MMI schools said: I sent my two children to MMI kindergarten and primary schools. They loved these schools. After primary school I sent them to CMI secondary schools where they did really well. They both went to university in Beijing and now they are trilingual with good Chinese, English and Mongolian. I think we have to have some learning stages. Mongolian language first, Chinese language second and then English as a third stage. To learn three languages at the same time children will have three poor languages.



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Most Mongol teachers did not support this trilingual approach. When questions were asked about their teaching and communication with students, most teachers said they hardly used the Mongolian language in their classes. One teacher reported: Our school is MMI, Chinese is only a subject. We only have 8 periods per week. Students don’t get enough practice speaking Chinese so I don’t speak Mongolian in the class. But students all talk to me in Mongolian after class.

Teacher 7 also explained: Students have left their home to study in this boarding school. They are very lonely without their family here. Some students treat me like their mother and ask me a lot of questions in Mongolian so I only talk to them in Mongolian.

One teacher was very pleased with the Chinese learning progress of her students: When students come to the school in junior secondary school they can understand my Chinese in the lesson but speak very poor Putonghua. After one or two years their Chinese improves because they have a very good Chinese environment in the city. In senior secondary school students speak very good Chinese.

Teacher 10 explained: The technology and media all provide students with more Chinese learning opportunities. Although there is a Mongolian language channel on the television, students are more likely to choose the Chinese channels. They say the Mongolian TV programs are boring. They don’t use Mongolian on the computer when searching for information.

Another teacher explained: There is more information on the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) websites but because the script used is Cyrillic our students cannot use them.

Teachers also indicated that they used the Chinese language when preparing their lessons, writing reports and so forth as there were very few teaching resources in the Mongolian language on the Internet. Most teachers indicated that the Mongolian language was still useful in Xilinhot as some businesses were conducted in Mongolian, but Chinese had become more and more dominant in business sectors and in social life in Xilinhot. The secondary school I visited was a Mongol boarding school. Apart from school life, students experience social life outside schools in evenings or

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on weekends. A separate survey (Han, 2012) reported that Mongol students use 75.7 per cent Chinese, 10.8 per cent Mongolian and 13.5 per cent Mongolian and Chinese outside schools. Mongol boarding students only return to their homes during summer and winter vacations. Most Chinese teachers were concerned about their Chinese language use during the vacations. As teacher 15 stated: Most Mongol students from nomadic areas lived in the school during the term period. During holidays they went home and only spoke the Mongolian language. When they returned to school their Chinese was dramatically behind, levels reduced.

Teacher 16: Everybody believed the Chinese-speaking environment improved in recent years but I have seen the gaps become bigger and bigger between native speakers of Chinese and Mongols. I taught Chinese to Mongol students for 20 years. My former students could enter many good universities in Beijing and receive the same Chinese education. There was not a great gap between Mongol and Han. But now Mongol students become very behind the Han students, because they are lazier.

Teachers reported that students spent much time on the computer sending messages in Chinese and chatting in Chinese but that their Chinese essaywriting skills were generally poor. Students watched a lot of Chinese movies and TV programs but they were not exposed to Chinese novels and good essays. They did not do well in examinations. In China education is traditionally examination driven. Mongol students may have mastered basic Chinese-language proficiency, but to compete with native Chinese speakers in Chinese examinations is a great challenge for them to overcome. By locating Mongol students away from their Mongolian-speaking environment and giving them a good Chinese-speaking environment these Mongol students can become efficient in Chinese communication. As MMI school students learn through their mother tongue and their family support is the Mongolian language, the MMI system can make them bilingual in Chinese and Mongolian.



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Class observations I observed five Chinese lessons both in primary and secondary schools in Xilinhot. I also observed one history, one English and two maths lessons. Discussions were held with groups of teachers who were teaching various subjects. In the primary school it was clear to me that even in the Chinese lesson, the Mongolian language was used extensively to explain new concepts or new vocabulary and grammar structures. Example: Teacher = T, Students = Ss, Student 1 = s1, – this lesson was a year 2 Chinese lesson, 45 students, all Mongol. T: Tongxie men hao! [Hello students] Ss: Laoshi hao! [Hello teacher] T: Women jintian kaishi Xue di 8 ke: shi guanyu dongwu [Today we are going to learn lesson 8: about animals] T: Shei neng shuo shuo mengyu shi shenme yisi? [Who can tell us the meaning of these words in the Mongolian language], (she pointed out some pictures of a horse, cattle, sheep, fish, bird and insects) T: Ma [horse], niu [cattle] shi shenme [What are they]? s1: Mori, uher. T: Henhao [very good], yang [sheep] and yu [fish]? Ss: Honi and shuvuu. T: Shuvuu shi niao, bushi yu [Shuvuu is bird not fish] yu shi jagas [fish is jagas]. Chong shi shenme? [What is chong?] s1: Horhoi. T: Henhao [very good]. Gen wo nian [read after me] ma, niu, yang … Ss: Ma, niu, yang …

The teacher then started to write Chinese characters on the board to show students the order of strokes and asked students to follow her as she read the characters. After the lesson the teacher told me 90 per cent of the students were from nomadic areas and their Chinese was not very good. The class was basically a character-learning lesson. Students did not have much speaking practice. In a Chinese lesson observed in Year 7 and 8 the teacher used more Chinese than Mongolian. Conversations with history, maths and English teachers indicated that Chinese language was important for all subjects. If students did not have good

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Chinese then they would not be good in other subjects. As an English teacher explained, most English teachers can only speak Chinese and even those who spoke Mongolian felt they could not teach English through Mongolian as they themselves were taught through Chinese. They did not know how to teach, for example, English grammar through Mongolian language. They did not have the resources to translate from English to Mongolian. Teacher 1 explained: We don’t have teacher manuals or guides for teaching English through Mongolian language. We don’t know how to do it. All the translation exercises are in Chinese and we have to use these exercises as we don’t have other teaching or student resources!

Subject teachers also shared this view. They said all the requirements for subject learning are exactly the same as the Han CMI schools. Maths, physics, chemistry, geography and history, politics and English are all the same. The only difference is the medium of instruction, one being Chinese, the other Mongolian. Notwithstanding this all teaching resources are those for CMI schools, especially practice booklets. Teachers spent a lot of time translating these booklets into Mongolian for students so that their students could use them, but in spite of their efforts they could not meet the needs of students. The result was that students with better Chinese skills could access a larger amount of learning resources than those with poor Chinese. Teacher 21: Many students could not do the maths exercises because they could not understand the questions. I need to translate all the maths questions for them to practice.

It is clear Chinese language has more learning resources available to Chinese students than to Mongol students. By continuing this system of having important resources needed for higher education only available in Chinese, the education system is endorsing the further undervaluation of the Mongolian language. Trilingual learning in recent years has meant that Chinese-speaking students are better placed to access good quality and the biggest quantity of learning resources. English in recent years has become better resourced than Mongolian. Mongolian resources for some subjects are missing and for others lacking, adding heavy burdens and challenges to Mongolian teachers and students alike. A history teacher also indicated: The content of history is all translated from Chinese. Our Mongolian history is missing in the textbooks. Students ask me why I don’t teach Mongolian history



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and my answer is, it is not in the textbook, you will not be tested. Some students also question whether the Chinese history is true. One student told me his father and grandfather told him a different history. This student was right. The history content did not show the truth in terms of Mongolian history.

Mongol students picked up an example of wrong information in a Chinese lesson. Nowadays the Internet is very advanced and can be accessed by students. In our Chinese textbook there is a text ‘Beizhuang de Liang Xiaoshi’ (The sad two hours). This text, which I taught in the Chinese lesson, was a completely untrue news report. My students read the discussions on the Internet and asked me questions in class. I was very embarrassed and made to look awkward by the mistakes contained in the textbook. It was perhaps deliberately fabricated news but these types of texts should not be used in a textbook. It gives a very bad image of the education system and also teachers, who should be respected by the younger generation.

The education department of the IMAR has compiled Chinese textbooks since 1955. During my visit to schools in Xilinhot I observed that two Chinese textbooks were used in the primary and secondary schools. Although textbooks have been compiled by the IMAR they have had to follow the course curriculum issued by the State Ministry of Education, which was published in 2006. The objectives of the textbooks state: MM

MM

MM

MM

MM

To implement the education policies of the party and state. To adapt the general requirement of education quality. To adhere to (uphold) the principles of linguistic functions, structure and culture based on characteristics of second language. To gradually train students with skills to use the Han language and culture correctly. To develop good habits in learning the Han language.

I translated the Chinese into English based on the actual words used in the objectives. In fact the title of these series of Chinese textbooks is Hanyu (Han spoken language) in which the content is not just Yu (spoken language) but covers both Putonghua as a spoken language and Chinese written language. As the textbooks have strictly followed the state Chinese curriculum the content and selections of readings are the same as all other Chinese textbooks in the country. For example, in the first year in primary school the Chinese

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textbooks all start from Hanyu Pinyin, which is the key element for learning Putonghua (tones and rhymes) then continue into learning characters by pictures, stroke order etc. One of the particular features is the Hanyu Leyuan (happy paradise or fun parks of Han language) in which some Chinese language exercises are given for students. The primary school Chinese textbooks for grades 2–4 are listed below. One of the main features of the 36 units in the textbook is that they include a variety of topics from culture and humanities – such as campus life, harmonious society, beautiful landscapes of the country, food and lifestyles etc. It is very interesting to see Mongolian culture being included in the textbooks. According to the textbook designers the textbooks include 24 texts based on local topics, which make up 17 per cent of the total topics. The dominant texts comprising about 60 per cent of the content are well-known texts written by famous authors. The balance of the content is 12 per cent foreign literature, 11 per cent scientific and 10 per cent Chinese focusing on patriotic themes. Table 3.10  Primary school Chinese textbooks Topics or Content

Year

Units

Entering school basic education Hanyu Pinyin Learning characters by pictures Texts Intensive reading texts Extensive reading texts Listening and speaking Writing

2 2 2 3–4 3–4 3–4 4 4

  1   4   4  28 100  40   8   4

Table 3.11  Chinese textbooks for junior secondary (Year 7–9) schools Content

Year

Units

Reading texts Intensive reading Extensive reading Listening and speaking Writing Hanyu grammar knowledge Language use Reciting Chinese classic poetry and prose

7–9 7–9

36 82 texts 59 texts 24 18 18 12 72 texts

7–9 7–9 7–9 7–9 7–9



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As a second language for Mongol students in primary schools the requirement is for 1,800 Chinese characters, among them 1,300 characters need to be mastered for reading and writing. Students need to know 4,000 words of commonly used vocabulary. In comparison, as a first language for Chinese children in primary schools they need to read 3,000 characters and write 2,500 characters. The requirement for junior secondary school is an additional 1,200 characters and vocabulary expansion of another 2,000 commonly used words. Most teachers I interviewed were not satisfied with the requirements. Some teachers feel the textbooks put Mongolian students behind Chinese children in the Chinese examinations, while other teachers felt Mongol students cannot cope with the difficulties as second-language learners. One teacher said the textbooks have been designed for students who live in the city, and are not suitable for Mongol students from nomadic areas, The current textbook suits students’ levels better than the textbook we used before, but the students from nomadic areas still feel the textbooks are very difficult. I think the textbook writers have no knowledge of the Chinese level of students from nomadic areas, especially the reading texts, which my students in grade 5 find very difficult to understand.

The positive comments from teachers were that the current textbooks emphasize oral skills in Chinese. They believed the students benefited from oral training, as the character-by-character learning was not practical for Mongol students. These comments were confirmed by my lesson observations. The major problems teachers talked about were lack of teaching resources such as exercise books, teachers’ menu and audio-video learning resources. Another problem mentioned was the mismatch between the content of textbooks and the examination. The examination questions were above the content of the textbooks. The academic requirement in an MMI school was almost equivalent to that in a CMI program. The examinations were clearly advantageous to students who completed Chinese learning in the CMI program. One of the teachers stated: Zhong Kao [examinations for senior secondary school] was very challenging for my students and most of them failed last year. As basic free education finishes at junior secondary, if students cannot pass the Zhong Kao they will be unable to enter senior secondary school and then go to university. So the Zhong Kao is more difficult than Gao Kao. (University entrance examination)

Another teacher reported:

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Table 3.12  Chinese examination papers in 2011 Question type

Question Content

Marks

Multiple choice Answer questions Reading Comprehension

 1–10 11–13 14 15 16 17

20 12

Essay writing

Han language knowledge Basic skills Fable story Narrative essay Expository essay Write essay with materials provided

33 35

In the Zhong Kao Chinese paper students had a lot of Chinese grammar knowledge questions, such as the emotional aspects of some words and sentence grammar analysis. The textbook emphasis is on language use, but the examination focus is on language knowledge. It is a mismatch. As a teacher we do not know how to prepare students for this examination. We don’t want our students to fail the test, so we sometimes have to stop using the Chinese textbooks and make our own materials to train them in Chinese knowledge so they can pass the examination.

A number of teachers also said the examination affected the parents’ decision to send Mongol children to CMI schools: Mongol students in CMI schools normally do better than those in MMI schools. Parents worried that their children will not be able to enter senior high school send their children to CMI schools. We have lost a lot of children from junior secondary school for this reason.

The paper is clearly focused on reading and writing (total 68 per cent) and grammar knowledge (32 per cent) while the textbooks focus on oral skills training. There is no oral content in the examination. The IMAR average mark out of 100 for this Chinese examination was 55.81. Only 34.9 per cent of Mongol students passed the Chinese examination. However, their Mongolian language results were a pass rate of 84.27 per cent. The English pass rate was 3.9 per cent.

Conclusion This chapter has discussed multilingual education practice in schools in IMAR, the first ethnic autonomous region in China. Mongolian language education has moved up and down with political ideologies and events. It is clear that



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before 1965 the MMI education system was strongly developed, but it was almost destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Since 1976 the MMI system has been rebuilt. However, the economic and political situation has changed in favour of Chinese education despite the IMAR government’s preferential policies to encourage MMI schooling. As the speed of economic development has increased, the MMI system’s status has declined. The current situation is that the MMI system is seen to be suitable for those Mongol students from nomadic areas with a lower economic and social status. Those parents who are financially able prefer to send their children to CMI schools. Further examination of the school curriculum and examinations shows that the MMI system has fewer educational resources for both students and teachers involved in learning Chinese. The examination system is designed to favour children in a CMI school, another important reason parents are choosing CMI schools for their children. From class observation and textbook analysis, teaching Chinese as a second language has been improved. Teaching methodologies are well developed and teaching resources are based on sound second-language teaching principles which encourage language use rather than language knowledge. However, the examination system is underdeveloped, favouring, as it does, students undergoing CMI schooling and disadvantaging those in MMI schools. The lack of educational resources for the MMI curriculum further disadvantages Mongolian students and forces them to give up their mother tongue. The underlying ideology is to promote the learning of Chinese. Under the current trend the Mongolian language will further decline in the education system, and the Mongolian language will become a token and commercial product in the tourist industry, not a true communication and educational tool for the Mongols in the very near future.

4

Becoming Bilingual and Trilingual in Xinjiang

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is situated in China’s far northwest next to the borders with Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet. It holds key political, geographic, economic, cultural and linguistic importance for China. Xinjiang is the largest province in China in terms of land area, has the longest land border in China and is the richest province in terms of natural resources. Xinjiang covers 1.65 million square kilometres, one-sixth of China’s total land mass, and has borders with eight other countries: Russia, Mongolian People’s Republic (Outer Mongolia), Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Xinjiang is therefore vital for PRC’s national security and territorial integrity (see Map 4.1). Xinjiang is crucial for sustaining China’s economic growth. It provides important natural resources, including large oil and natural gas reserves, which are estimated by the Chinese authorities to be one-third of the country’s total. China has been a net importer of oil since 1993, and Xinjiang’s production can satisfy only part of domestic demand, but the region remains vital to the country’s economic security (Downs, 2004). In addition Xinjiang holds other mineral resources, including substantial quantities of gold, other nonferrous metals and uranium. Xinjiang’s rich soil and climate make it attractive for agricultural production such as cotton, grains and fruit. It has an extensive oil pipeline and will soon have a gas pipeline connecting central Asia’s and Siberia’s far richer resources with China’s energy-hungry coast (Asiaport Daily, 2008; Xinhua, 2005). The history of Xinjiang is the history of central Asia. Chinese scholars trace it as part of China back to the Han dynasty (206bc–220ad) when it was known as Xiyu (western region). The Silk Road between China, central Asia and Europe passed through Xiyu and Han power controlled the region to secure the profitable route.

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Language Power and Hierarchy

Map 4.1  Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

The PRC government claims that Uyghurs are part of ‘the great family of the Chinese nation’ and asserts that Xinjiang has been an integral piece of Chinese national territory ‘since ancient times’. Recent Chinese historians have added that Hans were among the first inhabitants of the region and in fact arrived long before Uyghurs. (He Jihong, 1996; Ji Dachun, 1993: 149, 606). Many Uyghurs, by contrast, believe themselves to be part of a distinct Uyghur nation, with its own rightful homeland, history, culture and language. Having seen their Turkic-speaking, Muslim neighbours to the west – Kazaks, Uzbeks, Qirghiz (Kirgiz), Turkmen and others – secede from the Soviet Union and found independent states bearing their own names, many Uyghurs sought, and some still seek, to turn Xinjiang into a sovereign state (Bovingdon, 2010: 2). In the modern era, Xinjiang was known as Huijiang (回疆), (Muslim Frontier), a homeland for Islamic people before the Qing dynasty. The name Xinjiang (New Frontier or new boundary) was given by the Qing dynasty in 1759 when Qing generals conquered Xinjiang and incorporated it into the empire (Bovingdon, 2010). After the fall of the Qing dynasty, Xinjiang was



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controlled by a number of warlords, such as Sheng Shicai, who ruled Xinjiang between 1933 and 1943. The nationalist government replaced him with a powerful general, Zhang Zhizhong. After the birth of the PRC, Xinjiang was the second autonomous region, established on October 1, 1955, shortly after the establishment of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It was initially named Xinjiang Autonomous Region (XAR) to replace Xinjiang Province under the nationalist government. A Uyghur, Saifuddin Azizi, the first chairman of XAR, registered his strong objections to the proposed name with Mao Zedong, arguing that ‘autonomy is not given to mountains and rivers. It is given to particular nationalities’. Mao agreed and the administrative region was named ‘Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’ (XUAR) to recognize the Uyghur as a significant group comprising 73 per cent of Xinjiang’s population in 1955 (Bovingdon, 2010: 199). By incorporating their name into that of Xinjiang’s territory the PRC government officially recognized Uyghurs as the indigenous people of Xinjiang. Scholars have raised questions such as ‘who are the Uyghurs?’ Several have argued (Gladney, 1990; Rudelson, 1997) that Uyghur identity is a modern invention or reinvention. Gladney argues that the emergence of a Uyghur ethno-national identity in the twentieth century was the indirect result of a conference convened by Josef Stalin in 1921 at which participants proposed the official adoption of ‘Uyghur’ as an ethnonym in the Soviet Union. The term later spread to Xinjiang and was institutionalized in 1935 by the nationalist government under the warlord Sheng Shicai (Bao’erhan [Burhan Shahidi] 1994: 244, quoted in Bovingdon 2010: 17–18). The population in Xinjiang is 21,813,334 (2010 census) with Uyghurs making up the largest group at 10.09 million (46.24 per cent), down from 73 per cent in 1955. Other minority groups make up a further 10.26 per cent of the population: Kazak (1.46 million), Kirghiz (186,708), Tajik (51,068), Uzbek (10,561) and Tatar (3,556). The Han population is 8.75 million (40.1 per cent). That the Han population has increased from 5 per cent in 1949 to close to 40 per cent today is the outcome of a number of large government-supported migration waves. In 1944, the Han Chinese were a tiny minority, barely exceeding 200,000. Early Han immigration to Xinjiang was encouraged with the support of successive warlords and later China’s Nationalist government (Bovingdon, 2010: 14). Between 1950 and 1978 the PRC government induced roughly 3 million Han to move to Xinjiang to help ‘build the borderlands’ (Qiu Yuanyao, 1994: 223). The second large wave of Han migration was between 1990 and 2000 during the Xibu da kaifa (Great Western Development).

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The Uyghurs and a number of minority groups share the Muslim religion. The solidarity of Muslim identity is the landmark of Xinjiang and people’s daily activities such as halal food, mode of dress, scrupulous personal cleanliness and their festivals show a sense of Muslim solidarity. A harmonious relationship between all the ethnic groups is seen as an important factor for China’s border security and stability. The relationship between the Han and the Uyghurs, while not now perfect, was regarded as harmonious during the 1950s and 1960s. My Uyghur friends often told me that they welcomed the Han people when they came to Xinjiang at that time. Han people were friendly and tried to learn the Uyghur language and got on well with them. Schools required Han children to learn Uyghur from Year 3 in primary school and Uyghurs to learn Chinese at the same time. Han and Uyghur children played together happily. There were some Han and Uyghur intermarriages in Urumqi but not a lot in the rural areas. My conversations with a number of first generation Han migrants also confirmed there was a harmonious relationship between Han and Uyghurs between the 1950s and 1960s. They claimed they speak good Uyghur, which they learnt from schools or from Uyghur workmates or neighbors. They blame the Cultural Revolution for having seriously damaged the ethnic relationship and ethnic solidarity. The Red Guards attacked the Uyghur religion, destroyed their mosques, forced them to wear Han clothes and eat pork. The government did not make enough effort to repair the relationship during the post-Cultural Revolution period. During the late 1970s and 1980s there were still peaceful relations between all the ethnic people in Xinjiang, except for some disturbances caused by Han youths from Shanghai and other major urban centres in China, who went to Xinjiang under Mao’s call to receive re-education during the Cultural Revolution. Shanghai youths staged a series of actions, in 1979 and 1980, petitioning for the right to return home. For example, four thousand Han youths gathered to demonstrate in January 1980 (Zhu Peimin, 2000: 353–4). Most of them finally got permission to return to Shanghai. The central government was also satisfied with ethnic relations. When PRC leader Hu Yaobang visited Xinjiang in July 1980 he urged that hard-line policies toward non-Hans be relaxed. Hu advocated ‘genuine autonomy’ like his policy in Tibet and economic initiatives appropriate to local conditions, the renewal of cultural and scientific projects, and the gradual transfer of Han officials back to China’s inland. At the time, Hu felt that Xinjiang presented less of a separatist threat than Tibet because it lacked exiled religious or political leaders like the Dalai Lama



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and had no support abroad for independence (Dillon, 2004: 36). Hu had even proposed devolving nearly all political authority to Xinjiang, reserving power only over national defence and foreign relations and a veto over domestic politics to the local regional government. However, Hu’s policy was not implemented before he lost his position as leader of the central government (Bovingdon, 2010: 52–4). Since the 1990s the Uyghur-Han relationship has worsened and Xinjiang has become internationally well known as a place of Uyghur unrest. The Ghuljia incident in 1997, Kashgar attack in 2008, Urumqi demonstrations in 2009 and especially in 2013, the Banchu incidents in April 2013, in Lukqun Township outside Turpan on 26 June, in Hanerik in Hotan Prefecture 28 June, in Kargilik in Kashgar prefecture in August are examples of tensions in Xinjiang. The Chinese government blames terrorism and its tendency to overreact to the disturbances has further exacerbated the already difficult ethnic relations between the Han Chinese and Uyghurs (Mackerras, 2013). Palmer states that ‘today, Uyghur-Han ethnic relations are the most bitter in China’, tenser and worse even than those between Tibetan and Han (Mackerras, 2013; Palmer, 2013). This worse Uyghur-Han relationship may be partly caused by linguistic barriers. Multilingualism may offer solutions for cultural tolerance and mutual understanding to ease the tension and improve relationships in Xinjiang. Xinjiang is the home of rich linguistic resources and this multicultural society can be said to have four linguistic dimensions. Firstly, Chinese is spoken widely by three ethnic groups (Han, Hui and Manchu), who speak a range of Chinese dialects – a result of the diversity of immigrants from different provinces and regions, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hunan etc. Putonghua is spoken with a Xinjiang accent referred to as Xinjianghua. A small group of older generation Han migrants speak fluent Uyghur or Kazak languages. Secondly, Indo-European languages such as Russian and Tajik are used as their mother tongues by the Russian and Tajik people respectively. Most Tajiks live in the Taxkorgan Tajik autonomous county, using three dialects: Sarikol, Wakhan and Tor Tajiks. Tajiks also use Uyghur, Russian and Chinese depending on where they live. My conversations with scholars in 2013 indicate the Russian and Tajik languages have been strengthened through frequent international exchanges and contacts from central Asian countries and Russia in recent years. The third dimension is the largest Turkic language family in China. Uyghur is spoken by four groups (Uyghur, Kazak, Kirghiz and Uzbek) and uses Arabic as its written script. Uyghur is still the major regional language used in XUAR

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and serves as a lingua franca among Kazaks, Kirghizes and Uzbeks, as well as Tatars, Tajik, Xibes and Mongols. The majority of rural Uyghurs only speak Uyghur. Urban Uyghurs also speak Putonghua through learning it from school. This linguistic resource in Xinjiang extends beyond its borders to other speakers in the central Asian countries, for example, the five Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Uyghur people are very close culturally to the Uzbeks of Uzbekistan (Mackerras, 2013). The last dimension is foreign language teaching. English is offered as a foreign language in most schools in northern Xinjiang. As a number of teachers indicate, there are no English teacher resources in southern Xinjiang for the subject to be made available. As Xinjiang is adjacent to Central Asia, where Russian is the lingua franca, many educators have pointed out that Russian, rather than English, should be offered in schools. In recent years many Kazaks and other minority groups have left Xinjiang to work in Central Asian countries. In these circumstances Russian is important to them. Without Russian many Kazaks can only access lower employment opportunities such as cleaners and laborers. At present Russian is only offered by tertiary institutions. All TV and radio stations in Urumqi use Putonghua, Uyghur and Kazak. At the prefecture level and below, six languages are used for radio and TV: Uyghur, Putonghua, Kazak, Mongolian, Kirghiz and Xibe. Tajik is also used occasionally. Multilingual education in Xinjiang has been the norm based on separated language schooling even before 1949. It was reported that General Zhang Zhizhong, acting on the instruction of Nationalist government leader Chiang Kaishek (K. Feng, 1994; Xie, 1989), allowed the Uyghurs to use their own language for learning in schools in 1944. Since 1949 this system of separated schooling has been maintained under the PRC government. From 1949 four periods can be observed in the development of Xinjiang’s language education policies and practices. The first period, mother-tongue education (1949 to 1965), began when Xinjiang established a multilingual education system, which reflected the linguistic diversity with a system of separate schooling based on mother-tongue instruction. There were two types of schools, either the Han schools or the ethnic (minzu) schools. Six languages were used as mediums of instruction (LMI) in primary and secondary education: Putonghua (with written Chinese), Uyghur, Kazak, Mongolian, Xibe and Kirghiz. This first period is known as the mother-tongue education period. The early state policy of the PRC was to legitimize and promote a multilingual policy for ethnic minority learners.



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The Constitution of the PRC (1952) declared that ‘all ethnic minority groups have freedom to use and develop their languages’. Guided by this policy, XUAR implemented from primary to tertiary levels the minkaomin 民考民 system, in which minority students take the college entrance exam in their own language, using the mother-tongue education model. This model was also available in Mongolian, Kazak, Xibe and Kirghiz in Xinjiang. Schools were separated into six language instructions, including Han. Students were required to choose a second language in junior secondary schools – Uyghur students could choose either Chinese or Russian, and Chinese students could choose Russian or Uyghur. The Chinese language became a core subject in 1960, which was different from the Inner Mongolia education system. There were a few Han and other minority joint schools established, because in some areas there were not enough Han students to form a separate Han school (Interview, 2009). The second period (1966 to 1977), is referred to as the Cultural Destruction period by some of the Uyghur scholars interviewed. All Uyghur and other minority youth participated in the Cultural Revolution as Red Guards. There were no recorded ethnic conflicts between the Han, Uyghurs, Kazak or any other minority. Ethnic solidarity was promoted because ‘ethnic differences were the problems of class struggle’2 based on Mao’s ideology, ‘never forget class struggle’ during the Cultural Revolution. However, the Red Guards targeted Muslim culture, burnt mosques and Muslim religious scriptures. They forced the Uyghurs to raise pigs so they could eat pork (Interview, 2008). The writer Wang Gang, who grew up in Xinjiang during that time, described conditions then in his novel English – all schools were closed, and teachers were beaten by students, and some teachers were killed. Chinese was taught by a ‘direct transfer’ (直接过渡) approach; most Chinese lessons were taught by teachers, mainly from Shanghai (more than 100,000 Shanghai youth were sent to Xinjiang in 1966). After 1971, more practical changes were introduced after Lin Biao was killed (Dreyer, 1976: 238). When Uyghur language schools were resumed in 1974, the government requested all Uyghur schools to teach Uyghur through the new Latin-based Uyghur script to replace the Cyrillic-based script in order to move away from the influence of the Soviet Union. The third period (1978–2005) was seen as rebuilding mother-tongue education. After the Cultural Revolution, Uyghurs and Kazaks strongly resisted learning Chinese. The Xinjiang government put in place remedial measures and reversed many policies that were introduced during the Cultural Revolution. For example, the new Latin-based Uyghur script, introduced in 1974, was replaced by Arabic-based scripts in 1982. Those schools which had been

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merged as Han-minzu joint schools were separated. In 1981, there were 165 joint schools and this was gradually reduced to 44 schools after the XUAR government reinstituted the minority and Han schools (Zuliyati Simayi, 2014: 139). A school in Kashgar built a wall in the school grounds to make two separated Han and Uyghur schools (Interview, 2009). Official figures showed mother-tongue instruction primary schools were increased between 1991 and 2005, with the exception of Kirghiz schools, which were reduced, and Xibe schools, which remained the same (see Figure 4.1). There was a significant increase in secondary mother-tongue instruction schools for Uyghur and Kirghiz. In the same period, however, Kazak, Mongolian and Xibe language instruction schools declined (see Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.1  Primary mother-tongue instruction schools (1991–2005)

Figure 4.2  Secondary mother-tongue instruction schools (1991–2005)



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Students enrolled in these schools were from respective ethnic groups, Tajiks and Tartar students normally attended either Uyghur or Kazak schools. At the same time this mother-tongue education was being rebuilt it was recognized that such a policy was resulting in low Chinese proficiency. Bilingual education policy was under preparation, with a number of serious pilot studies undertaken in Uyghur-instruction schools. According to official statistics, in 1999 there were 27 schools piloting bilingual classes with 2,629 Uyghur students (Ma Wenhua, 2011). The XUAR government began to encourage the merging of schools to become Han and minority (minzu) joint schools, in order to promote ethnic integregation. The fourth period, from 2005, involved large-scale merging of Han and minzu schools, both primary and secondary. The minzu and Han joint schools are called min-Han hexiao 民汉和校. They are either Han schools in which there are minzu student classes, minzu schools with Han classes, or schools with mixed minzu classes. Such schools also occur with other minority groups in other regions, such as Mongols in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, as discussed in Chapter 3. Between 2006 and 2009, 11.7 per cent of primary and 21.8 per cent of secondary schools were merged to become joint schools in Xinjiang. The project was established to pave the way for bilingual education. The main justification for the joint schools policy was poor educational outcomes for minorities and poor Chinese proficiency. The XUAR government policy was that by 2008 all Chinese and minzu schools were to become joint schools (Xinjiang Daily, 2008). The reason for this shift to Han-minzu joint schools was the perceived failure of ethnic integration for ethnic solidarity and Uyghurs’ low levels of proficiency in Chinese. To this can be added political concerns that a more integrated curriculum and school

Table 4.1  Student enrolments at ethnic schools in 2005 Primary Total Percentage Uyghur 1,330,065 47.63 Kazak 171,629 5.34 Mongolian 9,533 0.28 Xibe 3,209 0.06 Kirghiz 24,360 0.65 Source: Xinjiang Education Bureau (2005).

Junior secondary Total 579,868 69,215 4,078 876 9,601

Percentage 50.28 6 0.35 0.08 0.83

Senior secondary Total 93,135 22,606 1,913 615 1,689

Percentage 24.01 5.83 0.49 0.16 0.45

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system would help contribute to national and social integration (Tsung, 2014). The implementation of the policy has varied. In Urumqi all schools were merged by 2009. However, in many prefectures, particularly in southern Xinjiang, the implementation of joint schools has been slow or impossible as most schools are minzu schools. The dimensions of how far this roll out of joint schools has to go can be seen from Table 4.2 below. In 2009, there were still 3,220 primary and 1,259 secondary schools to make into joint schools, 85 per cent of the schools in Xinjiang. The formal shift from mother-tongue instruction to Putonghua was led by Xinjiang University, which decided to shift Uyghur or Kazak instruction to Putonghua for most majors and subjects in September 2002. My interviews with some academics at Xinjiang University revealed that this policy created tensions between the Uyghur language-educated Uyghurs (minkaomin) and Chineselanguage-educated Uyghurs (minkaohan). The latter supported the move based on their concerns that Uyghur graduates would get jobs in the Chinesedominated job markets. The former, against the policy, believed Uyghurs or Kazak students would gain knowledge and skills better through their mother tongues. The government’s bilingual education policy was formally launched in 2004. Three bilingual models were adopted in 2007 by the Xinjiang government, which issued a Bilingual Curriculum Plan for primary and junior schools. Model 1 Major subjects in Putonghua, non-major subjects in mother tongue. Scientific subjects such as mathematics, nature and information technology in Table 4.2  Primary and secondary schools based on LMI in Xinjiang in 2009 LMI

Primary schools

%

Secondary schools

%

Han

574

15.7

547

33.9

Uyghur

2,433

66.6

590

39.6

Kazak

150

4.11

109

6.77

Mongolian

6

0.16

6

0.37

Xibe

1

0.03

1

0.06

Kirghiz

56

1.53

5

0.31

Joint

427

11.7

351

21.8

Total

3,647

100

1,610

100

Source: Xinjiang 2009 Year Book



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primary schools, and mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, information technology and foreign languages in junior secondary schools, should be taught in Putonghua and Chinese written language. Other subjects can be taught in minority languages. Model 2 All the other subjects in Putonghua, except for music and the minority language and literature. Model 3 Putonghua is used for all subjects, a mother tongue is a subject. This model requires the schools to follow the same curriculum as Han schools, where all subjects are taught in Putonghua and the respective minority language is taught as a subject. This model is actually similar to Model 2 offered in Qinghai in which all subjects are taught in Chinese, and Tibetan is offered as a subject. The difference between Models 2 and 3 is only music lessons, but Model 2 does give students an extra two hours to use their mother tongue each week. These three bilingual models have been implemented in joint schools in which bilingual instruction is used. Official statistics in 2009 revealed only 13.66 per cent of minority students received this bilingual instruction, while 32.21 per cent of minority students are still learning from mother tongues. Students’ enrolment in Uyghur-instruction primary schools fell from 1,330,065 in 2005 to 891,977 in 2009. Students’ enrolments for other mother-tongue instruction schools are also in decline (see Table 4.3 below). Although mother-tongue instruction is still the norm, the system has been weakened. Uyghur and other mother-tongue instruction schools are all in decline, both for primary and secondary schools, as we see in the comparison between 2005 and 2009 (Figures 4.3 and 4.4). In recent years, some Uyghur parents are sending their children to Han primary schools (Interview, 2013).

Figure 4.3 Primary schools based on LMI between 2005 and 2009 in Xinjiang

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Table 4.3  Student enrolments in different language instruction schools in 2009 Language Medium of Instruction Putonghua % Uyghur % Kazak % Mongolian % Xibe % Kirguz % Bilingual % Total

Secondary school Total 786,101 54.41 572,805 39.65 71,004 4.91 4,134 0.29 759 0.06 9,864 0.68 114,948 7.96 1,559,615

Junior secondary 492,701 47.94 475,999 46.32 49,588 4.83 2,303 0.22 599 0.06 6,507 0.63 93,806 9.13% 1,121,503

Primary school Senior secondary 293,400 70.34 96,806 23.21 21,416 5.13 1,831 0.44 160 0.08 3,357 0.08 21,142 5.07 417,139

983,631 49.83 891,977 45.19 87,297 4.42 3,157 0.16 904 0.05 6,924 0.35 351,992 17.83 2,325,882

Source: XUAR Bureau of Education 2009

Figure 4.4  Secondary schools based on LMI between 2005 and 2009 in Xinjiang

The above two figures show clearly how education policy has rapidly reduced the number of students undergoing mother-tongue language instruction. The mother-tongue instruction schools also offer a Chinese-language subject taught through Putonghua from Grade 4 in the primary schools. Minority students are required to master basic Chinese fluency in secondary school. This mothertongue instruction is the same as Model 1, which applies in Qinghai and Sichuan. The school offers mother-tongue education for all subjects except a



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language subject, and Chinese is offered. In summary, Uyghur students can have three possible pathways in schools in Xinjiang, as shown in Table 4.4 below. Minkaohan is favoured and encouraged by the government. Students can receive up to 150 bonus marks for entering senior secondary schools and tertiary institutions. Nevertheless, Uyghur students taking the minkaohan pathway is not the major trend in rural areas. Most Uyghur parents still prefer their children to be educated in their own language (Tsung, 2009). The bilingual pathway is the other choice for Uyghur students. Both regional and central governments have given support politically and financially to bilingual education programs in schools. Between 2003 and 2007 the central government invested 76 million yuan to support bilingual teacher training. In 2005 the

Table 4.4  Pathways for Uyghur students Pathways

School choice

Minkaohan

Attend Han schools Good proficiency in Poor Uyghur from kindergarten Chinese, receive oral language, or primary quality education, no Uyghur school to senior better choices for literacy, weak secondary school. university and Uyghur identity, good employment not accepted opportunities. by Uyghur community. Attend UyghurStrong Uyghur Limited Chinese instruction schools language, both proficiency, from kindergarten oral and written limited majors at or primary proficiency, university, limited schools to senior strong academic job opportunities. secondary school. skills and Uyghur identity. Attend joint schools Model 1: Strong in Have difficulties in or minzu schools both languages subjects taught with bilingual and identity. in Putonghua, classes. fall behind Han students. Model 2: Strong in As above. Uyghur music and language. Model 3: Strong Weak in Uyghur Chinese oral and written proficiency, some language Uyghur oral and proficiency, weak written skills. in Uyghur identity.

Minkaomin

Bilingual education

Gains

Losses

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XUAR government issued a number of policy documents on enforcing bilingual kindergartens for minority children to learn Putonghua at an early age. The aim is for more than 85 per cent of minority children to receive two years’ Chinese lessons in kindergartens. Since 2008, the central government invested huge funds to establish bilingual kindergartens. Up to 2013, a few thousand bilingual kindergartens have been established in seven prefectures and nine counties in Xinjiang (Zhang Yan, 2010: 8–16). Research on the bilingual education projects has also been supported by the central government. For example, China East Normal University received a large research grant to investigate literacy intervention in Uyghur bilingual kindergartens (Wang Yujing et al., 2012). Official reports indicate that in September 2010 there were 820,710 Uyghur students receiving bilingual education through Model 1, 38.9 per cent of the current minority student population (Ma Wenhua, 2011: 9). The participation of ethnic students in senior secondary schools has been declining. The reasons for this are partly financial: although the nine-year basic education from primary to junior secondary school is free, there is a fee for senior secondary school, and because of this not many Uyghurs in rural areas continue to senior secondary school (Tsung, 2009). This low participation of minority students in senior high schools and therefore university is not satisfactory. In 2005 only 10 per cent of students in minzu primary schools went on to minzu senior high schools, while 80 per cent of Han students enter senior high schools. Like students in other parts of China all students in the Han schools participate in the college entrance examination or higher education examination (gao kao). The government facilitates the admission of minority students to institutions of higher education through a number of preferential policies (Postiglione, 2000; Sautman, 1998), including entrance examinations offered in many of the minority languages. The extent to which the national government permits the use of minority languages in education can be crucial to the form of ethnicity that higher education reproduces. Uyghur and a few other minority students can take the college entrance examination in their mother tongues, a phenomenon that is referred to as minkaomin (minority students taking the college entrance exam in their own language), but there has been a step back from previous policies of positive discrimination for minority groups in university entry and this has worked against minorities. Uyghur students from Uyghur schools have traditionally been permitted to pass examinations with lower marks when entering university because of the government’s preferential policies (youhui zhengce 优惠政策), only having to compete with their peers, not with Han



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students in this respect. While the examination procedure of minkaomin has not changed, the examination papers have. The ethnic examination papers that were once designed independently by Uyghur examiners became translated papers from the Chinese examination papers in the late 1990s. By doing so the level of difficulty of the examination papers for Uyghur students has been increased as there is a mismatch between the Chinese curriculum and the Uyghur curriculum taught in the schools. A minimum requirement was also set for mathematics, physics and chemistry regardless of differentiated curriculums. That means that Han and Uyghur students sit the same paper in different languages, despite the lower levels of education, different curriculums, the extra subject of learning Chinese, as well as poor resources in minority schools. Results reported in the media show that students educated through mother-tongue education do comparatively badly in these three subjects: the minimum score for mathematics to enter tertiary education was 26 marks for minority ethnic students, and for Han students it was above 80 (Tsung, 2009, 2014). In June 2013 I visited Xinjiang for the sixth time since 2004. Each time I visit I feel the Han-Uyghur relationship is getting more and more tense. In this visit tensions were the worst I had experienced, particularly among ordinary people at the grassroots. On the way to the hotel there was a traffic jam and I had a long chat with a Han taxi driver in Putonghua. We had the following conversation: The author = I, driver = D D: Big sister, where are you from? I: Xini. Are you Xinjianger? D: No I am not. I am a local person. My parents came here as helpers in the 1950s. I: Were you born here? D: Yes I was, but I am not Xinjianger. I am a local person. I: What is the difference between a Xinjianger and a local person, aren’t they the same? D: No. There is a big difference. Xinjiangers are those minorities, such as Uyghurs. Local persons are those Han people born here, their parents came here as helpers from the inland. Like my parents, they are from Sichuan. When I retire, I will go back to Sichuan. Xinjiangers don’t have a good reputation in the inland. If you search Xinjiangers on the Internet they have been called thieves (xiao tou) or swindlers (pianzi). Did you hear the story about the nut cake (qie gao)? The Uyghurs sold a nut cake for 25,000 yuan. They can only sell for about 20 yuan here.

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I: Really? I did not know this story. D: You should check xinlang weibo [the Chinese Internet], there are a lot of stories about Xinjianger. I don’t take any Uyghur passengers, because they are bad, either they do not pay you or sometimes they steal your money. I: Oh. I have a lot of Uyghur friends, they are not bad. Do you speak Uyghur? D: No I don’t. My parents spoke it. They said it is easy to learn it, but I never learnt it. I: Did your school teach the Uyghur language? D: No. Why should we learn Uyghur language, they are minorities. The Uyghurs should learn Chinese. I speak Putonghua and Sichuanhua, a little bit English. The Uyghur language is not useful to me, I don’t take Uyghur passengers, I don’t go to their markets, their restaurants. Anyway most Uyghurs speak Putonghua in Urumuqi.

This was just a snapshot of local Han Chinese attitudes to the Uyghurs and their language. It also showed the discontent of local Han people in Xinjiang. Some issues also emerged about stereotypes of the Uyghurs, the Han identity as separate from Xinjiang and attitudes to Uyghur language in Xinjiang. This casual episode did contain some truth when I discussed it with my Han and Uyghur friends there. Tight security is one of the public signs of tension. One of my interviewees took me to a restaurant in a big, luxury shopping centre. There was a sign on the front door: ‘Open your bags for inspection’. I instinctively opened my bag to show it to the guards at the door, but he ignored me. My friend laughed and said ‘you don’t look like a Uyghur’. She said the guards normally checked Uyghurs to see whether they have bombs in their bags. According to this friend, ordinary Han people are not happy in Xinjiang and wish to leave if they could. They feel they have been caught by bad policies made by the government. Ordinary Han people would love a peaceful life – if they are rich they would leave Xinjiang and buy a place in the inland. But most ordinary Han people felt they have no choice. She complained: Ordinary Han people are not political; we are only concerned about the economic development in Xinjiang. The formal leader of Xinjiang, Mr X, gave a lot of the projects to his friends in his hometown Shandong. They even brought a lot of Chinese teachers from Shandong to teach Chinese here. We have a lot of Chinese teachers here already. Why are they better than us? He gave all the good projects to his people from Shandong and made them rich. People in Xinjiang say ‘he is a good son of Shandong and a thief son of Xinjiang.’(山东人民的好 儿子, 新疆人民的贼娃子). (Interviewee 27)



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My parents came from Zhejiang when they were in their 20s. They felt they contributed their valuable youth to this place and settled here. Now they are retired and do not have enough money to move back to Zhejiang, as the housing prices are very high. Also their children and friends are all here, how can they leave? They regretted they did not leave Xinjiang in the 1980s. All the Shanghai youth left during that time. They are very concerned about the bad relationship between Han and Uyghurs now. The relationship was good when they came here, even after the Cultural Revolution, there was a strong ethnic solidarity, all people getting on well regardless of what minzu they are. This poor relationship is due to bad government policy. However, ordinary Han people have to suffer from it. (Interviewee 27) We made a lot of contributions to Xinjiang’s development, we made a lot of sacrifices, but Uyghurs are not grateful. They are angry with the government, but they are attacking the ordinary powerless Han people. (Interviewee 27)

My conversations with some Uyghur friends in Urumqi gave me some insight into other aspects of the Uyghur attitude towards the Han people, Our Uyghurs are nice people and very hospitable. When the Han people arrived in Xinjiang we warmly welcomed them with our hearts. Our parents’ generations get on really well with them. The first generation made efforts to learn Uyghur, they integrated into our communities. There was general ethnic solidarity here in Urumqi. As a child I played with Han children in our playground, I made many Han friends. But after Deng Xiaoping’s open policy, Xinjiang people went inland to work where they were treated very badly by the Han people. Even if they speak good Putonghua, they could not get jobs. On the Internet they spread bad stories about Uyghurs and the Han believed all Uyghurs are like that. There are a lot of Han thieves too, we don’t say all the Han are thieves. Basically there is serious discrimination against Uyghurs in Xinjiang and in the whole country. The worst areas are in Guangdong, for example, where the local people only speak Cantonese. I believe the Shaoguan incident was caused by language barriers. (Interviewee 17) Our ordinary Uyghurs are not political, we only want to be able to work in Xinjiang and live peacefully. We want respect from the Han and the government and that is what we fight for. Uyghur is always a majority in Xinjiang, even after a lot of Han migration to Xinjiang, we still have 10 million people. We should have at least 50–70 per cent of the jobs in the government services. But the government jobs for civil services are taken by Han people, only a few Uyghurs can get the jobs. The excuse was our Putonghua is not good enough, why is there no requirement of Uyghur language to serve the 10 million Uyghur

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people? It is not fair. The government wants us to be bilingual. That’s fine. If I go to Beijing I will speak Putonghua. What about when Han people come to our land, should they speak the Uyghur language? (Interviewee 11) We become second citizens in our region. There is discrimination against us for getting jobs and studying at universities. The government now wants us to give up our language and religion. We want to keep them no matter the cost. The Han should learn our language and culture. What we want is respect from them. (Interviewee 12) Our resources are supporting the whole of China, but we are still very poor, we cannot get jobs in our own region, a lot of jobs were given to people from Shandong, even Chinese teachers come from Shandong. A lot of Uyghur teachers lost jobs because of the bilingual education policy. (Interviewee 16)

In many of these casual conversations with both Han and Uyghur people, there is clear evidence of discontent with the hard-line government policy and inequalities in society. Among other things they talked about, language and jobs are frequently mentioned. Should the government meet these basic demands to create a harmonious society? Should the majority’s local language be taken as sufficient for employment, rather than insistence on forcing a national language on the job market? If the education system is responsible for the reproduction of future generations in Xinjiang, if the goal of the education system is to train youth with knowledge, skills and attitudes toward a harmonious society, should they consider a different approach? Should the education system be held partly responsible for the ethnic separation and social tensions in recent years? Should the government adopt the Swiss language policy to make Xinjiang a multilingual region in which all people entering must learn three major languages: Chinese, Uyghur and Kazak? This might create tolerance and mutual respect and understanding. My school visit in 2013 was to a joint Han-Minzu junior secondary school (School J, hereafter) in Urumqi. School J was a merger of adjacent Han and Uyghur schools. There were 1,491 students in the school, 40 per cent of the students from Uyghur, Kazak and other minority families, 60 per cent Han Chinese students. Of the 39 staff, the principal is Uyghur, the deputy principal Han, there are 21 Chinese teachers and 13 Uyghurs, one Kazak and two Hui. Nine staff rooms are divided by teaching subjects, such as maths, science, English etc. Within the school, students are divided into two streams: Hanzu classes for Chinese students and minzu classes for Uyghur and other ethnic minority students. The medium of instruction for Hanzu classes is Putonghua, with all



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classes taught in Putonghua. No Uyghur is taught to Han students. English is a compulsory subject from Year 1 of the junior secondary school. The six English teachers were all from a Chinese background. Uyghur is the medium of instruction only for music, two classes per week and Uyghur language, four classes per week, and other subjects are taught in Putonghua. Uyghur and Han students continued to be separated because of the language levels. Uyghur teachers in School J believed the school merger had had few benefits for integration, apart from administrative convenience for the government. In fact, some teaching positions for Uyghurs were lost with the merger. Some Uyghur teachers have suggested Uyghur should be taught to Han students. One teacher said: If you want to live in our region, Uyghur should be learnt and taught to Han students in schools. The majority of people here are Uyghurs. Of course we need to learn the Han language. Everyone knows it is important to learn the Han language, but our Uyghur language is also important. The policy makes Uyghur students feel their language is not important, as the Han students don’t learn it. We Uyghurs often regard people who speak our language as friends because they respect our culture, as the Uyghur saying has it: ‘recognize the language, not the face, to be friends’, which means ‘if you know how to speak my language, you will be my friend’. (Interviewee 12)

Both teachers and the principal were concerned that there was little opportunity for Uyghur students to speak and practise Chinese outside school and confirmed that school divisions were replicated in the community. They reported that Uyghur children did not play with Han children outside school. One teacher said: Before the 1980s, Chinese schools offered Uyghur lessons to Han students from Year 3. So Han students could speak the Uyghur language, and thus Han and Uyghur children would play together. It was good for them to have this language exchange and mutual understanding. It is different now. After the openingup policy, Han parents are only interested in their children learning English, and schools have replaced Uyghur language lessons with English lessons. Han students don’t learn the Uyghur language any more. After school many Han parents send their children to English tutoring classes or mathematics tutoring. Han and Uyghur children no longer play together. (Interviewee 13)

Teachers explained that the language barrier was still an obstacle for integration because the level of the Uyghur students’ mastery of Chinese remained inadequate and Chinese students could not speak Uyghur. School lunches are taken

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separately in different canteens because of Uyghur students’ dietary restrictions on eating pork. Although they provide access for Uyghur students to learn Chinese language and culture, integration and access to them were more illusory than real (Tsung, 2014). One teacher made a comment that the joint school is just like ‘putting sheep and pigs in the same fold’. It does not work. Contrary to my early studies that Uyghur students were eager to learn Chinese, with no attitude problems (Tsung, 2009), my recent interviews showed a different result. Many teachers complained that Uyghur students had been lazy and demonstrated no motivation to learn Chinese. One teacher commented: Uyghur students arriving in junior secondary school are still not fluent Putonghua speakers, their Chinese written skills level is about Primary 4, so we have to separate the Han and Uyghur students. Most students really don’t have motivation to learn Chinese. They don’t practise enough at home. They often missed their homework, spending too much time playing computer games. (Interviewee 21) Comparing with my students before, this Uyghur generation is lazy and are not working hard, they all have mobile phones and computers at home, but do not work on their homework. Some teachers said the current poor relationships between Han and Uyghurs have some effect on their Uyghur students’ motivation and attitudes to learning Chinese. (Interviewee 22)

Some teachers said that many Uyghur students can now access information more easily on the Internet and mobile phones and they are fully aware of disturbances in Xinjiang and the discrimination towards Uyghurs. One teacher said: Some students said to me, ‘We don’t like learning this language, because it belongs to the Han, see the textbook, it is called Hanyu [Han language]’. I said to my students: ‘The Han language is our national language in China, it does not only belong to the Han, it belongs to all the Minzu people. Just like English does not belong to England, many people in the world learn English.’ I have not convinced the students and changed their attitudes. When I repeated this statement again, students just laughed, they say I am a good communist. Perhaps the government should change the name to Zhongguoyu [China’s language]. The name of Hanyu does irritate some Uyghur students. (Interviewee 23) I heard from my students about the qiegao [fruit cake] incident they saw on the Internet. It was very damaging to the Uyghur relationship. Some students came to school very angry and refused to open their Chinese textbooks. This incident



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only involved one individual Uyghur, but on the Internet, Han people criticise all the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Our students are very proud to be Uyghurs, they did not like their reputation being insulted. (Interviewee 21)

What happens in the classroom reflects society as a whole. The poor Han and Uyghur relationships have some negative effects on the students’ Chinese learning motivation and attitudes. Uyghurs and Han are divided, despite school textbooks continuing to promote the Chinese national identity and shore up the Uyghur students’ patriotism, as below: Lesson One: women shi zhongguo ren 我们是中国人 We are Chinese Sentence pattern: women shi zhongguo ren. 我们是中国人。 We are Chinese. Women rehai women de zuguo. 我们热爱我们的祖国。 We love our motherland. Dialogue: Jia: Wo shi zhongguo ren. 我是中国人。 I am a Chinese. Yi: Wo yeshi zhongguo ren. 我也是中国人。 I am also a Chinese. Jia: Women dou shi zhongguo ren. 我们都是中国人。 We are all Chinese. Yi: Women rehai wo men de zuguo. 我们热爱我们的祖国。 We love our motherland. Jia: Beijing shi women de shoudu. 北京是我们祖国的首都。 The capital city of our motherland is Beijing. Yi: Women rehai Beijing, women zuguo de shoudu. 我们热爱北京, 我们祖国 的首都。 We love Beijing, the capital city of our motherland. [Translation of extract from Year 4 textbook]3

In contrast, English teachers in the school were pleased with their Uyghur students, whom they saw as better achievers. One commented: Uyghur students are very motivated to learn English. They often do better than the Han students. They have better English pronunciation and grammar skills than the Han students. Uyghur students told me English is easier to learn than Chinese and they like learning it. They also work hard on their homework and speak more fluently than the Han students. My top five students are Uyghur students. They also tried to download English songs to their phones to learn them. The music teachers also said students ask them to teach them some popular English songs. (Interviewee 26)

Teachers believed that it was easier for Uyghurs to learn English than Chinese because both English and Uyghur have alphabetic scripts. It seems English is much more desired by Uyghurs as a second language than Chinese and the process of learning a third language, English, through a second language,

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Chinese, makes learning an even greater challenge for Uyghur students. However, as all the teachers of English are from Chinese background, and they don’t speak Uyghur, learning English through the Uyghur language is only in theory, not in practice. According to the official news, the central government has invested in recent years what has been estimated at over 100 million yuan to support bilingual education in the region. Programs quoted include bilingual education programs in pre-schools and bilingual education in primary and secondary schools. The improvement in resources has been welcomed by Uyghur teachers and parents and has contributed to a lessening of tensions. My observations in School J indicate there is significant change in both teaching resources and teaching materials. Teaching methods and materials in the school took account of the fact that Uyghur students were second-language learners of Chinese. The Chinese textbooks adopted a task-based approach and tried to make learning Chinese more interesting. My conversations with the leading author of these textbooks showed his full understanding of the difficulties that Uyghur students face. He taught Chinese to Uyghur students for more than 30 years in Xinjiang. This series of Chinese textbooks for Uyghurs was well received by teachers I interviewed. The textbooks also have some multimedia resources and try to increase students’ motivation. The author told me large government funding in recent years accelerated the new textbook development. They have taken the updated second language acquisition theory and practice into consideration. For example, teachers have talked about making the tasks relevant to students’ lives and provide authentic linguistic context for students to use Putonghua, etc. Bilingual teacher training sessions for using this set of textbooks have been conducted many times. Mother-tongue instruction schools are still the majority in Xinjiang. They are mainly concentrated in south Xinjiang where 70–90 per cent of the population are Uyghurs. These mother-tongue instruction classes have been referred to as Putongban (common classes). This old term perhaps defines the general population of Uyghur students but also that these schools have been the most common practice in Xinjiang’s educational system. Currently over half of schools use this mode. It is considered Mode 1 in neighbouring Qinghai province, where all subjects are taught in mother tongue and Chinese is offered as a subject from primary school, or from Year 3, depending on whether they have a Chinese teacher. It is obvious that lack of qualified teachers is still the main problem for these common classes in southern Xinjiang. A major reason is that Chinese teachers



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feel isolated there. I spoke to one Chinese teacher in southern Xinjiang who told me she was the only Chinese speaker in the school, she could not speak Uyghur, most teachers ignored her and some were even hostile towards her, making her feel she should not be there. She enrolled to study a master’s degree in Urumqi and took the opportunity to leave the school. The government is fully aware of this problem. A new policy has been issued that all pre-service teachers at all training institutions must go to designated rural schools for a period of 6–12 months during which they undergo teaching practice, replace the position and take on teaching duties. This system is called Dinggang Zhijiao 顶岗执教 (releasing post teaching), which means the posts are temporary only. Under this system teachers at the original school can be replaced and undergo further training such as in bilingual education methods, Putonghua enrichment, the use of new textbooks and multimedia resources. They are then redeployed at their school after 6–12 months. When pre-service teachers are sent as a group, there is no problem of isolation; they are also regularly visited by their home institutions. The local Uyghur teachers are benefiting through receiving training in Chinese language and formal pedagogy training as a bonus. Uyghur teachers I interviewed were happy with this scheme, as they were not afraid of losing their jobs because of bilingual education projects. Whether the scheme will attract Han graduates back to the schools as full time Chinese teachers is still a question. I conducted field studies in a number of Uyghur rural schools between 2006 and 2011 in Aksu prefecture. This prefecture in southern Xinjiang has a population of 2.26 million, 79.3 per cent are non-Han, Uyghurs being the majority (78 per cent).4 The majority of students in these schools are Uyghurs and other minority students. One rural-based Uyghur school has 91 per cent Uyghur students. Access to quality teaching and learning in Chinese and English were major issues in rural Uyghur schools. Teachers and principals in schools reported insufficient availability of Chinese-speaking teachers. One of the schools only began offering Putonghua in 1989 because of parental demand and then only as a subject from Year 4, because there were no Chinese teachers (Tsung, 2014). The principal in this rural school explained that it was not possible to extend this: We used to start the Chinese class from Year 4. Now the government asks schools to start teaching Chinese from Year 3, but no teachers are available. I have problems in keeping good Chinese teachers here. A number of Han

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Chinese teachers were assigned to our school before, but they all left. They could not speak Uyghur and did not talk to other teachers. They could not explain things in Uyghur to students, which was hard for the students. They did not want to teach in the local school, they wanted to go to a large city. (Interviewee 5)

There were no English teachers in another Uyghur rural school. The principal said there was a shortage of English teachers in the area. A local educational official in charge of the Department of Basic Education also said: The Uyghur children should just learn Chinese, not English. They need more time to learn Chinese well in primary school. If they don’t have good Chinese, they will not be able to learn English. As none of the teachers of English can speak Uyghur, they have to explain English grammar in Chinese, and Uyghur students will have problems learning English through Chinese. (Interviewee 2)

The official also said there were no English teachers from a Uyghur background, because Uyghurs who speak good Chinese and English normally stay in big cities, such as Ürümqi, or even Beijing or Shanghai. The comment was echoed by a number of interviewees, which indicates that Uyghurs with multilingual competence have better career prospects than being a primary school teacher (Interview, 2009). Many principals and teachers I interviewed in 2013 indicated that in recent years there has been an improvement in Chinese teaching materials, which they found more relevant to minority students’ experiences and needs. This reflects the effort by many scholars, including Teng Xing (2008), who proposed the adoption of more local relevant teaching materials (xiangtu jiaocai 乡土教材). Observations in a number of schools indicated teachers have been trained recently to teach Uyghur students as a second language. In my previous visits between 2006 and 2009 to Xinjiang looking at the education of minorities, lack of educational facilities and teacher resources was a serious problem. In one of the lessons observed, a Han Chinese teacher asked the whole class to read the text aloud in chorus a few times, and then she gave a dictation of Chinese characters. Teachers in both schools commented that the poor Chinese results were due to the laziness of Uyghur students because they did not copy and practise Chinese characters enough. The traditional attitude that being bright was equivalent to rote learning Chinese characters was reinforced in lessons. Here follows a translated transcript of part of a lesson.



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Teacher = T, Students = S T: Today we are learning Lesson 4 … open your books at Lesson Four, page 18 (teacher writes title on board). Xiangei guoqing de liwu. (Give a present to the National Day).5 Every one read after me, Xiangei guoqing de liwu. S: Xiangei guoqing de liwu. T: Who can read the text? I told you to read it last week. Who can read it? Hands up. S: (many students put their hands up). T: Good. Aili, you read it. Aili: Xiangei guoqing de liwu. Wo xiang gei guoqingjie xianshang yijian liwu. (I want to give a present to the National Day) … T: Aili is very bright. He reads it very well. No mistakes. Maim, you read it again. Maim: Xingei guoqing de liwu … T: You have made many mistakes. This character is xian 献 not xin 信. Did you practise it yesterday? Maim: Yes I did. T: Maim is not very bright. Azi, you read it again. Azi: Xiangei guoqing de liwu … T: Azi is very bright, she knows all the characters. If you are bright, you should know many Chinese characters. Now if you want to get a good job, you have to be bright, and if you want to be bright, you need to study Chinese very hard. If you only know Uyghur, you are not bright; you need to know Chinese. Do you understand that? S: Yes. We understand. T: Now, everyone read the text together. S: Xiangei guoqing de liwu … [Transcript of excerpt of Chinese lesson]

In this interaction, the Han teacher constructs knowledge of Uyghur negatively and monolingualism in Uyghur as indicating a lack of intelligence. The gaining of fluency in the majority language is seen as due to rote learning and effort and is equated with intelligence. Uyghur-speaking Chinese teachers are themselves constructing a power difference between Uyghur and Chinese identities, equating the former with powerlessness and lack of intelligence, the latter with intelligence and ambition. The possibility of dual identities is not explored. A similar outcome was found among Uyghur students studying at inland Xinjiang classes (neidi xinjiangban 内地新疆班) (Chen, 2008, 2014).

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In another Chinese lesson which I observed in 2009, Chinese language learning was promoted by teachers as increasing mobility and career opportunities. A translated transcript of part of a lesson is as below. Teacher = T, Students = S T: In Lesson 10 we learnt a lesson on the Great Wall of Beijing. Can you tell me what language people use there? S: Putonghua. T: That’s right. If you speak Putonghua you can travel to Beijing to study or work. Do you want to go to Beijing? S: (many students put their hands up). T: Good. If you want to stay in Aksu, you only need to speak Uyghur, but if you want to go to Beijing and Shanghai to work, Putonghua is more useful than our Uyghur language.

The power relationship of language in education is one of changing linguistic hierarchies. The decline of Uyghur language use in education is a result of the position as dominant language now being occupied by Chinese. It is very clear that Han Chinese living in Xinjiang make no effort, and are not required, to learn Uyghur in schools or use it in society. The relationship between Chinese and Uyghur represents one-directional language learning, similar to the situation in a colony. The majority must learn the colonial language, not the other way around. English as a global language has been highly valued by interviewees. However, lack of resources, particularly in rural schools, makes it almost impossible for Uyghur children to learn it. Uyghur children in both joint and rural areas are experiencing unsatisfactory educational outcomes in mathematics and other school subjects through their study of these subjects in Uyghur. They are also not reaching satisfactory levels of fluency in Putonghua and have no access to education in English as Han children do. In the 1980s, government policy was to promote separate schooling for the minority and the Han students. Today the government’s response to the differential outcomes has been a policy of merged schooling, which has been justified by claims that it promotes bilingual education and national integration. The problem has been identified as caused by the type of school, the existence of the separate minority schools, rather than in the quality of the education being provided to minority children. The findings of the small snapshot study in this chapter indicate that segregation continues to exist between the Chinese and Uyghur students in merged



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schools. Furthermore, based on the data from this study, the merger of schools will not be effective unless the process is properly resourced. In merged schools there continues to be a divide between Chinese and minority students, with minority students not receiving any specific support in learning Chinese as a second language. There was little evidence of interaction and integration between groups of teachers or students in the schools, instead, the school situation maintained and exacerbated community divisions. The current school merger policy answers pragmatic, not educational, objectives and is a continuation of segregation with students separated by their ethnicity. The policy in regard to school mergers raises the dilemma of maintenance of ethnic culture and educational achievement for students and policymakers. Language barriers, ethnic attitudes and motivation remain as problems for integration. In order to gain real integration, some pain is unavoidable and necessary (Postiglione, 2014). The Han must learn the Uyghur language to show their respect to the Uyghurs. Government should adjust the biased employment requirements to show equal opportunities. They should provide incentives for Han students to learn the Uyghur language in Xinjiang. Poor Chinese proficiency among the Uyghur children is a major obstacle preventing them from interacting with Han children. Han children are not taught and have little Uyghur language. The higher-education system is the place to foster talent and produce ethnic elites. It is often seen as the outcome of the overall education system. Between 2006 and 2009, I conducted a case study with a colleague on the educational outcomes of the two-track system, minkaomin and minkaohan, on Uyghur students and the issues surrounding minority academics in China’s highereducation institutions. We explored how the linguistic and cultural boundaries or differences that have been constructed between the language and culture of a minority group, and the values and beliefs of the dominant majority in state education, create identity dilemmas for Uyghurs in China. The research findings showed Chinese-language education appears to provide access to upward mobility, both academically and economically, whereas mother-tongue education limits these opportunities. In particular, the linguistic and cultural capital accrued by learning Uyghur during the early years of schooling offers diminishing returns in higher education, whereas hard-won capital earned though learning Chinese provides educational and professional benefits in higher education and beyond (Tsung and Clarke, 2010). The findings reveal that the clear cultural divisions between the minkaohan and minkaomin Uyghur academics were partly constructed through their

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different educational experiences in different media of instruction. Chineselanguage education separated the former from their traditional cultural and ethnic roots, whereas mother-tongue education appears to have reinforced the cultural identity of the latter. The central role of language as a key symbol of socially constructed ethnic identity served as a marker of the perceived differences between different groups of people. Language is not only a means of communication, but also an expression of one’s cultural and ethnic identity, and thus plays a critical role in judgments as to whether one is an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ (Tsung and Clarke, 2010). A Uyghur academic, A. J. Qarluq, made a comparison between Uyghur minkaohan and minkaomin people. He refers to minkaohan persons as ‘Hantilliq Uyghurs’ (Chinese-speaking Uyghurs) who are regarded as a different social group from the Uyghur society. Their characteristics ethnically are in tune with Han Chinese educated persons (from kindergarten to higher education). Their first language is Putonghua and their ways of thinking, values and behaviours are very close to those of Han Chinese rather than those of Uyghurs. They cannot write in Uyghur script or speak Uyghur fluently, therefore they tend to be unable to fully express their more subtle thoughts (Qarluq and McMillen, 2011: 12). The minkaomin Uyghurs are referred as Uyghur tilliq Uyghurlar (Uyghurs speaking Uyghur), their characteristics are fully in tune with Uyghur language instruction from kindergarten to secondary schools or higher education. Their first language is Uyghur and their ways of thought and values and behaviours are representative of their Uyghur tradition and identities. Their Putonghua levels are lower than Chinese-speaking Uyghurs, and their ‘outlooks’ are more conditioned by Uyghur history, cultural and socio-political memory and identity (Qarluq and McMillen, 2011: 11). My study also confirmed that the minkaohan students are not only linguistically, but also culturally, assimilated into Han Chinese society, which has diminished their sense of cultural integrity. Language educational backgrounds led to each group growing up in different linguistic and cultural worlds, resulting in a situation where these two Uyghur groups are divided both socially and culturally (Tsung and Clarke, 2010). My early study (2009) indicated that the Chinese- and English-language deficit of the minkaomin minority students in the education system is thus a logical outcome of the linguistic, cultural and educational inequalities that are structured into and (re)constructed within the primary and secondary school system. The decline of schools within the mother-tongue education system, for a variety of political and structural reasons as reflected in my case studies, such as



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a lack of teachers and resources, has meant the system has not been in a position to provide quality Chinese learning opportunities for minority students. These inequalities reflect a mismatch, in terms of linguistic and cultural capital. In the local schools, where are the Chinese teachers? They come and go, and don’t stay for long. The government has run bilingual preschools, but there is no continuity in primary school as there is no Chinese teacher. In Xinjiang’s higher education institutions there are many students from five Central Asian countries studying Chinese. These students all have one thing in common – they all speak Russian as well as their own language. Many educators see this as being the ideal situation for Xinjiang. All people speak Chinese and their mother tongue. This has been the goal of the Xinjiang government. While this has not been such a problem with the smaller ethnic groups, this has not been an easy goal to achieve with the Han and Uyghur communities. The Han Chinese maintain that their language represents the highest status of political, social and economic power in the Xinjiang region. They want to be bilingual but with a more powerful language, English. To achieve bilingualism in Putonghua and English adds value to their educational and career prospects. The Uyghur, on the other hand, because of their regional status, particularly in southern Xinjiang where 90 per cent of the population is Uyghur, can only become bilingual in Chinese through schooling and not through a natural Chinese linguistic environment. There is resentment among the Uyghur that the Chinese, living in a natural Uyghur linguistic environment, do not learn their language. Another question asked is ‘why don’t we learn Russian at school, why Chinese?’ In 2012 the Regional Education Bureau issued a policy that Uyghur will be offered as a pilot program from Year 1 in primary school. It has been a core subject for minority students who want to choose the minkaohan system (minority students entering university through Chinese-language exams) and as an elective subject for Chinese students. This policy will raise the status of Uyghur as a regional language in the education system. It will also allow Uyghur students to maintain their language even should they choose to study totally through the Chinese education system. In the past Uyghur students in the minkaohan system had no formal education in their mother tongue and were generally illiterate in their mother tongue. Because of their poor literacy and resulting lack of cultural attachment they were regarded as a group, which were neither Uyghur nor Han, but were regarded as ‘middle persons’. As for the Han Chinese, they have a choice to learn the Uyghur language. This will give them an opportunity to become bilingual and be able to communicate with their neighbours if they wish. By providing this choice the government aims to

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accommodate the request by Uyghurs and has instructed a team of scholars to produce textbooks to help Han students learn Uyghur. The reactions to this policy reflect the work to be done. Some Chinese scholars were surprised that the government issued a policy that gives Han Chinese the option to learn Uyghur. They are strongly against learning the Uyghur language being made compulsory. One Chinese scholar said: ‘It is not possible for Han children to learn Uyghur, if they have this policy most Chinese parents will send their children to the interior to be educated.’ According to a number of Uyghur scholars, this is a good move to reduce the tensions between the Uyghur and the Han. It is linguistic equality. If both communities learn the other’s language they can communicate with each other. The government is determined to make Uyghurs bilingual in Uyghur and Chinese. At the same time the government wishes to establish a harmonious society in Xinjiang. Its attempts to make at least some Chinese bilingual in Uyghur could help foster a move towards language equality and mutual tolerance. It is clear that language education policy in Xinjiang has changed dramatically over the past ten years from ‘self-determination’ to ‘government determination’. The government is almost ‘selling’ the Chinese language to the Uyghurs for free but there is still strong resistance to such a gift. Some are aware that, while there is no cost for this generation, it may be the next generation of Uyghurs who will pay the price, similar to the Manchu and Hui, of losing their language. The interrelationship of instruction in the three languages in Xinjiang reflects the social, political and economic power in the PRC. Chinese is the internal power while English is the external (i.e. beyond China) power. Both enjoy the benefits of being the best sources of language as symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1989, 1991) for careers and education. Uyghur as a regional and cultural language has lost value in the market economy. This study highlights that Uyghur people have now realized the pragmatic value of Chinese and English. The issue is not so much the medium of instruction or whether it is bilingual or trilingual education or mixed schooling, but the range of factors which affect the educational outcomes of the students and their access to fluency in minority languages as well as Chinese and English. There are a number of strategies that need to be adopted if educational outcomes for Uyghur students are to be improved and bilingual and trilingual education are to gain widespread traction in Xinjiang. Firstly, organizational changes need to be undertaken in the educational system. These include the provision of trained bilingual teachers. As in the Korean bilingual programs (Gao, 2014), more Uyghur teachers need to be trained to teach bilingually across all subjects, including Chinese and English.



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Secondly, the provision of sufficient culturally relevant materials needs to be developed across all subjects. From a multilingual perspective Chinese and English teaching materials should be developed based on the linguistic and cultural needs of students. Content-based learning will provide students with a supportive/non-authoritarian learning environment and increase internal student motivation. Lastly, there is interaction. There should be a policy to promote cognitive and social environments in which the first and second languages are used. Uyghur students should have access to good, cognitively challenging learning through access to the Chinese language outside the classroom. Integration needs to involve both groups, Uyghurs and Han. The policy should encourage Han children in Xinjiang to become bilingual or trilingual in Chinese, Uyghur and English. The examination-oriented educational system should be reformed. A practical and careful policy is necessary to encourage Han students to learn Uyghur language and culture. The lack of interaction between Han and Uyghur students identified in this study is alarming. The system of language learning mirrors that of a colonial state. The local Uyghurs must learn Chinese, while Chinese who come to the Uyghur-speaking region do not have to learn Uyghur. The current education system is ‘integration in policy, segregation in reality’. The PRC government promotes itself as a harmonious, stable, multilingual and multicultural mosaic, a duo yuan yi ti 多元一体 paradox. The state school system is now seen as a frontline in the battle to push Chinese society towards a ‘harmonious multiculturalism’. However, the Han and Uyghur linguistic segregation and discrimination within this system will increase linguistic conflicts and social tension above existing levels, which will affect China’s goal of becoming a harmonious society. That the ideology of China’s national unity and patriotic education has strongly influenced language curriculums in schools is clearly evidenced in this study. For China’s ethnic minorities, language teaching and learning are both the medium and the message (Fairclough, 1989); together, they contribute to the system of societal stratification beyond linguistic and cultural differences. Language policy implementation is based on the prevailing political, monocultural and ideological attitudes, which in turn influence school and classroom language practice. A strong multilingual education policy model which balances diversity with integration in the educational sphere should be implemented. Educational outcomes and access to effective education in minority and majority languages will continue to be limited without proper resourcing and a real shift in educational policy and planning.

5

Multilingualism and Multilingual Education in Qinghai

Qinghai is located in the north-east of the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau with an average elevation in excess of 3,000 metres above sea level. It comprises three major geographical regions: the Qaidam Basin, west of Lake Qinghai and north of the Kunlun Mountains, an extremely arid area of salt marshes and desert, with the new (extraction industry-based) urban centre of Golmud; the sparsely inhabited mountainous plateau of Yushu and Guoluo (at an average in excess of 4,000 metres above sea level); and the north-east corner of the province around Xining, the provincial capital, between Xining and Gansu Province to the east, centering on the valleys of the Huangshui and Yellow Rivers. Qinghai is one of the poorest, least internally integrated provinces and least integrated with the rest of the People’s Republic of China provincial-level jurisdictions (Goodman, 2004). Multilingualism and multi-ethnicity are important characteristics of Qinghai. However, a visitor’s first impression of the capital city, Xining, is that it looks like any other Han-dominated city. There are no public signs with minority languages, only Chinese characters, despite the fact that in Xining alone there are 37 different minorities who speak a variety of languages. There are two large religious centres in Xining. The Kumbum (Ta’er) Monastery is a repository of Tibetan culture, art and Buddhist religion which has four monastic colleges. The Dongguan Mosque is the biggest mosque in Qinghai Province. Built in 1380, it is not only famous for its magnificent architecture but also as a religious education centre and as the highest learning institution of Islam for the Hui people in China. Qinghai is a multi-ethnic province and in it reside Han, Tibetan, Hui, Tu, Salar, Mongolian and other ethnic groups. According to the sixth census statistics in 2010, the population in Qinghai was 5,626,722, comprising Han

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Map 5.1  Qinghai Province

53.2 per cent (2.98 million), 46.8 per cent minorities, including Tibetan 24.44 per cent (1.37 million), Hui 14.83 per cent (834,298), Tu 3.63 per cent (204,413), Salar 1.9 per cent (107,089), Mongol 1.77 per cent (99,815) and the remaining minorities 0.4 per cent (22,529). The Tibetans are the overwhelming majority of the population outside the north-east corner of the province. The vast pastoral areas, which account for 97.7 per cent of the province’s administrative area, are the Tibetans’ homelands. The Tibetan population is mainly distributed in six Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures (Huangnan, Guoluo, Yushu, Hainan, Haibei and Haixi), comprising 29 pastoral counties. More than 74 per cent of the Han and Hui live in the eastern part of Qinghai Province, in the capital city, Xining, and the prefecturelevel city, Haidong, where there are two Hui counties and one Salar autonomous county. Qinghai Province is not administered as an autonomous region, because the Han form Qinghai’s ethnic majority, and because none of its many ethnic minorities have clear dominance over the rest. Instead, the province has many ethnic autonomous areas at the prefecture and county levels (Goodman, 2004). Qinghai is administratively divided into two prefecture-level cities, five Tibetan



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autonomous prefectures and one joint Mongolian and Tibetan autonomous prefecture as below. Multilingualism is a special feature of the province. While the Han people speak Chinese, all the minorities have their own language except the Hui Table 5.1.  Cities and autonomous prefectures in Qinghai *See note below

Prefecture cities

Population (2010)

Tibetan population

3 4

Xining Haidong Autonomous prefectures Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Haibei Tibetan Hainan Tibetan Huangnan Tibetan Yushu Tibetan Guoluo Tibetan

2,208,708 1,396,846

 5.51% 12.16%

           

20.5% 21.31% 56% 65.94% 97.9% 78%

1 2 5 6 7 8

489,338 273,304 441,689 256,716 378,439 181,682

*The number indicates the area in the map below.

1

2 3 4

1

7

8

Map 5.2:  Locations of autonomous prefectures and cities in Qinghai

6

5

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people. Over 1.18 million Tibetans in Qinghai speak Amdo, a variety of the Tibetan language. The linguistic repertoire of Tibetans can be classified into three types: monolingual, semi-monolingual and bilingual. The first group are nomadic, living in pure pastoral areas who only speak Amdo. The second group live in the agricultural, semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral areas, where some Tibetans are partly engaged in agriculture. They mainly speak Amdo, but with some basic fluency in spoken Chinese. The third group live in the towns and regions where the Han are the main population, and most of these Tibetans are bilingual in Chinese and Tibetan. The Hui people are the second-largest minority ethnic group in Qinghai with a population of over 900,000. They are Muslim and historically held both political and military power before 1949 in Qinghai. The Hui only speak Chinese. However, with their strong Muslim religious connections with the Hui in neighboring Gansu and Ningxia, many of them have started learning Arabic. Informal private Arabic language schools have been established in Xining and other areas. The enrolments are increasing and only the Hui people attend. The government is now concerned with this popularity of Arabic language learning and has stopped approving school registrations, although Qinghai Minority University has started a major in the Arabic language and enjoyed large student enrolments. Exchange programs for students in the Arabic classes have been established with some Middle East countries. The Salar are a Turkic and Islamic people thought to have migrated from Central Asia to the banks of the Huang River in today’s Xunhua county in about 1210 (Guo, 1981; Li and Stuart, 1995). With a population of 104,503 throughout China (Zhao and Hu, 2003: 791) the largest concentration of Salars is in Qinghai, predominantly in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, approximately 170 kilometres south-east of Xining, the provincial capital. In principle, the Salar language is the official language in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County in Haidong, as in other Salar autonomous areas. In practice, it has never been used in an official context and is only used in private situations. According to recent research Salar has become an endangered language (Ma Wei, 2007: 9). Based on UNESCO’s guideline (2003: 20) Ma has argued that even though intergenerational language transmission is high, there are no materials for language education and literacy, or response to new domains and media (see Table 5.2 below). Dwyer (2007: 93) also argues that the Salar language is in decline and threatened:



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Table 5.2  Estimated degree of endangerment of the Salar language Factors

Rating out of 10

1. Intergenerational language transmission 2. Absolute number of speakers 3. Proportion of speakers within the total population 4. Shift in domains of language use 5. Response to new domains and media 6. Materials for language education and literacy 7. Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies including official status and use 8. Community members’ attitudes toward their own language 9. Amount and quality of documentation

4 95,000 4 3 0 0 3 4 3

Source: W. Ma, 2007: 9

Given the necessity of multilingualism and the narrowing scope of Salar usage, it is likely that the language will remain valued in the private sphere, but its reach is likely to be further reduced elsewhere, particularly without native-language schooling and without orthography. Continued contact-induced changes are to be expected at all levels of language.

The Salar have been very actively engaged in the market economy and have been very successful in business development, but they will lose their language if no strong measures are taken in the public sphere, including schooling. The Tu people (土族), also known as the White Mongol/Chagan Mongol (察罕蒙古尔), are said to have settled in Huzhu County (to the north-east of Xining) with the Genghis Khan Mongols, and are Tibetan Buddhist, having much in common with the Mongols. The 2010 census identified the total population as 289,565, living mostly in Qinghai and Gansu provinces. The language of the Tu people belongs to the Mongolian branch of the Altaic language family. Its basic vocabulary is either the same as or similar to that of the Mongolian language, but it is much closer to the languages of the Dongxiang and Bonan ethnic minorities. Quite a number of religious terms are borrowed from the Tibetan language, while a good proportion of everyday words, as well as new terms and phrases, comes from Putonghua, which has long been the medium of communication among the Tus of Datong County. The Tu people do not have a written language of their own; they use that of the Han instead. Nearly all Tu speak Chinese, which makes their language endangered. The Tu used to wield some political power in Qinghai, which ultimately declined when the Tusi system was abolished in 1831, and the local chief

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was replaced by an imperial officer (改土归流, abolishing the local chief and appointing an emperor’s officer). This exacerbated the loss of their language. By the founding of the PRC in 1949, only about 50,000 of the Tu (Monguor) were still speaking their language, primarily in Qinghai and Gansu. During the Chinese classificatory campaigns carried out in the 1950s, those who could no longer speak their language were classified Han, those who could not speak their language but adopted the Islamic religion were classified Hui, those who followed the Mongols into the northern grasslands were classified as Mongols and those who spoke their language and adopted the Islamic religion were classified Dongxiang, Bao’an and Yügu (Slater, 1998). This is just one example of how language and religion are important factors in shaping the official identities of minorities in China. Traditional Tu culture and language have been endangered by globalization and commercialism. Traditional events like weddings, funerals and New Year rituals are increasingly abbreviated and traditional songs, riddles, folktales and proverbs are vanishing. The Tu language is not used in schools and other public contexts. The Mongolian language is also not supported in schooling in Qinghai. Haixi Prefecture in Qinghai is the largest prefecture by land area, occupying much of the northern tier of, as well as part of south-west Qinghai Province (see Map 5.2 above). In 2010, Haixi had 489,338 inhabitants. Although designated as a Mongolian and Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Han Chinese comprise 64.95 per cent of the population, Hui 12.16 per cent, Mongols 7.23 per cent and Tibetans 12.16 per cent. The Mongolian language is the co-official language with Tibetan and Chinese in Haixi, but the language has only symbolic usage as part of the linguistic landscape in the prefecture. Official institutions, shops and road signs all have three languages: Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese. However, schools have not offered Mongolian language instruction and learning. Apart from the Tibetan language, which has been used in schools, other minority languages are getting more and more threatened by the dominant national language, Chinese. Many scholars are concerned that Qinghai is on the way to becoming a monolingual province in the near future if there is no government support for minority-language maintenance. Among the minorities in Qinghai, Tibetan is the dominant group, both geopolitically and linguistically. As we see from Table 5.1, there are six Tibetan autonomous prefectures, of which one is shared with the Mongols. Geographically these six prefectures occupy 97.7 per cent of Qinghai’s territory. Based on the national autonomous law, Tibetans hold political, economic, educational and social power in these prefectures. Linguistically the Tibetan-speaking



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communities occupy over 97 per cent of the nomadic areas in Qinghai, with a population of over 1.2 million Tibetan speakers. As Qinghai Province borders the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), its education and language policy has been influenced by the policies in those two regions. I will introduce the Tibetan education policy briefly below. In TAR, there has always been debate about whether the schools should use Tibetan medium of instruction (TMI) or Chinese medium of instruction (CMI) in the school curriculum. The two tracks have swung from period to period with changes in the political situation and power positioning at national and provincial levels. In more recent times between 1987 and 1997, TMI was the norm and was strongly promoted in both primary and junior secondary schools in TAR. From 1997 to current times government policy has changed to encourage more CMI in schools. Tibetan religious elites played an important role in this TMI decisionmaking. The 10th Panchen Lama, Choekyi Gyaltsen, became the most important political and religious figure in Tibet following the 14th Dalai Lama’s escape to India in 1959. Before his death in 1989 the 10th Panchen Lama insisted on TMI in all schools in the TAR. Since he passed away in 1989 there has not been a strong Tibetan leader to push this line and language policy has switched to having more CMI in the senior school system. At the behest of the 10th Panchen Lama, in 1987 the TAR People’s Congress issued ‘Provisions on the Study, Use and Development of the Tibetan Language’. The regulations stated that Tibetan was to be the first language and stipulated that by 1993 all new junior middle school students had to be taught through TMI. The TAR government made a concrete and detailed plan that TMI was to be expanded to higher levels of schooling and was to replace CMI by 1997 in senior middle schools and technical secondary schools (Interview, 2013). However, despite the preparation of a detailed timetable and plan, these policies were not implemented beyond a few pilot programs. In 1997 the TAR government unexpectedly abandoned four experimental classes in bilingual education in secondary schools. The TMI classes, which had been highly successful, were abandoned in favour of further development of experimental classes in bilingual education in selected primary schools, where CMI was used and Tibetan was only a language subject (Interview, 2013). Since 1997, this type of bilingual education policy has been promoted in TAR and XUAR. The TMI and CMI debate runs a parallel course in Qinghai Province. As in TAR, the TMI mode in primary and junior secondary schools had been the

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norm after the Cultural Revolution. It was strongly promoted between 1987 and 1997. Since 1997, the Qinghai education authorities have been promoting two modes of bilingual education in six Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures (TAPs). Mode 1 Tibetan or Mongolian as medium of instruction (TMI or MMI). Chinese is offered as a language subject from Grade 3 in primary schools. Mode 2 Chinese as medium of instruction (CMI). Tibetan or Mongolian is offered as a language subject.

From 2001 statistics issued by the Qinghai education commission, Mode 1 was then the majority practice in more than 1,000 Tibetan primary schools (93,747 Tibetan students) and 40 Tibetan junior secondary schools (14,694 Tibetan students). The statistics show significant expansion in the number of schools using Mode 1. By 2007, 1,515 schools in total were using Mode 1 in Qinghai – 1,465 primary schools (49,000 students), 150 secondary schools (33,600 students). Huangnan, Guoluo and Hainan prefectures had more Mode 1 schools as the majority of the population was Tibetan. Haibei and Haixi prefectures and also cities such as Haidong and Xining had more Mode 2 schools as the linguistic environment comprised more Chinese speakers than Tibetan speakers. There has been a recent shift in the national government’s language policy. In March 2008, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao issued important instructions which launched an ‘in-depth investigation on the basis of study and formulation of a long-term plan for education’. By 29 August 2008, Wen Jiabao had established a ‘plan for education’ group, a ‘drafting education plan’ working group, eleven major ‘strategic theme’ groups, and an expert advisory team comprising hundreds of people. Sub-regional planning groups and sub-area planning groups also had been established. In May and June 2010 the Politburo Standing Committee examined and adopted the National long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010–20), hereafter referred to as the National Program. In July 2010, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council promulgated the National Program, to promote the scientific development of education, improve quality, speed up socialist modernization processes, and to develop a guide for the timing of a programmed national education reform and development. The second part of the ‘developmental tasks’ in Chapter IX specifically talks about minority education and proposes attention to and



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support of minority education, ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas to solve problems in schools at all levels and to promote extensive national unity education to enhance national cohesion. It also proposed comprehensively improving the level of development of education in ethnic minority areas, including public education resources. It stressed that in ethnic areas the aim was to: Vigorously promote bilingual education, fully implement Chinese language courses, to promote the national language, to respect and protect the minorities’ right to use their native language education, and to strengthen pre-school bilingual education, teachers’ training for bilingual education, research, bilingual materials development and textbook publishing support.

The fourth part of the platform in Chapter 21, ‘Major Projects and Reform’, also deals with minority education. It says the aims are to: Develop minority education, consolidate minority regional compulsory education outcomes, support border counties and autonomous povertystricken counties to achieve standardization of compulsory schooling, focus on supporting and training to address a shortage of teaching talent in a number of frontier regions, develop training courses for bilingual teachers to strengthen schools and kindergartens in ethnic minority areas, accelerate the development of high school education, vocational classes in ethnic minority areas, and support the construction of a new group of high schools, secondary vocational schools and minority colleges.

Since 2009, under pressure from the national government and because of the example of how the bilingual education policy in XUAR was being implemented, the Qinghai provincial government has been preparing to push for more CMI bilingual education. Department of Education leaders of Qinghai Province instructed their departments to follow Xinjiang’s bilingual education policy after they visited and studied in Xinjiang. Following their interpretation of the ‘National long-term education reform and development plan (2010–20)’, the Qinghai Province government developed the ‘Qinghai Province Long-term education reform and development Plan (2010–20)’, (hereinafter referred to as the Qinghai Program). On 10 September 2010, the Qinghai Provincial Standing Committee meeting convened to consider and adopt the Qinghai Program. The main aims of the Qinghai Program are to: vigorously promote ‘bilingual’ education reform and development and to adhere to national common language

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teaching and learning policy using the national common language, Putonghua, as the language of instruction. The program’s goal, by 2015, is for all primary schools to shift to mainly using Chinese to teach all subjects, with mother tongue only used as a supplementary language. The overall intention is to accelerate the pace of implementation of national language teaching. This policy was clearly in favour of Mode 2, to replace TMI with CMI in the primary and junior secondary schools. In addition, the policy also followed the practice in XUAR of promoting min-Han (minority and Han) joint or mixed schools and as well pre-school Chinese language teaching. Its aims were to ‘Support the establishment of pre-school “bilingual” kindergartens in minority areas, and actively implement the min-Han mixed schools, to encourage national integration and utilization of resources’. The Qinghai Program inferred that TMI was the cause of poor educational outcomes in Qinghai. It said: In order to solve special difficulties and outstanding problems of the province education of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas, adjust the structure, optimize the layout, to improve school conditions, and improve school management, and enhance operating efficiency.

Tibetan teachers and students reacted strongly against the Qinghai Program. Between 11 and 16 October 2010, in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Tongren County, Qinghai Province, 300 Tibetan teachers and students wrote a petition against the government’s decision to replace the Tibetan language as a medium of school instruction with Chinese. The main contents of the petition were: although Tibetan students are willing to learn Chinese and also express support for bilingual education, the main language of instruction should be Tibetan, not Chinese. They believe that Tibetan students mainly from agricultural and pastoral areas are good at their mother tongue, which is the most effective language for them to learn scientific and academic knowledge. Chinese is their second language and its use will not enable them to achieve as high a standard of education. On 19 October 2010, Tibetan students in the Huangnan county organized a demonstration and marched in the streets to express their dissatisfaction at the Qinghai Program. Subsequently, Tibetan student demonstrations expanded to Guoluo, Hainan and Haibei prefectures. Other places also joined in. In the capital city of Qinghai, Xining, students at Qinghai Normal University also expressed their support of Tibetan as the medium of instruction in schools. On 22 October 2010, hundreds of Tibetan students studying at the Central



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University for Nationalities in Beijing campaigned to support Tibetan language instruction. According to the Singapore United Morning Post report a total on campus of 8,000 Tibetan people participated in the parade. The peaceful demonstration did not lead to violence. As well as the Singapore press the Chinese Global Times (English), the British Guardian and the United States Los Angeles Times all reported the incident. The Education Department in Qinghai Province responded by restating the party line. On 22 October 2010, the same day as the Beijing demonstration, Qinghai Provincial Education Department of the Communist Party issued an open letter stating that the aims of the Qinghai Program were to strengthen and improve bilingual education in order to narrow the education gap between different ethnic groups, to promote exchanges between different ethnic groups, and promote national economic and social development. The letter called on the province’s teachers and students to study carefully and understand the practical thinking and action of the provincial government’s decision. On 23 October 2010 Qinghai Education Department held a news conference on the Qinghai Program as well as ‘bilingual’ teaching reform and development issues. Education Department director Wang Yu Bo said that Qinghai Province would strengthen and reform ‘bilingual’ education to achieve new breakthroughs. He said that to develop ethnic education in ethnic regions ‘bilingual’ education was the party’s long-term goal and an important principle of China. Moreover, the promotion of ‘bilingual’ education had an irreplaceably important role and was for the promotion of national economic development, social harmony and improvement in people’s livelihood. However, in the development of Qinghai Province’s ‘bilingual’ education process, there were many difficulties and problems. He highlighted that the overall poor proficiency of Tibetan students in Chinese had narrowed their higher education options and limited their employment opportunities. There was an urgent need for a good language education to fill the gap. Therefore, Qinghai’s next ‘bilingual’ education reforms’ main objective was to ‘adhere to the national language teaching policies and learn the national language using the national language as the language of instruction, so that minority students would master the basics of the national language’. The provincial government has not changed its policy as laid down in the Qinghai Program, despite strong resistance and protests by Tibetan students, teachers and parents. The government continues to stress the importance of Chinese language learning by Tibetan students. The CMI bilingual education policy is counterproductive and has, to a large extent, created ethnic tensions,

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as in XUAR. Many Tibetan and even Chinese scholars argue that the Qinghai government breached the national and autonomous region laws. Firstly, the Tibetan language is an official language of the Tibetan autonomous prefectures. Secondly, the Qinghai provincial government has overridden the legal rights of the six Tibetan autonomous prefectures, which should decide the language of instruction in schools. Thirdly, the poor educational outcomes are not the result of TMI education practice. Most research findings have proved that mothertongue education achieves better results than second-language instruction. Finally, as the government controls employment opportunities, the government should formulate an appropriate policy to require the Tibetan language, not just the Chinese language, as a prerequisite for employment. Language discrimination and unequal economic distribution have made Chinese the only language of power in a province of which Tibetan speakers occupy 97.7 per cent of the territory. Qinghai is the only province in China which has set out a timetable for the school language policy to shift to the national language. The provincial government is reluctant to shift back to TMI. Whether the province will meet the target of shifting to CMI by 2015 remains a question, but since 2010 no province or region has followed Qinghai’s example. It seems clear the Tibetans have made their point to the national government as well as other authorities in China. To investigate the effect of the Qinghai Program and bilingual education practice I carried out a number of field studies between 2012 and 2013. The studies were mainly conducted in two Tibetan autonomous prefectures. Interviews and survey data collected from teachers, principals and local educational officials will be discussed in the following section. A number of visits to bilingual schools in Qinghai have been conducted since 2012. I visited a number of schools in Hainan prefecture and established close contacts with principals and educational officials, mainly by having informal conversations and attending and discussing class observations. A teacher survey was conducted in 18 schools in Gonghe, Tongren and Guinan counties in Hainan in 2013, in which 123 teachers participated. Working in either primary or junior secondary schools, they included 70 males, 53 females, 101 Tibetans, 11 Chinese, five Hui, three Salar, two Mongols and one Tu, aged between 26 and 55. Tertiary qualifications were held by 96 per cent of the teachers. The written survey, comprising 36 items, was carried out and group teacher interviews and seminars followed after the survey. The purpose of the survey was to ascertain the teachers’ linguistic and professional background, their general views on the two modes of bilingual education programs in schools,



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and their views on the school curriculum, such as textbooks, pedagogies and resources. As the survey was anonymous, many teachers expressed their views openly. The survey also covered a wide range of teaching subjects, including maths, Tibetan, Chinese, English, music and arts. While interviews and conversations with educational officials and principals brought forth more information on school structures, resources, perceptions and views from a more official and policy stance, the teachers talked more freely about the pedagogy, textbooks, students’ attitudes and difficulties. The survey results indicated there was overwhelming bilingual proficiency among teachers. All teachers declared they spoke Putonghua, 81 per cent of teachers reported they spoke Tibetan and 19 per cent said they spoke English, while 4 per cent spoke Arabic. Further analysis showed 90 per cent of the Tibetan teachers were bilingual in Putonghua and Tibetan, nine teachers spoke English, Tibetan and Putonghua. Among the eleven Han teachers, all spoke Putonghua, six teachers spoke Tibetan and three teachers spoke English, which they were also teaching. Most teachers (74 per cent) had not received bilingual teacher training, while the remainder had. Of those trained, 15.6 per cent had attended further training once or twice and only 10.6 per cent of teachers had received follow-up training more than three times. In the group interviews, Tibetan teachers said the Tibetan language was their mother tongue and the means of daily communication at home and in school with other teachers and principals. They always used Tibetan to talk to parents and students. They had all been required to pass a Putonghua test to get a job as a teacher. A number of Han teachers stated they learnt Tibetan on the job, by communicating with Tibetan teachers and local Tibetan communities, but had never learnt Tibetan formally in school. None could read and write the Tibetan language. Teachers’ attitudes towards Putonghua were very positive. They agreed with the Qinghai Program that all the students must learn Putonghua as it was important for their future. The majority of teachers argued that as Tibetan is considered the major language in the area, all students should speak Tibetan. The findings of the survey and teacher interviews indicated most teachers supported Mode 1 (TMI) bilingual education, with 69.1 per cent (85 teachers) responding in the affirmative. Most (83 per cent) of these teachers stated they believed Mode 1 bilingual education should be offered in primary schools, 19.5 per cent believed TMI should be offered in junior secondary schools and 4.9 per cent believed it should be offered in senior secondary schools, while 6.5 per

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cent believed bilingual education should not be offered. 28.5 per cent of teachers thought Mode 1 bilingual education was more important in high schools than primary schools. This was because students need much higher levels of mother-tongue support when they reach higher levels of cognitive learning involving complexity of concepts. Most teachers (62 per cent) believed that Mode 1 bilingual education benefits students’ overall development as well as their Chinese language learning, while 38.5 per cent believed Mode 2 bilingual education should be offered as students can learn Putonghua quickly and it is very good for their future. In the group teacher interviews, teachers believed that schools should provide both modes and that parents and students should have the right to choose which mode they prefer. A number of teachers stated that in their Mode 1 programs, students who used to be in Mode 2 classes had returned to Mode 1 classes as they could not catch up and failed in many subjects. They thought the reality is that TMI is the best way to provide students with quality learning. I was asked to describe Hong Kong’s trilingual CMI policy and practice. Most teachers believed they should follow HK’s policy and practice. They believe mother-tongue education is more effective for both learning knowledge and learning the Chinese language. Regarding the bilingual curriculum, 27.6 per cent of teachers reported that the Mode 1 curriculum they adopted was very good. All subjects are translated from Chinese textbooks into the Tibetan language. So both Mode 1 and Mode 2 are learning the same content irrespective of whether under TMI or CMI. The differences were in the language curriculum. Schools have now adopted a Chinese textbook published by Renmin Jiaoyu Chubanshe (People’s Education Publisher). The textbooks for the nine years of basic education are designed for students whose mother tongue is Chinese. The level and requirement are very high and it is hard for students to manage second-language Chinese learning using these resources. A number of teachers argued that after each grade of Chinese learning Tibetan students would have reached the same level of students, for example, in Beijing and that this is very good for them to compete with Chinese students in the job market. Other teachers disagreed and stated only 20 per cent of their students passed the Chinese exam at the end of school terms, most students only have 20 marks out of 100. They reported that this was a very discouraging and depressing outcome for them as teachers and for students as learners as they worked very hard. A principal introduced a solution for the problem. The school established an exchange teacher-training program with a private school



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in Shenzhen. Because this private school needs to survive in competition with public schools, it needs to use advanced teaching methods. Group work and a collaborative learning approach have been adopted in the Hainan school and all teachers received training and class observations in Shenzhen. The results were very pleasing. Last year the marks in the Chinese examination in the school jumped from an average of 23 to 56. In a number of Chinese lessons I observed Tibetan students worked actively in small groups to share their understanding of higher-level Chinese texts. Some students spoke Tibetan, some spoke Chinese. Together they summarized the main points and presented in front of the class. The following is an episode from a Chinese lesson in second grade of junior secondary school:

Five or six students working together to discuss their understanding. On the wall, slogans state the teaching approach of the school: fazhan gaoxiao, zizhu xuexi (develop high efficiency, learning independently). Kuaile canyu (enjoy participation). Photo taken by Tsung in June 2013.

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Teacher = T, Students = Ss T: Tongxue men hao [Hello students] Ss: Laoshi hao [Hello teacher] T: Jintian wo men xuexi 20 ke sushi qiren [Today we are learning Lesson 20, a master person in the folklore culture]. Nimen yuxi guole ma? [Have you prepared it?] Ss: Yuxi le. [We prepared.] T. Hen hao. Wo men xianzai fenzu taolun zhongxin dayi [Very good. Now you will work with your group to summarize the main points.]

Students turned around and actively worked together. There were nine groups in the class. After 10 minutes, the teacher called group representatives to come to the front and report their summary. On the board she wrote the title, the author and

This is a student from a group, who wrote their summary on the board.



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The teacher marked the group presentations and gave each group their marks and also pointed out how students could improve their summary.

also pointed out how she wanted students to write the key points on the board. On the corner she also had a marking scheme, with nine groups having space for marks. The students were enthusiastic about learning Chinese. Their level of Chinese was very impressive considering they were learning Chinese as a second language. The class was very much student-centred, and the teacher, who had a Tibetan background, was skillfully trained. I had a long conversation with the teacher after the observation. She said she was very happy with her students’ progress in Chinese and also the attitudinal changes in the class. In the past some of my students used to sleep in my Chinese class because they could not understand Chinese. The level of Chinese varies very much, because they came from different primary schools. Normally those students coming

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from remote nomadic areas have very poor Chinese, since there is no Chinese language environment. Now students are very motivated in learning Chinese since I started using the group work methods. (Interview with Tibetan teacher)

This teacher said her training at the teachers’ college was not very practical for this school. She benefited a lot by visiting the school in Shenzhen. Last year my principal and another four teachers visited a private school in Shenzhen. I saw students were enjoying group learning in their Chinese lessons. I thought that though these students are Han Chinese and my students are Tibetans, it might work in my school. When I came back from Shenzhen I tried it in my class and received remarkable results. Although I was not in front of class teaching, I had to do more preparations before class so I could design activities for my students in class. I also spent a lot of time helping those slow learners outside class. (Interview with a Tibetan teacher)



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In the teacher survey only 21.1 per cent reported that in the Tibetan language class they used bilingual methods with Chinese explanation or Chinese and Tibetan grammar comparison, while 68.9 per cent of teachers reported that they use Tibetan only. The school produced a Tibetan language learning guidebook with a Chinese glossary for Tibetan vocabulary. Below is the Tibetan language textbook.

Since 1982, Tibetan language textbooks have been standardized in the five Tibetan areas Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan (Wu Sheng Qu). In fact, writing and the translation of the Tibetan curriculum has been mainly undertaken by the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and Qinghai Province. Over a period of 26 years of co-operation they have produced three sets of Tibetan textbooks for different subjects for schools, including textbooks, teachers’ manuals, teaching supplementary resources, local textbooks and student exercise books. There are Tibetan, Chinese and English books in maths,

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biology, physics, chemistry and computer studies. The demand for Tibetan textbooks has grown. There were 56,720 copies of Year 1 Tibetan textbooks printed in 2005. In 2007 this had grown to 74,599, an increase of 32 per cent in two years. Anecdotal evidence is that this growth has continued as more students have been enrolled in the Mode 1 schools. Tibetan teachers are happy with the textbooks. The only problem is that the students all speak Amdo, which is different from Weizang spoken in Lhasa TAR, but the Tibetan written language is the same. CMI is used for other curriculum subjects in a number of schools in the teacher survey, with 61.4 per cent of teachers reporting that they use bilingual teaching in their classes. That means even though the textbooks are in Chinese, teachers had to use Tibetan to explain to their students. The school I visited produced study guides to help students. The following guides are for the subjects of politics, Tibetan language, history and physics in Grade 2 junior secondary school. The following is the maths learning guidebook.



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Bilingual textbooks were used by 72.3 per cent of teachers in their school. Among these textbooks, some are published by the national government and some by the local Education Commission. Self-designed teaching materials were used by 3.3 per cent of the teachers and 22 per cent reported that they don’t use bilingual textbooks. The survey also showed that most teachers don’t use multimedia technology in their teaching, with only 17.7 per cent stating that they often use multimedia technology, while 48 per cent of teachers said their schools did not have these facilities. Many teachers in the survey and interviews expressed concerns about their students’ workload and their belief that too much time was spent on learning languages, rather than on knowledge. They questioned whether English should be introduced in schools. Our students spend more than 50 per cent of their time learning a language, Tibetan, Chinese and English. One is mother tongue and two are second languages. Han students only need to learn Chinese and English, one is their mother tongue and one is a second language. No matter how hard students are studying, they are always behind the Han students. (Tibetan Teacher 12)

A maths teacher also expressed his concern. My students don’t get good results in their maths because they spend a lot of time doing their Chinese homework. They were told by their Chinese teachers and their parents that having better Chinese means they will have a better future. But without good maths results they cannot get into senior high schools. I am always competing with their Chinese teachers for study time on the maths. (Tibetan Teacher 13)

A number of teachers suggested English should not be introduced to minority schools. This could reduce the workload of students. I understand English is very important for our students’ future. However, learning two second languages at the same time is too much for our students. Perhaps students can choose one of them. If the government recognized students’ Tibetan language results for their university entrance examination, they wouldn’t have to learn English. (Tibetan Teacher 14)

Given that not all the Tibetan students will be able to go to universities or overseas, many teachers agreed with her view. One of the teachers disagreed with this view, suggesting boldly that the government should allow students to choose English, not Chinese, as a second language.

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English is in fact an easier language for students to learn than Chinese. If the government allows students to choose to learn English, not Chinese, it will reduce their workload and give some students opportunities to go overseas to study. (Tibetan Teacher 7)

A lot of teachers just laughed at his suggestion. As the government aims to promote Chinese as a national language, there is no hope for Tibetans to learn English instead of Chinese, but it is possible for them to learn only Chinese in order for them to receive a quality education. Some teachers made comments on job opportunities for Tibetan students. They believe many government jobs should require both Tibetan and Chinese language skills, not just Chinese. At present applicants need to pass a Chinese language proficiency test but there is no requirement for Tibetan language. As a result almost all these jobs go to Han Chinese, not Tibetans. This is seen as discrimination against Tibetan students who wish to join the government civil service. Looking at the bigger picture, while both Chinese and Tibetan are official languages in Qinghai, it is the Chinese language that has been promoted in public and social domains. Tibetan is the lingua franca of 1.2 million Tibetans who cover 97.7 per cent of Qinghai’s land mass. Mongols, Tu and Salar speak their own languages, which are official languages in autonomous prefectures and counties but have only limited usage in the private domains. No schools or public media support their language maintenance and usage, so they have become endangered languages under the dominant pressure of the Chinese language. With a large population and large territory as their homeland, Tibetans are still able to maintain a position for their language to be used as the medium of instruction in primary and junior secondary schools. However, there is consistent pressure from both the national and provincial governments to replace TMI with CMI. The public protest by Tibetan teachers and students might have slowed down the process, but as we can see from talks by the provincial leaders, the government will continue to apply pressure to make it happen. Maybe not by 2015, but perhaps by 2016 or 2017. The Chinese textbooks that are available are not suitable for Tibetan students who are learning Chinese as a second language. Decisions concerning Chinese language learning in schools do not just revolve around the question of what benefits students. In China, education is directed toward disseminating the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (Kolas, 2010).



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The case study showed teachers are strongly supportive of Mode 1 TMI programs. They stressed the importance of the Tibetan language as a medium of instruction. Their concern, and their professional views, should be taken seriously by the provincial authorities. There is no doubt that learning Chinese as a national language will benefit Tibetan students in their further education and career opportunities. However, the Tibetan language would also provide this linguistic capital if the government systematically planned the future of the Tibetan students and offered them career opportunities in which they could use the Tibetan language as well as Chinese. A Tibetan-speaking community inhabits the vast bulk of Qinghai’s territory and bilingual talents are needed to serve this large territory. Ma Rong (2009), in his study of TAR bilingual education, suggested Han people living in the TAR should learn the Tibetan language. His suggestion is equally valuable in Qinghai. Ma also criticized many Tibetan elites in TAR who publicly supported TMI but sent their own children to CMI schools. From my interviews and conversations with many teachers this is also the situation in Qinghai. On the positive side, Chinese holds the linguistic capital for jobs and further education, while on the negative side, the state government has planned this unequal linguistic capital. As in Xinjiang, many government projects have been unfairly given to Han Chinese companies. The ‘Development of the West’ project launched by the government not only made the Han Chinese companies rich but also made the Chinese language rich and powerful. Government job opportunities in Qinghai should consider criteria of bilingual or multilingual proficiency. An affirmative equal language policy would not only guarantee ethnic equality but also encourage Han Chinese to learn other minority languages, and minorities such as Salar, Tu and Mongolian to learn their own languages as well as the national Chinese language.

6

Vanishing Multilingualism: Linguistic Vitality and Pilot Bilingual Education Programs in Yunnan The Chinese characters for Yunnan 云南 translate as ‘south of the cloud’ in English. The term indicates a place of remoteness, far from Han ‘civilization’ and Han cultural centres. It also indicates people living in the cloud most of the time, as 95 per cent of Yunnan comprises mountainous terrain adjoining and part of the northern slopes of the Himalayas. With a land area of 3,940,000 square kilometres and a population of 45,966,239 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2011), Yunnan province is a south-western gateway to China. It has the largest diversity of language, culture and ethnicity of any Chinese province and shares borders with Vietnam, Laos and Burma. Yunnan is a multi-ethnic province and home to 25 officially identified indigenous groups, 16 of which are cross-border ethnic. The names of these groups are different in different countries. For example, the Miao of China are called Hmong in Vietnam and Western countries, the Jingpo are referred to as Kachin in Burma. The Han is the largest ethnic group in Yunnan, making up 66.02 per cent (29,799,000) of the population, while the other 25 groups have a combined population of 15,341,000 (33.98 per cent of the total population). There are also a large number of unidentified minority nationalities such as the Kuchong, Mosuo and Xiandao people who have applied for identification but have basically been ignored by the government. As not one of the officially identified minorities is large enough in population to hold a politically dominant position, Yunnan is not an autonomous region, but there are eight autonomous prefectures and 29 autonomous counties which cover 70.2 per cent of the provincial territory. Geopolitically Yunnan is important for state security because of its long borders. Historically, Yunnan comprised a number of independent kingdoms. The kingdom of Nanzhao (南诏国) flourished during the eighth and ninth centuries. Nanzhao was made up of many ethnic and linguistic groups. The majority of the

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Map 6.1.  Yunnan Province

Nanzhao population, including the royal family, were called ‘Bai Man’ (白蛮) and they became the Bai people. Another important ethnic group called ‘Wu Man’ (乌蛮) played key roles in the daily business of Nanzhao (Backus, 1981). The capital was established in 738 at Taihe (modern-day Taihe village, a few miles south of Dali). Located in the heart of the Erhai valley, the site was ideal: it could be easily defended against attack, and it was in the midst of rich farmland. Nanzhao came under Tibetan threat from 680 AD. The Tibetans took the northern part of Nanzhao (where today’s Jianchuan and Heqing are) under their control from 750–94 (Stein, 1972). In 902, the Nanzhao dynasty was overthrown by three other dynasties in quick succession: Da Changhe, Da Tianxing and Da Yining. In 937 the kingdom of Dali was established by Duan Siping to replace the three dynasties. The kingdom of Dali, with its capital city located in Dali, was ruled by a succession of 22 kings descended from Duan Siping until it, in turn, was conquered by the invasion of the Mongolians in 1253. Under Mongol control the king of the Dali was allowed to retain his original military and political power. The king (Duan) not only stayed in Dali, but also served the new lord in many ways, thus playing a unique role in consolidating the rule of the Mongolian aristocracy in Yunnan. Duan played his part in vanquishing



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the various tribes in Yunnan. His troops also acted as vanguards in ‘bringing Indo China (Vietnam) to surrender’, thus helping the Mongols to extend their territory to what is now South-East Asia (Du and Chen, 1988). Under the Yuan and Ming dynasties minority groups in Yunnan were controlled by tusi (native chieftains). However, a gaitu guiliu policy (abolishing the tusi and replacing them with Qing officials) was undertaken under the Qing dynasty. This gaitu guiliu policy has consolidated Chinese linguistic imperialism; minority languages were gradually eroded and the Han language slowly came to dominate until the modern time (He, 2014: 47). Currently the 25 officially identified ethnic minority groups live together in a pattern of Dazaju Xiaojuju (big dispersion and small concentration). This demographic feature has contributed to social integration and assimilation. In most cases those who live in small concentrations largely maintain their language and culture better than those who are dispersed among the general population. There is also a clear division between urban and rural. Those ethnic minority groups who live in urban areas closely co-inhabited with Han are more likely to be assimilated than those who live in the remote and rural areas. Over 30 years of rapid socio-economic development China has provided ethnic minority people in Yunnan with unprecedented historical opportunities in socio-cultural and educational development. The provincial government has made a plan to build Yunnan into a ‘great ethnic cultural province’ (Yunnan Provincial Government, 2000), the ‘12th National Socioeconomic Development Plan’ (People’s Congress of PRC, 2011), ‘building Yunnan into a ‘gateway to the south-west’, The National Guidelines of National Middle and Long-term Educational Development (2011) and Regulations for Ethnic Minority Education in Yunnan (Yunnan Provincial Government, 2011).

Linguistic diversity Multilingualism is a particular feature of Yunnan Province, where it is commonly accepted that over 120 languages are spoken. Internal documents from the Yunnan Province Nationalities Commission circulated in 1951 listed 132 minority groups (Mullaney, 2011: 19). However, the result of the minority identification and amalgamations in the 1950s saw many of these languages officially classified as dialects. For example, it is recognized that the Yi spoke more than six identified ‘dialects’, the majority of which were not mutually intelligible (Harrell, 1995: 65), hence they are not dialects in a strict linguistic sense.

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Among the 25 minority groups, 22 of them have their own languages and their 28 languages have been officially recognized with 22 written scripts (Dao, 2005). The Yunnan provincial government only recognizes 14 written scripts which, led by the central government, were created between 1954 and 1979. These written languages include the Jingpo, Buyi, Yi, Naxi, Miao, Li, Hani, Lisu, Dong, Zhuang, Wa, Bai and Zaiwa. Furthermore, the central government made efforts to standardize the written languages of the Dai and Lahu (Teng and Wen, 2005). Most of these new scripts have been rejected or ignored by minority groups. Some of them prefer to use old scripts, which were created by foreign missionaries, such as the Jingpo, Miao, Lahu and Lisu; some prefer the traditional scripts such as the Dai and Yi; some groups hardly use the new scripts, such as the Naxi, Bai, Zaiwa and Zhuang (in Yunnan), while the Jingpo people have been using old scripts to read Bibles. Under the tremendous pressure of spreading Putonghua, the use of minority languages in Yunnan has diminished and many of these languages have become endangered. The Yunnan government admitted that ‘some minority languages are on the verge of vanishing (binlin xiaowang) because of fewer people using them’ (Yunnan Daily, 2013). The Yunnan provincial government issued ‘Yunnan Minority Language Ordinances (YMLO)’, which was put into effect on 1 May 2013. Of the 24 items in the YMLO, four key important items are: 1. Approval procedures of using minority languages. All minority language stationery, documents, public signs, seals, place names of local ethnic autonomous governments, all minority language publications, media materials need to be approved by ethnic affairs offices above the county level. 2. Training minority language talents. Support training minority language editors, journalists and writers; support bilingual education in pre and primary schools, support bilingual teacher training; establish majors in minority language and literature by minority or other higher education institutions; give priority to applicants who have passed minority language efficiency tests who wish to have majors in teacher training in higher education institutions; a foreign language test can be waived for application of professional promotion; a minority language is regarded as equivalent to those who undertake research into minority languages, editing, teaching, broadcasting and translation careers. 3. Securing minority language working plan and budget. Minority language should be included in the national economic and development plan with financial budget at all government levels above the county level.



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4. Protecting and rescuing minority languages. Strengthen the establishment of minority language resource database, a specific budget should be allocated to protect and rescue minority languages under the indigenous minority cultural protection fund in the provincial budget. These above four items indicate that on the one hand the government wishes to maintain tight control over the use of minority languages publicly; on the other hand the government has invested or will invest money to create a minority language market which has been ignored and suppressed for many years, especially in the education system. The YMLO is certainly welcome news for those who have been working hard to protect minority languages, who have suffered discrimination in their career development without mastering a foreign language, usually English. It is clear from this YMLO that minority languages are supported in either the early stages of the school system or the higher-level institutions. The government has given the green light for minority languages to be used in the education domain and has recognized the value of minority languages to their speakers and their cultural heritage. In conversations with some minority language workers, minority teachers, cadres and professionals, including many NGO workers, I understand the YMLO is the outcome of many years’ hard effort. They have been working tirelessly for pilot bilingual education programs and have established pilot minority language databases. The Ethnic Language Commission in Yunnan has already secured some funding from the central government and has been engaged to record all the minority languages by using new technology, audio, video and computer software.

How endangered are the minority languages in Yunnan? Language maintenance and vitality issues have a distinct division between urban and rural, educated and uneducated, elderly and young, developed and underdeveloped areas, ease of access to roads and transport and remoteness and isolation in Yunnan. It is easy to find many minorities living in Kunming or other city or town centres who do not speak their mother tongues even though they are proud to be Yi, Naxi, Bai, Lisu or any one of the other 55 minority groups in Yunnan. For these minority people to be away from their humble, rural and poor backgrounds is considered a great achievement, a corollary to this achievement being shedding their languages. Most of these people I have met would tell me that they would not be in the urban areas without an education. Most of them

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are positive about government preferential policies available to the disadvantaged from poor rural areas. When I travel to rural and remote areas I often meet elders from these minorities who speak their own language and speak it to their children. Many minorities have shifted to using Chinese. For example, the She language is endangered. Only about 1,000 people are able to speak it among a population of 36,000 She people. There are only 2 per cent of Gelao people speaking their own language. The rest speak Chinese only. One typical example is the Dai language in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan. The Dai form a dominant group in Dehong with a population of 349,840, or 28.88 per cent of the prefecture (2010). In 1995, when I conducted a field study in Dehong, the Dai language was the lingua franca and one of the major languages used in Dehong. It was spoken not only by the Dai but also by other minority groups in the area. Dai literacy was promoted in schools and in all the temples. I was informed that all Dai boys mastered Dai literacy from participating in Buddhist religious ceremonies that are a tradition of the whole Dai community. Many primary schools had bilingual education programs and Dai was taught from Primary Year 1 to Primary Year 6. The local teachers’ college made the Dai language a compulsory subject. However, in my 2001 visits, I noticed a sharp decline in Dai language teaching in favour of more focus on Chinese language teaching. A recent report by Chen (2012) indicates the Dai language has become seriously threatened. An alarming indicator is that 30 per cent of Dai people are giving up their language to take Chinese. Only 5 per cent of the Dai have sound Dai literacy. Most of them are either lamas from the Buddhist temples, religious leaders, or people who have studied Dai as their major in colleges. To summarize Chen’s report: 1 Dai language-use domains have been lost. All the public and private domains such as official meetings, business activities, social gatherings, even traditional Dai weddings and funerals have been replaced by Chinese. The whole linguistic landscape in Dehong is Chinese, no Dai script is displayed at the airport, train stations, bus stops, hotels, restaurants, road and shop signs. There is no Dai script used in public documents, stationery, booklets, and advertisement. Dai parents give Han names rather than Dai names to their children. All the place names have been changed to Han names. Local radio and TV stations have reduced Dai language programs, content is shrinking and broadcasting time is getting shorter. �

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Dai publications are getting less. It is very hard for Dai people to buy or borrow Dai books. There is no standardization of new Dai vocabulary or terminology. News and media all use Chinese cultural items and new vocabulary. The Dai language becomes mixed with Chinese. A lot of loanwords in the Dai language are borrowed from Chinese and English, such as boke (blog), hulianwang (Internet). Lack of support from the government and family. Promotion of Dai literacy mainly depends on private sector and religious organizations. Schools have stopped teaching Dai literacy. Dai children have a very heavy Chinese homework load and do not want to learn Dai literacy. Parents don’t support them to learn. Negative attitude toward the Dai Language. Some Dai cadres and young people regard the Dai language as backward. Some Dai people believe the use of the Dai language is limited (lack of use domains). Learning Chinese is important. Dai has no value and it is a waste of time to learn the Dai language. There are fewer employment posts for Dai speakers and Dai literacy. In Dehong prefecture there are not many opportunities to get jobs if people speak Dai and have Dai literacy. The limited jobs are in Dai newspapers, radio and TV stations, Dai publishers, and Dai theatre companies, which are all in decline. Dai newspapers are in decline. Dai language newspaper used to publish 10,000 copies each issue, twice a week but in 2012, only 710 copies per month were published. The population of Dai in Dehong between the ages 15 and 64 is about 250,000. Dai magazines are also falling in production and the quality of the Dai language newspaper and magazine is poor.

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Chen also indicates that losing their language has also caused the Dai people to begin to lose their religion and culture. As fewer people can read the Dai Buddhist scriptures and understand Buddhist lectures, many are losing their traditional religion and cultural heritage. Endangerment has become the norm for many minority languages, despite these groups having relatively large populations and strong religious beliefs. The situation for smaller languages is even worse. The Pumi people have a population of 33,600 (2000 census). Based on a survey in 2012 the Pumi language is vanishing (Hu, Hu and He, 2010). Most Pumi below 40 have given up their language and shifted to the Chinese,

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Bai and Yi languages, depending on the area they live in. At the same time, the Pumi are losing their customs, culture, folklore, literature and music and arts. The sad thing was their traditional arts, religious scripture, cloth paintings, arts and crafts, furniture, clothes, and a lot of valuable heritage items were plundered by outside Chinese business people who paid very little money and sold them for high prices in some large cities and overseas (Hu et al., 2010). According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) over half the world’s languages are in danger of disappearing, with a current rate of one language disappearing from use every two weeks. According to UNESCO’s language vitality assessment factors (2003) most minority languages in Yunnan are threatened or endangered. Six of these factors are considered ‘major evaluative factors’ and are used to assess a language’s ‘vitality and state of endangerment’ (UNESCO, 2003: 7), three additional factors focus on language attitudes and documentation of the language. The first factor is ‘intergenerational language transmission’, which is a major issue in Yunnan both in the city and town centres where the Han dialect or Putonghua is used as the communicative language to younger generations. In 1995, I was often told of the disappointment of Naxi people living in Kunming who had sent their children to be taught Naxi in Lijiang, their historical Naxi homeland, only to find that children in Lijiang could not speak Naxi, as Naxi parents in Lijiang only spoke Putonghua to their children. The Bai people told me the same story, their children could not speak Bai in Dali, the hometown of the Bai people. In some remote areas other ‘more popular’ minority languages are replacing smaller minority languages. For example, among the Xiandao people I studied in 2005, fewer than 100 elderly people spoke the language. The younger Xiandao generation all spoke Jingpo and Han dialects. In other remote areas I visited I also learnt that minority languages have been successfully transmitted to most children as their mother tongue. For example, in Jianchuan, 131 kilometres from Dali Bai Prefecture, all the children I met spoke fluent Bai. Preschool children were unable to speak Chinese. The same applies to the Yi and Lisu children living in the mountains above Jianchuan, who are monolingual in their mother tongue. The Yi children I visited at a remote school in Bainiu Chang could all speak fluent Yi, but had limited Chinese. The second UNESCO factor is the ‘total number of remaining speakers’. There are a number of ‘large’ minorities comprising between 100,000 and 1 million speakers.



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Nine language groups in Yunnan, excluding Han, have populations between 100,000 and 1 million speakers. These groups are; Bai, Dai, Hani, Lahu, Lisu, Naxi, Wa, Zhuang and Yi. These nine language groups are reported to have more bilingual speakers with Chinese and their mother tongue, between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of the population of Bai, Dai and Yi have shifted to speaking Chinese only (Interview, 2012). There are 1.2 million Zhuang people living in Yunnan. Johnson reveals there are three Zhuang groups: the larger group, the Nong Zhuang; the Dai Zhuang, a medium-size group (between 10,000 and 100,000); and a smaller group, the Min Zhuang comprising fewer than 10,000 speakers. The Nong and Dai Zhuang language groups are not immediately at risk because of adequate populations of speakers, though this is of more concern for the Min Zhuang (Johnson, 2011). The seven medium-size language groups in Yunnan, with between 10,000 and 100,000 speakers, are in serious decline; Achang, Bulang, Jingpo, De’ang, Jinuo, Nu and Pumi. In the case of the Jinuo most people can only speak Chinese or other minority languages (Dai, 2011). The smaller languages are all seriously endangered. Dulong is officially recognized but comprises less than 6,930 speakers. The languages with no official status that have vanished include Xiando, Kazuo, Leqi and Langsu. The third UNESCO factor concerns the proportion of speakers within the total population of each group. Those languages with more than 50 per cent of the population bilingual in Chinese are considered ‘unsafe’. Examples include the Bai, 63 per cent of whom speak two or three languages, the Jinuo, 51.21 per cent of whom are bilingual and the Naxi, 55 per cent of whom are considered trilingual. Most other language groups in Yunnan are ‘safe’ under these criteria. The fourth factor is concerned with language domains; ‘where and with whom a language is used and the range of topics speakers can address by using the language’ (UNESCO, 2003: 9). In most villages I have visited in Yunnan minority languages have been used in limited public domains such as markets, shops and festival gatherings. Most students in rural areas told me that they only speak their own language at home and I assume minority languages are maintained well in the family domain. Chinese is used in most official domains such as workplaces, hospitals, schools and government offices. The multilingual parity is characterized as a diglossia situation, as Fishman defined (1967). While Chinese is the high variety for public and official domains, minority languages are the lower variety only for use in private domains. In this regard, all the minority languages are unsafe, as the UNESCO document states: ‘multilingualism is a fact of life in most areas of the world. Speakers

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do not have to be monolingual for their language to be vital. It is crucial that the indigenous language serve a meaningful function in culturally important domains’ (2003: 10). The fifth factor is ‘response to new domains and media’. Some bigger minority language groups are more likely to be exposed to new media than the smaller indigenous languages, but their meaning function is in doubt. Language groups such as Yi, Bai and Zhuang are available on radio and TV programs, but most programs are informative rather than entertaining. Many Yi children I interviewed reported that they did not like Yi TV programs because they are only news and not interesting. They preferred watching Chinese TV programs. Today even remote rural schools all have TV access, mobile phone networks and computers. Minority languages are not in the race with Chinese as the new media expands the power of the Chinese language at the expense of minority languages, making the traditional language increasingly ‘irrelevant and stigmatized’ (UNESCO, 2003: 11). Some minority groups have started to make videos and DVDs of their singing and dancing. The Bai, Naxi, Yi, Dai and Zhuang are very actively involved in producing these cultural and linguistic products to sell to tourists who visit their homes. The creation of sound messages by WeChat (text messaging software) is a very powerful way to replace the written messaging as many minority people don’t have effective word processing input systems in their mobile phones and computers. Although Chinese and English have been the languages dominant in the new media, minority languages are in the process of entering this domain. The sixth factor deals with the availability of materials for language education and literacy. My observations have been that there are no or very limited minority language education materials available except textbooks. While these minority language textbooks are useful resources, supporting materials in minority languages are extremely lacking. Even those large languages, such as Tibetan and Mongolian, share the same problem (see Chapters 3 and 5). The Yunnan Ethnic Languages Commission has reported that they have produced language materials in 18 minority languages. Most schools I have visited do not even know these materials are available. Teachers have received little or no training and most of them do not even know how to read and write the new minority scripts. As the Ethnic Languages Commission does not control schools and teacher training there is a disconnect between the producers of minority language materials and their intended users – teachers and students. Yunnan is ranked very low on UNESCO’s scale for this factor.



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The seventh factor is the attitude of government and institutions to language. In Yunnan there is a division between two institutions in the government, the Ethnic Languages Commission and the Education Bureau of Yunnan. The view from the Ethnic Languages Commission is very positive on minority languages. Led by a Naxi-background director, a large part of the commission’s staff members are from different minority backgrounds and language groups. They have been actively promoting minority languages in Yunnan, providing funding to schools and supporting schools to conduct pilot bilingual study programs, producing and supporting minority language educational material production. In 1995 on an early visit to the institution I noted that they edited a Journal of Yunnan Ethnic Languages with academic and scholarly papers and research reports. The journal was stopped in 2000 on the grounds that it was only for internal circulation in China and funding had dried up. For officials at the Yunnan Ethnic Languages Commission minority languages are their livelihood and their ‘language market’. Their positive view is mixed with both practical needs and passion for minority languages. In conversations with a number of staff in 2013 I learnt that while there have been more positive views ‘than ever before’ from institutions such as the Education Bureau of Yunnan Provincial Government, some Han officials from this bureau are still very negative about minority languages. They openly criticized the promotion of new scripts, saying it is ‘illegal’ to use them as the national government has yet to approve them. One of these new scripts was for the Bai language and their negative position provoked an angry counterattack and possible court cases from academics of Bai background, who accused such officials as being anti-law as all ethnic languages are legal and should be treated equally. A number of interviewees stated ‘while the minority languages are not prohibited in China, they are not encouraged in schools by government offices’. The attitude of government officials toward the minority languages of Yunnan is very negative. The eighth factor is community members’ attitude towards their own language. It is not easy to collect data on the language attitudes of 25 minority groups in Yunnan, but anecdotal views from many minority members indicate that they see their languages as having little economic and educational value. Some interviewees told me that they prefer to lose their language in order to protect their children’s educational and career prospects. The final factor is documentation of the language and is crucial for those languages critically close to extinction. Non-government efforts were initiated by a group of academics who have been documenting minority languages since

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2000, and they have produced a large number of publications. For example, the Xiandao language (I was one of the co-authors), the Laqi language and the Kazuo language. These publications have documented the level of endangerment as well as the details of grammar, vocabulary etc. The YMLO is the first government effort to undertake the documentation of minority languages considered endangered. I predict that the documentation will be advanced, using audio video equipment and computer software. However, Zhou believes that the documentation of minority languages can only fossilize these minority languages rather than promote their use (Zhou, 2014). Looking at the nine UNESCO factors, we should be concerned about the future of all the minority languages in Yunnan, many of which are sitting between ‘healthy’ and ‘endangered’. The situation will become serious if there is no government intervention. The YMLO measures may not be too late if they are genuinely implemented, so there is some hope that the situation might change for the better. Given the differences in the living environment, population size, community distribution and socio-economic development, language use in these ethnic communities is very diversified and complicated. At present there are four types of language use in Yunnan: the transitional language users who have given up their native languages and adopted new languages (such as the Hui, Man, Shui and many minority language speakers in the urban areas); the bilinguals of Chinese and minority languages who live in the flat land, rural areas, or cohabit with other ethnic communities; the trilinguals, who have frequent contact with the neighbouring communities; and the monolinguals, who live in very remote rural areas and speak their own language in the community. Yunnan official data reported in 2005 that a large portion of the population (about 6.5 million people) in Yunnan could not communicate in Putonghua. The survey of language and script use in China (Tsang, 2005) suggested that in Yunnan only 37.84 per cent of the provincial population could communicate in Putonghua, which is lower than the national level of 53.06 per cent. Among the ethnic minority groups, only 12 per cent really can communicate in Putonghua. Take Dulong, for example: 85.99 per cent of its population does not understand Putonghua at all (see Table 6.1 below). This lack of Putonghua puts these people at a disadvantage in seeking better education and work opportunities. Thus, bilingual education in the school curriculum is essential as it ‘contributes to enhanced mutual understanding and respect as well as political and economic equality’ (Teng, 2005: 268).



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Table 6.1  Fifteen distinctive ethnic minority groups in Yunnan and their language use No

Ethnic group

Mono-lingual population

%

Bilingual population

%

L3 speakers (non-native nor Han)

%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Achang Bai Bulang Dai De’ang Dulong Hani Jingpo Ji’nuo Lahu Lisu Naxi Nu Pumi Wa

10,060 414,891 36,106 483,168 7,132 3,984 649,024 60,979 5,836 202,277 384,058 110,465 6,971 6,749 198,466

49.23 36.64 61.75 57.55 58.00 85.99 61.29 65.59 48.79 66.48 79.70 43.91 30.45 27.85 66.46

7,516 615,333 17,215 316,628 4,591 649 408,782 31,997 6,126 89,981 96,826 131,127 4,525 10,289 83,489

36.78 54.35 29.44 37.72 37.33 14.01 38.61 34.41 51.21 29.57 20.09 52.12 19.76 42.45 27.96

2,857 102,000 5,152 39,700 574 0 1,000 0 0 11,998 1,000 10,000 11,400 7,200 16,656

13.98 9.01 8.81 4.73 4.67 0 0.001 0 0 3.94 0.21 3.07 49.79 29.70 5.58

Source: Tsang, 2005

Education levels are closely related to the individual’s grasp of the Chinese language. Those minorities who are monolingual in their mother tongue have similar education levels. For example, a survey showed (Xu and Wu, 2007) the average years of education for the Lahu (66.48 per cent monolingual), Wa (66.46 per cent monolingual), Bulang (61.75 per cent monolingual), Dulong (85.99 per cent monolingual), and Nu (30.45 per cent monolingual) is no more than three years. The Nu are trilingual with 49.79 per cent of them speaking three languages. The Bai and Naxi are largely bilingual in Chinese and their own language. Their education level is higher than other minorities. Indeed the number of Bai and Naxi with higher education levels is higher than that of the Han in proportional terms relative to their population size. This is in contrast to other minority groups such as the Hani and Lahu who, although receiving higher education, have lower education numbers in proportion to their populations than the Han (Dao, 2005).

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Lower education outcomes Given that a large proportion of the population are from minorities, these lower education levels among minorities are reflected in the overall statistics for Yunnan. The fifth national population census (2000) showed that the average length of education was 7.27 years at the national level, but the average length of education in Yunnan was 5.96 years. This ranks Yunnan twenty-ninth among 31 provinces and autonomous regions. In the ethnic minority areas, the average years of education are 2–3 per cent lower than that at the provincial level. In contrast, the average years of education in the eastern provinces were 10.9 years (Wan and Yang, 2008). In Yunnan there are many remote areas where minority people live. These areas are typically mountainous and are near the limits of or beyond the public road network. The reason is historical and dates back thousands of years to when the Han Chinese expanded southwards from the Yellow River valley. The reaction of the non-Han groups at that time was to retreat to the more remote, more mountainous and hence more inaccessible (read ‘safer’) regions of southwest China (Bilard and Bilard, 2007). Minority people who live in these remote areas lack the normal education services and social and economic opportunities of urban life and suffer a language disconnect from the education system. Many of the minority people in these areas live a subsistence lifestyle. They will eat what they grow and typically have a small supplementary income. For minority peoples living in remote areas of China the difficulties are compounded because they are additionally separated from mainstream China by language and culture. For example, since their own language is used in the home and the village and the marketplace, children in rural areas typically start school not understanding a word of Chinese. Yet the whole education system is designed for Chinese children: Chinese textbooks, a curriculum that presumes at least an oral understanding of Chinese, whilst written exams are all in Chinese. The only concession is that a teacher may explain the meaning of Chinese words in the classroom (but not in an exam) if the teacher happens to understand the local language. Not surprisingly, children in this situation typically perform very poorly at school. In addition, it is very difficult to attract good teachers to remote schools, compounding the difficulty. In China there are nine years of compulsory education: primary and junior secondary, ages 7–15 inclusive. Some minority children are still not reached by this because they live in remote areas beyond effective government control.



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If minority children cannot get effective access to the national education system, then their ability to participate in the national economy as adults is heavily curtailed. This greatly limits their self-esteem and their wellbeing, as well as being a loss to the national economy. Among other disadvantages, illiteracy and semi-illiteracy have bottlenecked those who live in the remote and mountainous areas. Sha’s study (2005) suggested that by 2005 the population of illiterate and semi-illiterate in Yunnan was about 15.9 per cent of China’s minority population and 25.4 per cent of the provincial population, ranking Yunnan as the fourth-most illiterate region in China. According to an interview with Dan Zeng, a former vice-governor of Yunnan Province (Ren, 2004) the rate of illiteracy and semi-literacy in 2004 was about 1.7 times higher than the national rate. Nine-year compulsory education was still not available in 17 counties in Yunnan, among which 12 were autonomous ethnic minority counties. The incidence of nine-year compulsory education was about 14 per cent lower than the national average. Yang (2009) argued that there was a dramatic disparity in educational levels among the ethnic minorities themselves in terms of ethnic groups, locality (urban or rural area), gender and working class. For the seven indigenous ethnic groups in Yunnan (Dai, Jingpo, Ji’nuo, Bulang, Hani, Lisu and Lahu) fewer than ten out of 1,000 had received higher education (Huang, 2009), while some indigenous groups like the Naxi fare better, having more than 22 out of 1,000 receiving higher education (Statistics Bureau of Lijiang Minority, 2011). The Naxi people have used their unique linguistic and cultural heritage to promote tourism and gained international recognition. They have been doing exceptionally well among the indigenous minorities in Yunnan, having benefited from the last 30 years of fast economic reform and development in China, helped by the fact that their cultural heritage received recognition from UNESCO. There are both international and national forces behind the Naxi’s success. Contrary to assertions by regional and prefectural governments, bilingual education in Yunnan is a transitional program. The provincial government and prefectural government policies, on paper, are aimed at developing the bilingual competence of ethnic minority learners, but in reality they are designed to promote Chinese language and literacy. In 1995, to promote the early literacy of some ethnic groups in Yunnan, especially those who cannot understand Putonghua, the provincial government formulated a special policy on bilingual education by arguing: In minority areas where Chinese is not understood, instruction in the local language will be vigorously promoted. In primary schools in minority areas

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where Chinese is not understood and there is a writing system for the local language, textual materials in the local language should be used for the early grades while, at the same time, Chinese should be progressively introduced. For the upper grades textual materials should be in Chinese, with the local language playing a support role in instruction. In primary schools where Chinese is not understood and there is no writing system for the local language, the local language should be used to explain the texts and play a supporting role in instruction. For middle and primary schools serving ethnic groups that understand Chinese, instruction can generally be carried out in Chinese. In areas where Chinese is understood and there is a writing system for the local language, the wishes of the local people will be respected regarding whether to create local language teaching materials. (State Education Commission, 1995: 362; cited in Ma, 2007: 15)

The provincial government policies echoed those of the prefectural governments. For instance, the 8th People’s Congress of De Hong Prefecture passed in 1987 the Regulations of Self-autonomy of the Dai and the Jingpo Nationality. Clause 56 prescribed that: Within the autonomous prefecture, the ethnic primary schools which mainly enroll ethnic students should adopt bilingual or bilingual and biliteracy (Shuangyuwen) education. At the same time, the common language, Putonghua, shall be used in schools. Native language courses should be offered for ethnic minority classes in the general secondary schools or technical schools. Within the whole prefecture the native language shall be tested and the score shall be documented in the final scores in the unified examinations. (Dehong People’s Congress, 2005)

I have travelled frequently to Yunnan for more than 25 years. In my early visits I was conducting research between 1995 and 1999 when I was working on my PhD studies at the University of Sydney. My PhD thesis was copied multiple times and used with my permission for staff training and guidance by a number of non-government organizations (NGOs). It assisted them in establishing their education projects in Yunnan and other provinces which supported basic education for minority students. I served as a language education consultant between 2002 and 2006 for a number of specific NGO projects in Yunnan regarding minority students learning Chinese as a second language. NGO support is crucial in Yunnan. Without it, in my view, multilingual education, particularly in remote regions which these NGOs support, would cease to become available and these groups will add the further burden of illiteracy to



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those of poverty, remoteness and inequality of social, economic and educational development.

Pilot multilingual education programs There is a widespread impression that multilingual education programs are being implemented in Yunnan, but the reality is quite the opposite. The government’s bilingual or multilingual programs have never passed the pilot stage in primary schools. This shows that the provincial government has no commitment for such practices, though many groups of minority people, especially the elites, make tremendous efforts and continue to lobby the government to promote these programs. The reality is that when funding was available the programs started, when the funding ceased, the programs stopped. Between 1995 and 1999 I studied four bilingual schools in remote areas of Yunnan. Each was implementing a different program: the Naxi-Han bilingual program; the Yi-Han bilingual program; the Tibetan-Han program and the Yi-An program. These four bilingual programs were representative of the multilingualism and multilingual education of 25 minority communities. Those minorities without written scripts normally adopt the Naxi-Han model of using the mother tongue in the earlier years of schooling to help children learn Chinese. Those minorities with traditional written scripts like the Dai would have their mother tongue as a language subject while the medium of instruction is the Chinese language, this being regarded as a bilingual and literary program. The Yi-Han program was different from the Naxi and Dai as Yi was used as the medium of instruction and Chinese was taught as a subject. All subjects were translated from Chinese into Yi by Sichuan Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture. This program is a bilingual model but strong in the Yi language. The Tibetan model is again different from the Naxi, Yi and Dai programs in that even though the medium of instruction is Chinese, Tibetan is taught for many hours, thereby providing a strong Tibetan language and literacy program. Some of the curriculum was offered in Tibetan. When I visited these schools in 2011, however, all these programs except the Tibetan one had been discontinued. I was given a number of reasons why this had happened by the principals and teachers in the schools. Lack of funding was one of the main reasons; programs that had initially been supported by the Yunnan Ethnic Languages Commission (YELC) had to stop when the YELC stopped providing funds. Another reason given was that many parents did not

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support these bilingual programs because they wanted their children to learn Chinese quickly; they believed the learning of the mother tongue was slowing down their learning of Chinese. Thirdly, there was a shortfall of bilingual teachers. Over a period, bilingual teachers left the schools and principals were unable to find new teachers with bilingual skills to replace them. Finally, the most important reason was that the minority language was not an examination subject required for entering senior high schools. Basic education in China finishes by the end of junior high school and students have to compete by examination to enter senior high schools. It is like ‘your one foot entering universities if you have passed senior high school entrance examination’ (a Yi teacher). It is crucial for students to study hard for the subjects which are examined and accepted by the senior high schools. Therefore ‘it was to waste students’ valuable time to study their own language’ and to be regarded as useless in the senior high school admission. However, there is an exception that Tibetan students can gain extra bonus points towards entering Tibetan senior high schools. One of the principals pointed out to me in 2011 that ‘the government law guarantees language equality, but in reality we are not treated the same as the Tibetans. Our languages are not regarded as important’ (a Lisu principal). The Tibetan bilingual program has been supported and even given increased funding, not only by the YELC but also by the Yunnan Education Commission (YEC). In recent years the YEC policies have continued to significantly support bilingual education programs. In 2011 the YEC announced that 32 schools, encompassing 14 minorities and 18 languages, had been selected for (more) pilot bilingual programs. The 14 ethnic groups and 18 languages are: Dai (two languages), Yi, Bai, Hani, Tibetan, Zhuang, Miao (two languages), Naxi, Yao (two languages), Lisu, Wa, Jingpo (two languages), Lahu and Dulong. Whether these 32 pilot bilingual programs will eventually be made regular programs remains a question. It is interesting to note that more than two languages, (instead of referring to them as dialects) of Miao, Yao and Dai are officially recognized in official documents. The textbooks for the above 18 languages have been translated from Chinese textbooks into the written scripts of the languages being offered. There have been 15 minority groups with created Latin scripts which have received government assistance to change those scripts. These include Zhuang, Hani, Zaiwai and Wa. Some languages which had scripts before 1949, such as Yi, Dai and Lisu, have had their scripts modified by the government.



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A case study of a Bai bilingual pilot program I visited the Bai Shilong School in Jianchuan, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan in March 2013. The population of Jianchuan County is around 170,000, the majority of them Bai people. In 2013 there were still more than 100 primary schools beyond the reach of the public road network. For such schools it is very difficult to find qualified teachers and very difficult to provide and maintain an adequate teaching environment. The Shilong School has been in a pilot bilingual program since 2002. The program has been in partnership and jointly supported by an NGO, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), the Yunnan Minority Languages Commission and the Jianchuan Education Bureau. In 2002 two Australians from SIL, Drs Brian and Liz Billard, moved to live in Jianchuan County to establish this pilot Bai-Chinese bilingual education program. The key objective of the pilot program was the opening of a preschool for 5- and 6-year-old children in a remote Bai village, Shilong, in 2006. Led by Dr Liz Billard, an experienced Australian educator, the program employs a specially written comprehensive curriculum that utilizes modern teaching practice adapted to be suitable to the cultural context of a rural Bai community and covers all subject areas. This pilot program has had a dramatic impact on this community. The SIL has been providing funding to build a preschool building, preparing Bai textbooks and a teachers’ manual for preschool. They have also been paying teachers and childcare workers at the school. These devoted Australians worked in this program for six years and built a strong curriculum resource for the school. This preschool curriculum for 5–6-year-old children was developed from 2004 to 2007 under the direction of Dr Liz Billard, working with a team of local Bai people (teachers, singers, artists, etc.) to develop culturally relevant components. The curriculum is similar to the recommended educational objectives of the International Baccalaureate for children this age and uses an educational approach referred to as ‘active learning’, whereby children immediately put into practice what they learn, with activities designed to be relevant to their daily (village) life, including Bai culture. The implementation of this program included the selection and training of village preschool teachers; the development of teachers’ aids and detailed teachers’ guides for every lesson; the construction of classrooms where necessary; and the mentoring of preschool teachers during the early phases of implementation.

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In the first year of the preschool program all instruction is in the mother tongue, taking account of the children’s rural and Bai cultural background. In the second year of preschool they begin the transition to Chinese, to better prepare them for primary school. This pilot program has had a dramatic impact on the Shilong community. Most tellingly, these Shilong children were seen to perform at a level comparable to children elsewhere in the world, once given access to a teaching program that was understandable, relevant to their context, and interesting. In August 2013 a Yunnan government official stated that there currently exists no in-province curriculum development capability. Such a capability would need to be developed (within universities) for the Shilong material and teaching approaches to be adapted and applied in multiple minority regional situations across the Yunnan province. I observed a number of lessons in the preschool. There are 32 children each in two classes, one for children aged between 4 and 5, the other for those aged between 6 and 7. Most children entering the program have no experience of books or pencils, but they do have a strong sense of cultural identity. A few children told me they are Yi and Lisu, but they spoke Bai and were taught how to read and write Bai script. They were singing and chanting children’s songs they already knew and using this song to draw a face, labelling parts of the face with Bai script. In the following lesson they were taught how to say these parts of the body in Putonghua. Putonghua conversation class was offered. It is believed by the curriculum designers that children should learn how to understand and speak a language before learning literacy, thus reducing the barriers to learning literacy. This approach is described as ‘zero barriers’. Teachers interviewed reported: the experience is so different now. The students engage in many activities and games every day. They are learning much through their involvement in the activities and games. This approach is not just so that students will like it. Since it enhances the students’ interest, it more importantly allows them to study quickly, and to gain a better grasp of what they are learning. Now the teachers are friends of the students. The students will tell us things that they would not tell others. The teachers also really love the students. The children really love the new teaching methods. In the classroom the atmosphere is quite active. The children are lively and lovable. They energetically answer questions. They learn with unprecedented enthusiasm. I have had a large portion of the students come to my home before school starts and ask me



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to go to school immediately. In the middle of a vacation period I have also had students come to me to ask ‘Teacher, why don’t we begin school now?’

This program has been evaluated a number of times by the Yunnan province educational bureau. All evaluation outcomes have been positive and impressive. In October 2008 a visiting Yunnan provincial government official said: ‘There are 70 million people in this country facing the same situation that you are addressing here in Shilong.’ In May 2009 the head of the Jianchuan County Education Bureau stated to visiting officials: ‘We have tried bilingual education before and it has not worked so well, but this program is successful because of the very high quality of the curriculum … I wish that we could make such a program available across this county, but at this stage we do not have the resources.’ The SIL has signed with YELC and YEC another five year contract to continue the project, but no one knows how long it will be before the ‘pilot’ program becomes permanent. Perhaps it will always be a pilot program until it is discontinued. There is no intention that YEC will take over the program despite a number of evaluations conducted by the Yunnan provincial government proving it to be a successful bilingual program. It was reported to me that a number of high officials from YEC have been to the school and observed lessons. They were impressed with the achievements of the program and have no objection to the program, but their mindset had not changed toward created scripts such as the Bai. To them these scripts have no real value, only symbolic. One official was reported to have said ‘The Bai script has no real value in society, they are not even approved by the government, it should not be used in schools’. His words are true, none of the created scripts – with the exception of Zhuang – have been approved by the State Council. But the value for these Bai children’s first introduction to literacy is obviously significant. It will also help these children to learn Pinyin (Romanization). The enjoyment of learning Bai literacy as the language they already know how to speak is very obvious. This enjoyable experience will follow these young children all their lives, building on their self-esteem. Its value is beyond estimation. In the school 32 Yi and Lisu students across different grades have been boarding, only going home every weekend as it is a two hour walk to their home in the mountains. When I asked them why they came to this particular school they said they liked this school, enjoyed learning the Bai language and reading and writing Bai script. Bai is a lingua franca in Jianchun, even Han people, on moving to Jianchuan, learn to speak Bai, but no signs are written in

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the Bai script. SIL has produced a newsletter written in Bai, but 99 per cent of the community cannot read it. In this sense the script is indeed of limited value in society.

The Naxi experience As mentioned earlier, the Naxi people have fared better than most minority groups, having had more than 22 out of 1,000 receiving higher education (Statistics Bureau of Lijiang Minority, 2011). The Naxi people have been doing exceptionally well among the indigenous minority people in Yunnan, but their relative success has derived from other factors than government education policy and NGO involvement in their education programs. They have benefited from the last 30 years of fast economic reform and development in China in a unique way. The Naxi, one of China’s smaller minority nationalities with a population of 326,295 (Census, 2010), is one of 55 legally recognized ethnic minority nationalities in China. Their ancient Dongba script is the last pictorial script still in use anywhere in the world. The Naxi became well known both within China and internationally because of a disastrous earthquake in 1996. With the eyes of the world watching, Lijiang was rebuilt by the Chinese government and was subsequently listed as a world heritage site by the United Nations. The 1996 earthquake brought both disaster and benefits to the Naxi people. Because of world interest in the area after the earthquake a large pool of donation funds enabled the Old Town (Dayan Zhen) to be saved and restored. In 1996 Lijiang Old Town won a place on the World Heritage List, the area was listed on the Natural Heritage listing and in 2003 the Naxi Dongba Script was listed by UNESCO as a ‘memory of the world’. Owing to the development of the tourism industry in China under Deng Xiaoping’s open policy and particularly with the opening of an airport in 1995, Lijiang became a tourist destination. In the past 20 years it has become one of China’s top tourist destinations and has attracted large numbers of domestic and international visitors. In 2012, for example, 15 million tourists visited Lijiang. The reasons for this popularity are both the unique city and the Dongba script, which have been promoted by UNESCO and the local government. In Lijiang the language landscape is noticeably different. Unlike most Chinese cities where all the street and shop signs are written in Chinese, in Lijiang all signs are bilingual or trilingual. On the top of the sign you will see



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Naxi Dongba pictograph script, Chinese characters in the middle and English under that. Even signage on public buses and taxis includes Naxi Dongba script. In the sociolinguistic sense Lijiang Old Town has become a multilingual town where people speak different dialects, Naxi, Han dialects, Putonghua and even English. In the PRC religious activities have been discouraged and were banned during the Cultural Revolution. To revive the Dongba script a new discourse has been created. Naxi elites, bearing in mind the experiences of the Cultural Revolution and that religion remained a sensitive subject to the authorities in the late 1980s, separated the linguistic elements from the religious elements by renaming as cultural icons the Dongba religious scriptures and religious performers. Having overcome any legal and political hurdles and garnering government support and recognition in the process, the Dongba script, which was unknown before even among the Naxi people, started to be used in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The purpose was to attract international and domestic tourists. As the domestic market developed at a rapid rate Dongba scripts were used as a Naxi cultural icon and tourist product in the promotion of Lijiang. Government support has continued with cadres from a Naxi background. In 2005 the former governor of Yunnan province, He Zhiqiang, (himself of Naxi descent) established a Dongba memorial stone tablet inscribed with the words ‘Dongba Ancient Document Memorial Stone of the World’s Memory Heritage’. This endorsement demonstrated the importance of Dongba in Naxi cultural history. This recognition at senior government level has accelerated the promotion of Lijiang as a cultural icon by the tourist industry so that since 2005 Lijiang and Dongba have attracted millions of people as both a cultural icon and tourist destination. With the separation of Dongba script from its religious function, Dongba has been introduced as a cultural heritage subject: ‘culture passing down’ (wenhua chuancheng 文化传承) in Lijiang primary schools. Since 2003 schools have offered this Naxi cultural subject from grades one to four. Teachers were trained, local teaching materials were prepared and 400 Dongba script characters were introduced into this subject. In addition Dongba dance, calligraphy, literary works and art were produced. Notwithstanding the increasing popularity of the Dongba script, the Naxi basic education system still uses the Latin-based script commissioned by the government in 1957. Dongba has become a linguistic symbol of Naxi cultural identity in Lijiang in response to economic and historical circumstances. The linguistic landscape

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in Lijiang is a construction that serves both the Naxi and the Han Chinese as a resource to be used in the continued success of the tourist industry. On a recent visit in 2013, I was told Naxi people in the Old Town have benefited from the booming tourism in Lijiang, they have become wealthy business owners, landlords and artists. They are proud of being out of poverty and no longer being stereotyped as backward. I was told that even many Chinese business people in the ancient town of Lijiang have learnt the Dongba script and Naxi language in order to promote Naxi cultural icons to strengthen their business. Han Chinese girls wear traditional Naxi clothing and give song and dance performances. The tourist boom has given rise to ‘a Naxi cultural fever’. The successful Naxi model has offered hope for those minority languages endangered and declining. The Naxi case can influence other minority groups to preserve their own languages and cultures. The Tibetan people in Shangri-La, 178 kilometres from Lijiang, have also experienced a tourist boom and strong language and cultural promotion and celebration. The Bai people in Dali, 182 kilometres away, have taken the same approach to promote their language and culture, especially to promote teaching their language in schools. This chapter has explored the patterns of multilingualism and multilingual education in Yunnan. It examined the status and situation of minority languages based on UNESCO’s factors. The endangerment of many minority languages has been recognized by the Yunnan provincial government, and in 2013 some solid measures have been taken to rescue and protect these languages. However, the Yunnan government has failed to support genuine bilingual education to protect minority languages. Those pilot programs have been only used as policy tokens, never intended to be taken as regular programs. The fast tourist development in China has changed the attitude and language practice of the Naxi people. It cannot be denied that ‘money’ and the tourist market have helped to impose an ideology that Naxi language is definitely at the upper level of the linguistic repertoire. The current linguistic landscape has empowered the Naxi people to revive their culture for the benefit of economic gain. The Naxi language and cultural revival is a result of many factors. Among these can be included linguistic, economic, educational, global, local and external factors. It has been the result of a joint effort by governmental and the private sectors. The Naxi now realize their language has economic and political value and they have also brought social changes to the community in the last 20 years.



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The Naxi people have set a good example for other minority people to follow. They will continue to enrich their multilingual practice through their heritage, the Dongba script, in order to prevent their language being lost under the pressure from Han Chinese, the dominant national language, and English, the global language.

7

Rethinking Multilingualism: The New Literacy in Guangxi

In this chapter, I will look at another multilingual region in China, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Guangxi hereafter). The current name ‘Guang’ means ‘expanse’, ‘Xi’ is ‘west’ in English. It was considered an open, wild territory compared with adjacent Guangdong, meaning ‘eastern expanse’. Guangxi is a coastal region in China bordered to the west by Yunnan, to the north by Guizhou, and to the east by Guangdong. It occupies a land area of 236,700 sq km, accounting for 2.5 per cent of the nation’s total land mass and ranking ninth in size among all the provinces and autonomous regions. Guangxi includes eight counties comprising 180,000 square kilometres on the Vietnamese border (see Map 7.1 below). Guangxi is one of the southern gateways to China and its political stability, economic well-being and social harmony are important to China. The Guang Prefecture was created in ad 226 (Wikipedia). It was given provincial level status during the Yuan dynasty and made an autonomous region in 1958. The background to declaring Guangxi an autonomous region goes back before 1949, when large numbers of Zhuang joined the CCP against the KMT Nationalists. Awarding them an autonomous region and consequent central government priority regarding their status, identity and language after independence was a political gesture and bore little relation to minority populations on the ground. Guangxi is the home of the largest number of non-Han minority groups in south China. The population of Guangxi is 46 million with 38.26 per cent of the population being ‘minorities’: Zhuang, Dong, Yao, Miao, Bouyi, Gin (also spelt as Jing), Gelao and others. The Zhuang are the largest minority group comprising 32 per cent of the minority population and have given their name to this autonomous region. They are the largest minority people in terms of population (16.9 million, 2010 census) in China and 92 per cent of Zhuang live in Guangxi. The remaining Zhuang live in Yunnan and Guangdong provinces.

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Map 7.1.  Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

Most Chinese people know Guangxi from the famous film: Liu Sanjie (Third Sister Liu) in the 1960s, which introduced them to the beautiful songs, exotic clothes and Zhuang culture, and the beautiful scenery of Guangxi. Since then Guangxi’s many places, such as Guilin and Yangsuo, have become top tourist destinations for domestic and international visitors. The Zhuang, as the largest minority group, most diversified and multilingual minority in southern China, directly influence language policy and practice in other minority languages in the same or similar linguistic situations. In this chapter I will focus on the promotion of the new literacy in Guangxi. The Zhuang people live in western Guangxi and eastern Yunnan. Before the early 1950s, many of those people did not perceive of themselves as Zhuang. For example, those people in eastern Yunnan called themselves Nong, Sha and Tu nationalities, not Zhuang, as officially recognized now. Those in western Guangxi refer to themselves as Buyue, Buyi, Buzhuang, Butu, Budai, Bunong, Buban etc. Kaup argues that Zhuang is a collective identity created and constructed by the CCP government (Kaup, 2000), which includes many groups who are different linguistically and culturally. The following table shows the phases of Zhuang-state political interaction stated by Kaup (2000: 75).



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Phase one: central administrative consolidation, 1949–66 The establishment of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 1949–52, discovering the Zhuang 1952–6, defining the Zhuang 1956–8, promoting the Zhuang

Phase two: chaos and the Cultural Revolution, 1966–78 Phase three: expansion of regional autonomy and the rise of middle-level Zhuang activists 1978–84, centrally directed compensation for the Cultural Revolution 1984–90, generalizing decentralization 1988–present, activism among middle-level Zhuang cadres and intellectuals

Zhuang language is one of the key elements during the third phase, in which the middle-level Zhuang cadres and intellectuals actively promote Zhuang new script in schools and public landscapes. Kaup argues that the Zhuang language is the primary marker of the Zhuang ethnicity, and language promotion is seen by both the government and Zhuang alike as the key rallying point around which to build Zhuang ethnic solidarity (Kaup, 2000: 139). The Zhuang as a name given to a range of the groups in Guangxi was based on one of the minority groups which were historically discriminated against by the Han. The word Zhuang was originally written in Chinese with the Zhuang 獞 (meaning a variety of wild dog), with the animal radical 犭 and a tóng 童 phonetic (DeFrancis, 1984: 117). In 1949, the logograph 獞 was officially replaced with Zhuang 僮 (meaning a child; boy servant), with the ‘human radical’ 亻. The name then was changed to a completely different character Zhuang 壮 in 1965 (pronounced [tsuːŋ4] or [ɕuəŋ4], meaning strong; robust). In a further demonstration of the politicization of some minority groups, the former Premier Zhou Enlai bases the name Zhuang for this minority group on a suggestion in 1965 (CASS, 1994: 838, Zhang et al., 1999: 4).

Diversity of the Zhuang languages Guangxi is rich in its language resources. Linguistic diversity is the distinctive feature both for the Han and minority groups in Guangxi. Apart from Putonghua, local Han Chinese and many Zhuang also speak Pinghua, Guiliuhua (southwestern Mandarin) and Cantonese. Pinghua is a group of dialects spoken by

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the descendants of the early waves of Han settlers in Guangxi. The language was spoken before the entry of Mandarin and Cantonese into Guangxi (Zhang et al., 1999). South-western Mandarin is now the unofficial lingua franca in Guangxi. Normally referred to as Guiliuhua, the speech of Guilin and Liuzhou, it was brought to the region in about 1390 during the Ming dynasty by the administrators and garrison troops in the wave of campaigns to subdue Guangxi (Holm, 2013). Cantonese was brought into Guangxi by merchants from 1870 to 1908 (ibid.). The Zhuang speak a variety of so-called dialects that are mutually unintelligible. Chinese scholars report that 68 per cent of Zhuang speak the northern Zhuang dialect, of which there are eight sub-dialects; 32 per cent speak the southern Zhuang dialect, of which there are five sub-dialects. Zhang et al. (1999) list three other southern Zhuang dialects spoken in Guangxi: Yongnan, estimated in 2000 to be spoken by a population of 1,800,000, Zuojiang, with an estimated 1,500,000 speakers in 2000, and Dejing, also called Yang Zhuang, with an estimated 870,000 speakers in 2000. This branch of Zhuang dialects is known by Western scholars as the Tai language group with northern, central and southern dialects. This classification is different from that of Chinese scholars. The northern Zhuang dialect is classified as Tai language group of the northern Tai (NT) by Holm (2013: 27) and Johnson (2008: 30). The southern Zhuang dialect is classified as Central Tai (CT). Johnson (2010) estimates that of the 16 million Zhuang, approximately one-third speak Central Tai, whereas two-thirds speak Northern Tai varieties. The northern Tai speakers of Zhuang and Bouyi are typologically close to Chinese in that they are isolated languages and have morphemes, which are predominantly monosyllabic and tonal (Holm, 2013: 27). According to Li and Solnit (2002) there are more than 80 million speakers of Tai languages, the language with the largest population of speakers being that of the Thai language of Thailand. Within China most people of the Zhuang in Guangxi and Yunnan, Dai in Yunnan and Bouyei in Guizhou have been identified as speaking Tai languages. Most Zhuang people in Guangxi are bilingual and multilingual. According to the Office of Language Commission of Guangxi (2005: 161) 42.45 per cent of Zhuang are bilingual, 39.51 per cent of Zhuang are multilingual, speaking languages such as Dong, Miao and Yao as well as Putonghua and Guiliuhua. Most Zhuang also speak Cantonese (they refer to it as Baihua, vernacular). Ouyang Jueya believes that the Zhuang language is very close to Cantonese, in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (2011: 118).



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The government decided that all the Zhuang people should use one single Zhuang script. The Bouyi people in Guizhou also speak the same northern Zhuang language in Guangxi. As pointed out by Holm (2013) and other scholars there is substantial linguistic continuity between Guizhou Bouyi and northern Zhuang (Holm, 2013: 27; Luo, 2008: 318–19). Chinese scholars believe that the Zhuang language in all areas has long been influenced by Chinese. Zhang et al. (1999) state that, when speaking about matters of daily life, the average speaker of Zhuang uses 30–40 per cent Chinese loanwords; when speaking about issues of government or economics, the percentage of loanwords rises to 80 per cent. Table 7.1 below shows the location and population of these speakers. Like in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Zhuang written language received equal national status and symbolic power in China when it was created in 1955. The Zhuang new script is displayed on every unit of the Chinese currency. The orthography on the currency appears to be the older, 1950s version of the national Zhuang script. The Chinese characters ‘People’s Bank of China’ are also printed in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang scripts on the back of each banknote, in addition to Pinyin (Romanization) in ‘Zhongguo Renmin Yinhang’. The new Zhuang script has represented the Zhuang as an independent nationality with its own autonomous region.

Table 7.1  Zhuang dialects and the population of speakers Zhuang Dialects

Population

Location

桂北 Guibei dialect 柳江 Liujiang dialect 红水河 Hongshuihe dialect 邕北 Yongbei dialect 右江 Youjiang dialect 桂边 Guibian dialect 邕南 Yongnan dialect (CT) 左江 Zuojiang dialect 德靖 Dejing dialect 砚广 Yanguang dialect 文麻 Wenma dialect 丘北 Qiubei dialect 连山 Lianshan dialect

1.49 million 1.5 million 3.26 million 1.67 million 0.84 million 0.95 million 1.69 million 1.6 million 1.13 million 0.35 million 0.11 million 0.14 million 0.03 million

North of Guangxi North of Guangxi North of Guangxi North of Guangxi North of Guangxi North of Guangxi South of Guangxi South of Guangxi South of Guangxi Yanshan in Yunnan Wenshan in Yunnan Qiubei in Yunnan Lianshan in Guangdong

Based on Ouyang Jueya, 2011.

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Old Zhuang script: the Sawndip Chinese scholars claimed that the Zhuang had no written script before 1949, therefore the new Zhuang script was created in 1955. However, the Zhuang have a written language which has been referred to as Gu Zhuangzi (Old Zhuang script) or Fangkuan Zhuangzi (square Zhuang characters) and which dates back more than 1300 years. This old Zhuang script was borrowed from Chinese characters and modified to write the Zhuang language. It is also used by Bouyi in Guizhou, Nung and Sha in Yunnan and has been referred to as an example of sinoxenic script by Holm (2013: 1). Other sinoxenic scripts are Vietnamese Chu Nom and Bai scripts in Yunnan. The old Zhuang script, known as Sawndip, was used for recording Zhuang stories, legends, medical prescriptions, folk songs and religious documents. It was also used to record the accounting of day-to-day transactions in the Zhuangs’ lives. As there were no standardizations of Sawndip it was regarded as ‘not mature’ and discriminated against by Han Chinese elites after 1949. Sawndip was first used during the Tang dynasty and has been found on the inscriptions on the headstone(s) of a Zhuang chief and his brother dated 697. These two inscriptions were written in Han characters mixed with Sawndip and are the earliest evidence of Sawndip’s use (Tang, 2006). Old Zhuang script was used extensively in the Song dynasty and further expanded during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It was used on a day-to-day basis for writing things such as medical prescriptions and so forth, in traditional Zhuang literature, religious texts (Mo religion) and in folk songs (mountain songs). The use of Sawndip was recorded for revolutionary functions. During the civil and anti-Japanese war Zhuang revolutionaries used Sawndip to pass intelligence information and make propaganda leaflets encouraging the Zhuang people to support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to fight the Japanese and Nationalists. The Zhuang are known for their ‘Song Ocean’. They create numerous folk songs to express their feelings, describe their daily activities, celebrate their ceremonies and festivals, make friends etc. This culture creates generations of singers who pass their songs to the younger generations. The famous long story folk song ‘Liaoge’ is based on a love story between a pair of young Zhuang and describes their sadness, happiness, parting and reuniting. This



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song has been passed down for generations by way of song booklets published in Sawndip. Sawndip was suppressed and banned after the creation of the new script in 1957, partly because of its use in the Mo, Dao and Buddhist religions. Whether Sawndip was the victim of the Latin movement initiated by the Soviet Union between the 1930s and 1950s or whether the decision was made by the CCP because its existence threatened the status of Chinese characters is not clear. However, the original Sawndip was well developed, with a large vocabulary. According to the dictionary of the Zhuang ancient script published in 1989, there were 10,700 such Zhuang characters of which 4,918 were standard and commonly used by the Zhuang people. However, in 1955, this script was regarded by the state as ‘lacking standards, not scientific and not commonly used by the Zhuang people’. It could, of course, be argued that the reason they were not commonly used was due to the population’s lack of education and schooling. The current use of Sawndip by the Zhuang people is not well known, but a survey conducted by Tang in 2006 provided a snapshot of the use of the Zhuang old script by the Zhuang people. A total of 900 survey forms were sent out by Tang and 880 were returned – 97.78 per cent. Tang’s survey covered three counties, including Tuanyang in Zhuojiang with a population of 330,000, 300,000 (90 per cent) of whom are Zhuang. This county is famous for their heritage ‘Mo’ religious sutras; Tiandong in Youjiang with a population of 390,000, 330,000 (85 per cent) of whom are Zhuang. This county is famous for the folklore song Liaoge. Donglan in Red River with a population of 280,000, 230,000 (85 per cent) of whom are Zhuang, is also famous for the Mo religious scripture Buluotuo. Tang’s survey indicated the Zhuang people have an emotional attachment to Sawndip; especially the elderly who continue to maintain Sawndip literacy in the form of large collections of Sawndip religious scriptures and song lyrics. Tang concluded that Sawndip is still alive but it is disappearing, mainly used by older people for telling their grandchildren Zhuang stories and teaching them the old folk songs (Tang, 2006). Fishman (1996) describes how he and his wife are passing on their heritage language, Yiddish, to their grandchildren in the midst of multilingual America, dominated by the prestige language of English: In conclusion I want to tell you something about my grandchildren. My wife engages in laptop publishing. She publishes in the Yiddish language for our grandchildren. But let me tell you, the true laptop here is my lap and her lap and

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the laps of the children’s mother and father. That is a bond with the language that will stay with them after we are long gone. That is the lap top of language. And if you want that language revived, you have to use your lap also with your children or your grandchildren or somebody else’s children or grandchildren. (Fishman, 1996: 80)

Tang (2006) described a Zhuang grandmother who, like Fishman, read stories in Sawndip with her grandchild sitting on her lap, and her grandchild picked up the Sawndip and understood it. However, the majority of Zhuang children do not have grandparents able to read Sawndip, so the opportunity to pass on their heritage is lost.

New Zhuang literacy: Cyrillic and Latin based Like many minority languages in Yunnan, Zhuang was regarded as a language without a written script after 1949 (Wei, 1980: 97), and this was seen as a linguistic and political identity deficiency for the Zhuang people. Given the large population of Zhuang people in China, and the political favour they enjoyed, a new Zhuang written language was given priority by the central government in the 1950s. To enable Zhuang to have a written language, the central government sent three teams, led by well-known linguists, in 1954 to conduct language surveys. Based on these surveys, a Zhuang script was created using the Yongbei dialect (1.67 million speakers) as the standard. This decision was not based on population, as the Honghe shui (Red River) dialect has double the speakers. From the survey results which showed the diversity of the Zhuang language, the leader of the language survey, Professor Yuan Jiahua (1957), suggested that two Zhuang scripts should be created, one based on the northern dialect and the other on the southern dialect spoken in South Guangxi and Yunnan, but this proposal was rejected on political grounds. The rationale was that it was not good for national unity if a nationality holds two different written languages (Interviews, 2013). The new Zhuang script was born in 1955, and the alphabet included a mixture of modified Cyrillic and IPA letters. The Cyrillic letters were used because their shapes approximated those of the numerals previously used to write tone, so they have no connection to the sounds of actual Cyrillic. The new Zhuang script was approved for implementation as a pilot program in 1957 by the State Council and was used as a tool for eliminating



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illiteracy from the same year. It was taught to up to 2 million people in schools and among the communities (Tang, 2006). Its use was stopped during the Cultural Revolution. After 1980, the script was revised and was formally approved by the State Council in 1982. The revised Zhuang script replaced both the Cyrillic and IPA letters with Latin letters to facilitate printing and computer use (Zhou: 251). In the same year, the revised Zhuang script entered primary schools. Since then 63 teaching classes, 66 primary schools and 23 Zhuang junior high schools have taught the new script in various forms and models. Tang (2006) indicates from his survey, however, that after more than 20 years of promotion 82.7 per cent of Zhuang people don’t know this script, while 16.8 per cent know some. Even those who have studied it have forgotten it because there have been no domains in which to use it: 57.4 per cent of people surveyed report having never used the new script, while 18.9 per cent use it in a limited way and 4.9 per cent use it regularly. In the same survey Tang reports that Chinese characters have become almost the only script used in Guangxi, with 96.6 per cent of the Zhuang surveyed knowing and using Chinese characters (Tang, 2006).

The Zhuang new literacy promotion There have been five stages of the new literacy development. The first stage was between 1957 and 1966, the first pilot period; the second was between 1966 and 1979, the Cultural Revolution ban-of-the-new-literacy period; the third from the 1980s to the 1990s was the second pilot period; the fourth stage from the 1990s to 2009 was the decline-of-use-of-the-new-literacy period; the fifth stage, which began in 2010, has been the rethinking-the-new-literacy period. There has been an official slogan which encapsulates the language in education policy since the 1980s until today: ‘Focus on Zhuang as the priority; integrate Zhuang and Han; enhance Han by Zhuang; achieve bilingualism in Zhuang and Han’ (以壮为主, 壮汉结合, 以壮促汉, 壮汉兼通). This slogan can be interpreted to support a transitional bilingual education policy in which the ultimate goal is to promote Han Chinese. On the other hand it can be read as supporting the promotion of the Zhuang language as a means of making the community truly bilingual, particularly in urban cities such as Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, where Zhuang is only spoken by a small portion of the population.

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In the 1980s there was a second boom in promoting Zhuang new literacy. For example, in 1984, schools started teaching Zhuang new literacy in a number of counties such as Mashan. Two primary schools had pilot programs for Zhuang new literacy learning, 150 students in one school and 468 students in the second school. Script promotion also included a large body of publications in the Zhuang new script. Ouyang Yajue (2011) reported that 215 types of Zhuang new script books were published from 1980 with 5.35 million copies being issued, but there is no evidence that people read them or were able to read them. In the higher education sectors Zhuang literacy was introduced at limited levels. From 1983 to 1989 Zhuang became a compulsory subject in four major teachers colleges: Nanning, Baise, Bama and Guilin. The promotion of the Zhuang new literacy was also undertaken in adult education classes in the rural areas, including provision of a financial reward to students, as learning the Zhuang new script took those who participated away from productive work in the field (wu gong fei). Many learners attended classes in order to get some money, but after learning the new script found there to be no real value in having it. Zhuang literacy declined during the 1990s. In 1992 all Zhuang script teacher training stopped and in the late 1990s this new script became less and less taught. Most schools stopped teaching it and the pilot programs were reduced to being implemented in only six out of 36 counties, three to four hours per week. Two newspapers in the Zhuang new script are declining yearly in circulation by 1,000 copies per year and there are hardly any Zhuang books published (Tang, 2006). The promotion of the new script during the 1990s met a lot of resistance from stakeholders such as Zhuang parents, who felt that if their children did not focus on learning the Han language from a very young age, their future opportunities would be ruined. A number of scholars have reported that the majority of Zhuang-Han pilot schools failed in the 1990s to promote the aims embodied in the official slogan for various reasons. Many schools still pretend to promote Zhuang new literacy while in fact focusing on Han to meet the economic needs of the students. A popular saying is that ‘these schools advertise selling wine but sell vinegar’ (Huang, 2013). There are a number of reasons why the introduction of Zhuang new script was unsuccessful. Primarily, as noted above, the decision to implement it was not needs based; it was not supported by parents and local educators, who



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believed there was no use in learning it. In their view it offered no real value for learners’ future careers or further education. Parents also didn’t want their children to learn the new script as they did not recognize it as their language. One of the education officials interviewed stated that Zhuang new script is useful as a symbol for the Zhuang people to show their difference from the Han, but he was strongly against the learning of Zhuang new script, describing it as a burden for students who have to learn Chinese and English. Lack of funding has also been cited as one of the reasons for the failure of the Zhuang literacy program. From the 1980s to 2009 the government allocated 4.14 million yuan each year to new literacy pilot schools. As the funding ran out, all the pilot schools and programs stopped. Most recently a second push to promote Zhuang new literacy started in 2010 and seems to be ongoing. Guangxi regional government has waged a new campaign to promote widespread use of Zhuang script in Zhuang schools. GZAR government issued a new policy document (Document 329) on 26 December 2012 to further promote Zhuang-Han bilingual education in schools. An implementation document (Document 7) was issued on 15 November 2013 which gives detailed instructions for bilingual education programs, as below: 1 Raise awareness and enforce leadership, make people fully aware of the importance and necessity of bilingual education. 2 Conduct a variety of bilingual education models and experiments based in different areas. a. Synchronous Zhuang-Han bilingual program from pre-school, or kindergarten up to Grade 6 in primary or Grade 9 in junior school for schools in Zhuang-centred areas; b. Model 2 Zhuang-Han bilingual program (Zhuang is taught as a subject) from pre-school or kindergarten to Grade 6 in primary school for schools in Zhuang-centred areas; c. Late Zhuang learning program: from Year 5 to 6 in primary schools, or 7–8; or Grade 7 to 11 or Grade 10–11 as a selective subject in Zhuang areas where children are already bilingual in Han and Zhuang; d. Zhuang cultural heritage program: conduct Zhuang heritage activities in schools in areas where Chinese is commonly used by Zhuang. Currently there are 108 primary schools and 27 secondary schools that have been listed as bilingual schools. Among them the most successful programs are synchronous Zhuang-Han bilingual programs in which Zhuang children

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have achieved both bilingual proficiency and successful educational outcomes (Interview, 2013). Funding has doubled and 10 million yuan was invested in 2013 to support all the Zhuang bilingual programs (Huang, 2013). Points of delivery have increased from 26 to 35 counties or county level cities, from 67 to 108 primary schools, from 25 to 27 junior high schools. This new push in schools seems to have learned the lessons from early failures. I visited two primary schools in Guangxi in 2012 and observed that a number of successful strategies have been used by teachers.

A case study of primary schools in Guangxi The two primary schools I visited in 2012 are near the Vietnam border. Gulai School (G) has been regarded as a successful Zhuang-Han bilingual school and Xianlai School (X) has been seen as a successful Gin-Han bilingual school. School G is in a rural area of Debao County. In 2012 there were 437 students in the school, 86.5 per cent of whom were Zhuang. Other students included Han, Miao and Gelao. There were 11 teachers, one principal and two administration staff in the school; eight teachers were Zhuang, two were Han and one teacher was Miao. The school principal was a man from a Zhuang background. Teachers’ ages were between 26 and 51. Most teachers had graduated from the local teachers’ college. All the Zhuang teachers including the principal spoke the Zhuang language. Among them five teachers had received training in the new Zhuang script in teachers’ college. The Miao teacher was quadri-lingual, speaking Zhuang, Miao, Cantonese and Putonghua. The two Han teachers understood the Zhuang language, but spoke little. They spoke Cantonese, Guiliuhua (south-west Mandarin) and Putonghua. The school started a Zhuang-Han bilingual pilot program in 1981. At the beginning, some classes used Type 1 Zhuang Centred, that is Zhuang as the medium of instruction for all courses and Chinese as a language subject, and some classes used the Type 2 Chinese Centred approach, that is Chinese as the medium of instruction and Zhuang as a subject. After a number of years piloting, the principal reported that the Type 1 approach had achieved better results than the Type 2. The school now has more Type 1 classes, especially in the lower primary years. The principal explained: In the 1980s the student drop-out rate was more than 30 per cent because of the Chinese language instruction. Students went home crying and said they did not



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understand their teachers. In the last 5 years, when we used the Type 1 approach and more Zhuang language, we reduced the drop-out rate to 3–4 per cent. The problem was a lack of Zhuang teachers. Thanks to the regional government’s increased funding for Zhuang teacher training, we now have a strong team of Zhuang teachers. (Principal 1)

Teachers also indicated that they benefited from not only pre-service training, but they were now able to go to other counties for in-service training. One teacher reports: I learnt a lot when I observed a good Zhuang teacher in Longzhou County. He used Zhuang stories and songs to teach the new Zhuang literacy. I tried this in my classes and the children all loved stories. (Zhuang Teacher 1)

This has been confirmed by my class observation. When I observed a Zhuang language class I saw this teacher use a picture book telling children a Zhuang story. In the story there were three songs as dialogues. She asked the children to read the story with her and sing the songs with her. I could see the children were actively engaged and were enjoying the story and singing. She also asked children to play roles as characters in the story. It was very effective. She also asked children to make a new story with the vocabulary in the Zhuang scripts she put on the blackboard. A number of children used this vocabulary and told some different stories, even with new songs they made up. The teacher told me that Zhuang children have this natural talent to sing songs. Their expressions in song were very vivid and cannot be replicated in the Chinese language. Teachers have used the stories in the Chinese language class and asked students to retell the stories in Chinese. The differences in the children’s expressions was striking. This strategy of storytelling in Zhuang has been used to encourage Zhuang children to learn the Zhuang new script. The principal told me their students won in a Zhuang storytelling competition held by the regional government. A second strategy I observed was teaching children Zhuang songs using the Zhuang script. Numerous popular Zhuang songs have been uploaded to YouTube and the locally based networks, such as tudou wang (potato net). Teachers have used this resource to teach children to read and sing songs on TV and in classrooms. I observed huge enthusiasm among the children for learning the new script. Although the songs played on the TV screen are bilingual with Chinese characters and Zhuang script, teachers said these young children could only read some simple Chinese characters, but they could read all the Zhuang words on the screen. Some children could also pick up mistakes made on the screen.

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Teachers reported that after students mastered Zhuang new script they started to learn Chinese much faster. They transferred their skills in Zhuang literacy to the learning of Putonghua Pinyin, completing in three weeks what used to take seven weeks’ teaching. The principal also reported that students also improved their maths scores. In the junior school they also learn English faster than other students who did not learn the Zhuang new script. His comments support Cummins’ theory that first language (L1) literacy can normally be transferred by learners to their second language (L2) literacy development (Cummins, 1981). The Zhuang textbooks used in this school were produced by the Guangxi regional government. They are quite different from other minority language textbooks in that they are not the normal translation of a Han Chinese textbook, instead including references to many Zhuang cultural issues and well-known pieces of literature. Teachers I spoke to were generally happy with the textbooks, believing most materials are relevant to Zhuang children. Teachers also prepare their own stories and songs they collected from local areas, mostly from parents. In the school grounds and on walls I observed the official slogan written in both Chinese characters and the Zhuang new script. The principal was proud to tell me this slogan was their mission for success. Using the slogan’s words, I can make the following summary based on my observations and conversations with teachers and the principal: 1 ‘Focus on Zhuang as the priority 以壮为主’: the school has focused on Zhuang language and literacy by using Type 1, Zhuang as the medium of instruction; 2 ‘Integrate Zhuang and Han 壮汉结合’: the school adopted an approach to integrate the curriculum with the Chinese language teaching, stories used in the Zhuang class being repeated in the Han language; 3 ‘Enhance Han by Zhuang 以壮促汉’: the Latin-based Zhuang script children learnt has been transferred successfully by them to the learning of Chinese as a second language, both in Pinyin and characters; 4 ‘Achieve bilingualism in Zhuang and Han 壮汉兼通’: it is obvious children in the school have achieved good skills in both languages and scripts. The school has become regarded as successful not just for language learning but for the improvement of education outcomes generally. From the awards I observed in the principal’s office this success has been recognized by the county and regional governments. For those educators who are concerned that L1 hinders the learning of Chinese, School G can be held up as proof that this is the wrong mindset.



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The program is a clear demonstration that L1 should not be blamed for poor educational outcomes. Most schools that have failed in their Zhuang-Han bilingual program should learn from School G. There is not just one single factor that makes a program successful. It should comprise a whole package closely involving three sectors: school, community and government. Firstly, the school needs a strong leader who can lead a strong team of committed teachers. Teachers should have both language skills and updated modern pedagogy to provide students with meaningful learning. They should engage themselves in staff development and be willing to learn from each other to improve their teaching. Secondly, the community is a strong force for bilingualism. Parents should support schools providing L1 learning and should provide children with sufficient mother tongue at home. Finally, government support is a pivotal factor. As demonstrated from my discussions with school G’s principal, the Guangxi regional government’s financial support has been critical to their success. In this renewed promotion of new Zhuang literacy Guangxi regional and county governments have provided strong teaching resources and not only have employed qualified bilingual teachers, but have provided teachers with continued staff development. The government relaxed its tight centralized control of the school curriculum and allowed teachers to use and develop Zhuang cultural and literary teaching resources to meet children’s interests and needs. This is particularly so for the promotion of Zhuang literacy. For example, the Storytelling in Zhuang competition is an excellent domain to support Zhuang new literacy. School G and other Zhuang-Han bilingual schools all participated in this competition to motivate their students to learn the Zhuang new script. Another motivation for students to learn the new script is to take the Zhuang proficiency test, ‘Zhuangwen Shuiping Kaoshi’ (ZSK), which was introduced for the first time on 30 June 2012 in Nanning. A total of 328 Zhuang students took the test, and 191 passed (58.23 per cent). A second test was held on 7 December 2013 and expanded to two cities, Nanning and Baise. A total of 318 participants aged between 16 and 76 attended the test, 89 per cent of whom were of Zhuang background. Others included Han, Yao, Mulao and Maonan. The youngest one expressed her interest in becoming a pre-school teacher. Because of this she believed Zhuang new script was essential for the job. The test so far is still in the pilot stage. It has been reported officially that the ZSK will be the same as HSK (Han Chinese proficiency test) and become a regular test yearly from 2015. However, this test is not a prerequisite for any courses or jobs in Guangxi.

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From conversations with a number of government officials it seems the regional government has more plans to create employment opportunities for Zhuang literacy to be used in the future. One official said, ‘the government is concerned about the decline of the Zhuang language and culture in Guangxi. Guangxi has no strong religion like other autonomous regions, such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Ningxia, language is the ‘soul’ of a culture and identity, if the Zhuang language disappears the region becomes the same as other provinces and may lose its status as an autonomous region’ (Interview, 2012). A Jing-Han bilingual program, which I visited in 2012, was reported as equally successful. The Jing are a small minority officially recognized by the central government with a population of about 20,000. It is believed they emigrated from Vietnam hundreds of years ago. They speak the Jing language, which 95 per cent of people use in Vietnam. Most Jing people also speak a Cantonese dialect, and some south-west Mandarin and Putonghua. The Jing people used to have their own script, which was called Zinan. Similar to the Zhuang old script, Zinan was Chinese character based, and it has been found in old song books, stories and religious scriptures. The Jing people in China still use these for decoration in ceremonial activities even though Zinan was replaced by the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet in the 1920s in Vietnam. The Jing people mainly live on three islands off the coast of Dongxing city in Fangcheng Port near the border of Vietnam alongside Han Chinese and Zhuang people. An investigation of the Jing language in 1980–1 by Cheng Fang (1982) indicated one-third of the Jing people had lost their language and could only speak Han dialects, such as Cantonese, one-third are bilingual, speaking Han Chinese and the Jing language, and a group of elderly people and young children under seven years old can only speak the Jing language. The author concluded that the use of the Jing language was declining. The trend he discerned being Jing language to Jing-Han bilingualism and finally the Han language. Cheng’s finding may be true, but my observations, particularly in School X and other evidence, show signs of Jing language revival. For example, Mu Qian reported a retired security official, Su, who since 2002 has devoted himself to recording the folk songs of the Jing people. He collected more than 1,000 folk songs, including Ha festival standards, historical songs, narrative songs and love songs and has recorded them in Vietnamese and translated them into Chinese. Classes have also been established to learn traditional Zinan, because many traditional folk songs were written in this script. There are about 20 Jing people who can read Zinan now.



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School X is in an urban area of a county level city, Dongxing. The majority of students are from Jing (pronounced as Gin in English) families. The school was founded in 1995 and combined primary and junior high school aiming to implement the nine years of compulsory education among the Jing students on one site. There are 567 students enrolled in this school including the junior section, with about 85 per cent of students from a Jing background, the rest from Han and Zhuang families. There are 14 teachers including a principal, six males and eight females; eight teachers are from a Jing background including the principal, four teachers are Han and two teachers are Zhuang. Communication between teachers themselves and the principal is in Cantonese or Putonghua. Two of the Jing teachers cannot speak the Jing language. The principal said the school had done well in the implementation of the nine-year compulsory education by using a Jing-Han Type 2 bilingual program. All the subjects have been taught in Putonghua. The Jing language with Latinbased script is introduced in Year 4 of primary school for two classes per week until the end of junior high. One of the Jing teachers told me that, apart from Jing students, Zhuang and Han students are interested in learning the Jing language. The school is very close to the Vietnamese border and they have plenty of chances to use the language in their daily life. There is an active formal and informal interaction between the Jing and the Vietnamese. In recent years, delegations from educational institutions and schools in Vietnam are very frequent, which helps motivate the school to teach the Jing language. The school has a sister school in Vietnam and there are many exchanges between these two schools. The Jing language class has been using the Latin based Vietnamese scripts. The school has used a Vietnamese textbook published by Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press in China which is not suitable for their students, as it caters for college students. There is no support from the regional government to produce Jing-language textbooks and teachers often make their own teaching resources. In recent years, the school has used many Vietnamese textbooks and storybooks supplied by their sister school. The school also teaches students legends, folk songs, dance and musical instruments. I observed two Jing language classes, at Year 4 of the primary school and Year 1 of the junior high school. The Year 4 class was like a music lesson, with students being taught to sing a ballad about the history of the Jing people. The teacher asked students to read the Latin-based worksheets she prepared and afterwards to sing the ballad with her sentence by sentence. The teacher explained that students were preparing for the song competition in the Ha (singing) festival.

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The Year 1 class in junior high school uses a textbook published by Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press in China, which caters more for adult learners. Students are asked to practice translating from Jing to Chinese, then from Chinese to Jing. Teachers complain that the lack of suitable textbooks is a serious barrier. The regional government has invested a lot of money for the Zhuang language but neglected other languages. For example, fewer opportunities have been offered for Jing teachers to attend staff development than Zhuang teachers. The principal also confirmed that there is less funding for Jing textbook development from the city and region.

Media in the Zhuang language The Zhuang language initially received national status not only on the Chinese banknotes, but it was also used on national TV, by CCTV between 1957 and 1966. However, Zhuang language programming was stopped during the Cultural Revolution and never resumed. The Guangxi regional TV station started a Zhuang language program in June 2008, but it was stopped in February 2012 because of small audiences. The news in the Zhuang language has been kept a low priority with only six minutes allocated between 6.54 and 7.00am Monday to Friday when most people are still in bed or busy getting ready for work or school. Most Zhuang people I spoke to did not know such programming existed. Another issue is that the Zhuang language used is based on the standard Zhuang (Yongbei Zhuang). Many Zhuang people say they cannot understand it because they speak different dialects. In recent years Guangxi TV has produced 1,683 films with a Zhuang language voice-over. Zhuang language songs have been popular on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet with bilingual subtitles in Chinese and the Zhuang new script. A Zhuang language broadcasting school was established on 1 April, 1988 jointly supported by the Minority Language Commission of Guangxi and the Guangxi People’s Broadcasting Station. The school has so far broadcast over 3,588 programs and has been welcomed by the Zhuang people. The major contents are: 1 Government laws, regulations and policies; 2 Grammar and structures of the Zhuang language; 3 Agricultural information such as planting, feeding animals and product processing, as well as advertising and how to become rich;



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4 Health and medical information; 5 Recreational and cultural programs. These programs have helped meet the needs of Zhuang people to connect with areas outside their own and to learn their new script. The programs are bilingual in the standard Zhuang language and Guiliuhua (south-western Mandarin) and run for 30 minutes three times per day between Monday and Saturday. In comparison with other autonomous regions, Zhuang language and literacy is far behind; for example, there are five Tibetan TV stations that have been broadcasting in TAR, Qinghai, Kangba in Sichuan, Gannan in Gansu and Diqing in Yunnan. In 2012, more than 120 Zhuang academics and teachers jointly wrote an open letter to Premier Wen Jiabao to lobby for a Zhuang language TV station to be established in Guangxi (Guangxi News, 2012) .

Conclusion The illegitimization of the Zhuang traditional Sawndip is an example of how government can manipulate the power of language by removing choices for its speakers. Zhuang Sawndip was suppressed for 60 years. A whole generation of Zhuang have lost their heritage and had it replaced by the new Zhuang script and Chinese. The decision to replace Zhuang Sawndip by a new script was in contradiction to other decisions about language choice. Professor Yuan Jiahua believed the diversity of the Zhuang languages made it problematical to have a standard written language, completely ignoring how the diversity of Chinese dialects in fact allows speakers to communicate using the same Chinese characters. Perhaps such a specious argument from the academics was a smokescreen for deeper political motives that saw Zhuang characters potentially conflicting with Chinese characters. Whatever the reasons the sad fact remains that after 60 years of suppression, Sawndip is dying or already dead in many Zhuang areas. If the Zhuang Sawndip had been supported and used to raise literacy levels it would have also served to preserve Zhuang cultural heritage. Can the Zhuang, like the Naxi in Yunnan, bring back their linguistic and cultural heritage through a dead written script? It perhaps depends on the government’s support and whether the Zhuang people themselves have some innovative ideas like the Naxi. Like the creation of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in 1958, the introduction of Zhuang new script was a political and top-down process both from the national and regional government, but in the context of China both actions

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have empowered the Zhuang enormously. The new Zhuang script is the only one that has been approved by the State Council among those 15 new scripts created for minority languages since the 1950s. This gesture shows the uniquely important status of Zhuang in relation to other minority languages such as those in neighbouring Yunnan. The status of the Zhuang new script, even though newly born, is the same as that of the Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian languages. The promotion of the Zhuang new script in schools has not been an easy and smooth journey. Many factors resulted in the failure of pilot Zhuang new literacy programs. My case studies from a successful Zhuang-Han program indicate three important factors can contribute to the success of the programs, namely, collaborative efforts should be made from school, community and government, in terms of teacher resources; teacher training, flexible and culturally relevant curriculum development and community support are needed; and most importantly the government should provide language-use domains for the new script which make it practical and worthwhile to be learnt. Lack of Zhuang new script use domains has been the main reason for resistance from parents to let their children learn this new script. This is the same situation in other minority areas, such as in Yunnan and Inner Mongolia (see Chapters 3 and 6). The case study in School G confirms that L1 literacy has a positive effect on the transfer to L2 literacy development (Cummins, 1987). Although the government has recently invested more funding in the Zhuang new literacy programs, much more planning needs to be undertaken and implemented to have an effect in the Guangxi region. If the regional government aims to promote what is stated in the official slogan, a large-scale promotion of the Zhuang new script in schools should be reconsidered. The promotion of Zhuang new literacy has on the other hand created inequality for those smaller minority languages. As indicated from School X, the Jing school, government support for the Jing language is much less than the Zhuang program in terms of funding, curriculum development and teacher supply. For Zhuang and many minority languages in Guangxi, and with them their rich cultures, to continue to live as healthy, useful, dynamic organisms depends on which languages are supported by the government, the schools and the communities. On 29 September 2013, the Guangxi regional government published a new policy document on implementation of the ‘National Language and Literacy Reform and Development Guideline (2012–22)’. In this it has promised to strengthen the Zhuang-Han bilingual programs, support minority language



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studies as majors at higher education institutions, protect minority languages, save endangered minority languages, and establish an audio language database for minority languages. This is pleasing news for the Zhuang and the other 11 indigenous minority people in Guangxi.

8

Challenges and Barriers for Multilingualism and Multilingual Education

The history of China is characterized by great diversity in languages and cultures as many minority or Han groups migrated to different areas and developed their own ways of talking and interacting. This diversity has expanded and contracted throughout China’s long history. At present, with the exception of Taiwan and Outer Mongolia, which were lost in the past 60 years, China’s territorial reach is as great as it has ever been. Diversity has been periodically supported by the CCP. The last three decades have seen the rise of one language in China, Chinese, as a common means of communication: in education, services, employment, media, entertainment, trade and everyday talk. Its national reach is arguably unprecedented. Languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Zhuang also have large demographic constituencies, though not as much national capital as Chinese and their status and learning have been threatened. Some larger minorities have resisted the language challenge inherent in the spread of Chinese and in globalization, while some minorities have taken the opportunity to protect their heritage. The promotion of national language and bilingual education has influenced ways of thinking and reasoning, ways of expressing feelings of resistance and sentimental values; ways of seeing the value of ethnic identities and cultural heritage; ways of protecting and reviving their languages. However, small minority language groups have to come to terms with the dominant language and to deal with the prospect of their language vanishing. The promotion of the national language has also influenced the modes of education for China’s 113 million minority people. A number of landmarks have been identified as occurring since the 1940s which were instrumental in arriving at the existing multilingual situation. Multilingualism refers to a person’s ability to use several languages including

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their mother tongue. It also includes a society such as a country or a community which has legally recognized and used multiple languages in one geographical area. As has been illustrated in this book there are millions of individual multilingual people in China, who speak their mother tongue as well as many other languages and dialects. A striking feature of China is that a person from a smaller community tends to speak more languages than those Chinese people who live in Beijing. China is one of the most multilingual countries in the world, where the government has not only legally recognized multilingualism, but has also encouraged and promoted a climate that is conducive to the full expression of 52 languages, in which the teaching and learning of a variety of languages can flourish. The government since its establishment has encouraged language learning and promoted some minority languages, but multilingual practice and education for some of these languages have faced challenges, particularly as a result of economic reform.

Multilingualism as a bridge Auer and Li (2009: 12) point out that multilingualism builds potential bridges between different groups within the nation. Bridges between groups beyond the artificial boundaries of a nation and bridges which serve as conduits for crossfertilization between cultures. In China, the CCP aimed to build a multilingual bridge, but before this was achieved, the Cultural Revolution burnt it. Since the 1980s there has been a great effort to rebuild this bridge. Multilingualism and multilingual education were promoted in many minority areas including Yunnan, Guangxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The last 30 years of fast economic development have speeded up this building process. Children have become bilingual or multilingual by learning Chinese (Uyghur children in Chapter 4, Bai children in Chapter 6) much earlier than ever before. Multilingualism bridges an extensive mobility and globalization in China and beyond China’s borders. Many minorities are able to receive international and national visitors to their home such as the Naxi people in Yunnan (Chapter 6). Some minority groups are able to interact with the same language group in China, such as Tibetans in Qinghai, Tibet, Gannan, Sichuan and Yunnan, and beyond China’s borders, such as the Jing in Guangxi (Chapter 7), Kemu people in Yunnan (Chapter 6), and Kazak people in Xinjiang (Chapter 4). Linguistic and cultural diversity has been celebrated officially or informally in the last three decades in China.



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Multilingualism as a political asset From the late 1940s as the CCP gained the ascendancy in the revolution and finally declared victory, to the 1960s multilingualism was seen as a political asset and used by the CCP as such. Particular benefits flowed from this approach, not least in the early days of crucial support from particular groups such as the Mongols, Uyghurs and Yi in the CCP’s struggle against the Nationalists, but also in later times as it supported stable and defined border areas around China. Fifty-six ethnic groups were constructed to form a multi-ethnic state which the government proudly declared to be the People’s Republic of China – a multi-ethnic and socialist country (多民族的社会主义国家). The idea of multi-ethnicity as representing the collective identity of the PRC was based on the multi-ethnic reality and followed the Soviet model. Multilingualism was viewed as a political asset, which the CCP could use to suit its political agenda. The CCP’s ideology that all nationalities should be equal guided its multilingual policy to grant the legally recognized minorities equal language rights to use and develop their own language. This approach had its merits and was welcomed by the minorities. We have seen how the Mongols in Inner Mongolia had freedom to develop Mongolian schools at a fast rate and achieved remarkable development in their mother tongue (Chapters 2 and 3). The Uyghurs, Kazaks and other minorities with written scripts also enjoyed the freedom to develop mother-tongue education and established alongside the Chinese schools a separate education system using mother-tongue education. The Tibetans also developed their education system along similar lines, not only in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, but among Tibetan communities in Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan. Three of the five autonomous regions, Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia, had free rein in terms of language policy and mothertongue education in their regions. They had a legal right to use their local languages as a symbol of their autonomy and as a way to protect their cultural values despite enormous pressure to learn Chinese (Chapter 4). This ‘free rein’ (real autonomy) served to ameliorate any build-up of resentment against the Han-dominated CCP and served to maintain stability. Similarly, the Hui Autonomous Region was established to dissipate potential problems which could arise among the large population of warlike Hui people in the Qinghai, Gansu region of central China. As Muslims, the Hui were guaranteed freedom of religious expression. The Zhuang identity was constructed by the CCP government to facilitate control of a variety of different groups and secure China’s south-eastern border

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for the newly established government. Before 1958 the Zhuang did not share a common ethnic identity. By creating Zhuang, the CCP government hoped to weaken divisive local ties and build loyalty to a larger collective. Smaller localities accepted that they shared common interests and that these interests were being protected under the party’s minority policy (Kaup, 2000). Not only were they given autonomous regional status, they were also presented with a written roman/Cyrillic script to replace their original character-based script (Chapter 7). This special treatment was a clever strategy of imposing control over a large population with multiple languages and customs and with a potentially problematic neighbour, Vietnam. The Zhuang’s case provides a clear example of the government imposing its own classification system on a group who previously did not perceive themselves to be a common group. This was not like the Mongols having a group of Mongol elites with whom the state had to contend, but rather the state creating a Zhuang group and then training a group of elites (Kaup, 2000). The Zhuang Autonomous Region was used as an example to the four powerful groups, the Tibetans, Mongol, Hui and Uyghur, of large population integration which they could follow. The flexibility in the use of these autonomous regions by the CCP to suit its political agenda can be seen in some of the differences between them. The Zhuang can be an autonomous region with a similar culture to the Han; the Mongols can be an autonomous region while representing a quite small part of the population; the Hui can be an autonomous group without their own language but allowed to maintain their religion; and, not yet achieved, the Uyghur can be like the Hui, with religion but with no great importance placed on their language; and the Tibetan can be like the Zhuang, keep their language but have no importance placed on their religion. This flexibility in using autonomous regions for political ends is demonstrated by the CCP establishing each of the autonomous regions (with the exception of Zhuang) exactly as the father of the Republic of China, Dr Sun Yat-Sen, announced in 1911 on his declaration of China as a unity of five nationalities: ‘the Han people, the Mongols, the Manchus, the Tibetans, the Muslim Turks’. He did not mention the Zhuang (Sun, 1956).

Multilingualism for cultural heritage and learning Since the middle of the 1980s, the communist government has advocated bilingual education as a means toward preserving the heritage of minority



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cultures. In formulating its language policies, it has acknowledged that language carries important cultural knowledge. Knowing their own language helps students learn about and inherit their cultural values and beliefs (Lin, 1997). The government has also hoped to move away from the highly assimilative model imposed during the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in the loss of minority culture and identity. It has reiterated that the minority peoples have the right to learn in their own languages. Between the 1980s and 1990s minorities received support from both scholars and the central government to a significant degree of bilingual education. Scholars such as Lin (1997) also pointed out that by 1985 160,000 schools were already implementing bilingual education, affecting approximately 2.5 million students across the nation. However, she noticed in the 1990s that there had been reports that in certain regions efforts had slackened, and some minority areas were giving up because of the lack of textbooks, teachers and local support. By 1995 23 minority groups (Mongolians, Tibetans, Koreans, Uyghur and Zhuang, among others), were using their own language, or both their own language and Chinese, to teach. Eight provinces had set up their own publishing houses for printing textbooks for minority schools (People’s Daily overseas edition, 21 November 1995) (Lin, 1997: 195). Scholars have argued that bilingual education among minority students (Cummins, 1981, 2000; Thomas and Collier, 2002; Tsung, 2009) is necessary to advance learning both for cognitive reasons and second language acquisition. Mother-tongue education is essential for the development of minority students’ intellectual ability, particularly for those living in remote areas who have little contact with the Han culture and who speak only their own native language (Tsung, 2009). Thrusting minority students into a classroom that teaches only in Chinese discourages them, as they are thereby disconnected from their familiar home and neighbourhood. Because of this, scholars have argued that bilingual education would help build a bridge between school and home, arouse the students’ interest and help them develop a sense of confidence and respect (Lin, 2007). Learning in one’s first language makes it easier to understand concepts and lays a foundation in basic knowledge, which will also help their acquisition of a second language, namely Putonghua. (Liu Baojun, 1993; Shama Jiaga, 1991). Scholars suggest that learning in one’s own language should start in the first grade, while Putonghua should be introduced gradually until it can become the main language for teaching and learning in secondary school. This policy would enable students to function well within the larger society, thereby increasing their employment opportunities and

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facilitating various cultural exchanges as well (Lin, 1997). My case studies in Bai and Zhuang schools provided evidence for these claims: students were more confident and motivated with their learning. Cummins (2009) after many years’ study of multilingualism, concludes that the research is very clear about the importance of bilingual children’s mother tongue for their overall personal and educational development: the level of development of the children’s mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development. Mothertongue promotion in the school helps develop not only the mother tongue but also children’s abilities in the majority school language (Cummins, 2009). In his work on multiliteracies, Cummins has provided rich evidence for the view that home language should be seen not as a problem but as an important individual and societal asset. He indicates that L1 literacy can be transferred to L2 literacy (Cummins, 2009). His view is also supported by teachers in Zhuang schools (see Chapter 7). My research shows that mother-tongue education has facilitated students’ learning in general. I was informed, during trips to Qinghai in 2006 and 2013, that the Tibetan students learned to express themselves much more clearly in their own language. They were able to more vividly describe their feelings and express their ideas, which they would not have been able to do in Chinese. Use of the mother tongue was also helping students to learn English fast, as observed in Qinghai and Guangxi during my visits in 2013. My case studies show that multilingual education has improved the overall quality of learning outcomes and has enhanced self-confidence among minority students, increased motivation and enjoyment of learning, and constructed positive ethnic and national identities of minority students. In recent years the government has invested millions in supporting bilingual education, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet, which also had the specific political purpose of facilitating the learning of Putonghua and Chinese, as discussed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. Some researchers argue that bilingual education in minority schools is in direct conflict with the government’s policy to promote Putonghua as the common language (Lin, 1997), which is true when one considers the bilingual education practised in schools in regions such as Yunnan and Guangxi, as discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, where Chinese has dominated the traditional medium of instruction for the majority of schools since the 1950s. However, in schools where the mother tongue was the medium of instruction, such as in the majority of Uyghur and Tibetan schools, bilingual education facilitates the learning of Putonghua and other subjects in schools.



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These bilingual or multilingual education programs provide the legal and ideological context of China’s official stand on societal bilingualism. They also frame the boundaries of the arena within which Chinese bilingual educational policies are formulated and interpreted (Stites, 1992: 4). Consistent with its early policies and strategies to view multilingualism as a political asset, the aim of multilingual education is not only to improve learning for the minorities but also to enhance political stability and good relationships with minorities in ethnic minority regions. Lin argues (1997) that bilingual education for minorities in China has always been closely linked with political policies held by the government since 1980, and has been provided in some minority schools as a part of the government’s policy to improve relationships with ethnic minorities in China. However, multilingual education delivery is faced with many problems, notably with respect to curriculum, textbook publishing, teacher training and instructional adjustments. Even greater problems lie within society at large, where minorities still suffer discrimination and bias (Lin, 1997). A dilemma in Yunnan and Guangxi I observed is that multilingual education has been mainly adopted only in pre-schools and primary schools, and once students are in secondary schools the learning of their mother tongue is not provided. Although more higher education institutions offer majors in minority languages, some discontinuity and gaps are imposed by this policy. This discontinuity causes minority students to be deficient in both languages (ibid.). At university level, minority students go through their studies with little support and with no recognition of the value of their own culture and language (Wang, 2012). Scholars observed that for this reason many minority students fall behind the Han students. They also took great pains to hide their accents and refused to wear their ethnic clothing so that they would not be identified and looked down upon (Lin, 1997; Wang, 2012). In many regions and provinces, I observed that the lack of social importance and economic capital of the minority language dampens support for the development of minority languages and enforcement of multilingual education. There is a trajectory in recent years to promote a ‘monolingual melting pot’ like the US. There is a continuing heated debate about this ideology, which sees minority language monolingualism as a problem and in which Chinese monolingualism is enforced. Senior government officials in Xinjiang and Qinghai in recent years have been concerned that minority monolingualism is a barrier for inter-ethnic communication. This does not benefit good ethnic

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relationships and therefore the promotion of Putonghua among minority groups is regarded as the best solution to solve the problem. However, if a person is monolingual in Putonghua, this is not regarded as a problem. There is a strong argument by the government that minority monolingualism is a barrier for mobility: minority language is only useful for some local areas. Only Putonghua allows a person to move from place to place. Teachers enforced this idea in the classes I observed (see Chapter 5). Scholars also argue that minority monolingualism is a barrier to higher education: minority languages have been used only in pre-schools and primary schools, but Chinese is the language of learning in all of the higher education system. There is also a problem that expertise in a minority language is regarded as a barrier to employment: many graduates with majors in minority languages cannot find employment in the open markets. This was the reason, I was informed by professors at Xinjiang university (Tsung, 2009), that Uyghur was replaced by Chinese at Xinjiang University in 2000. Minority monolingualism is regarded as producing poor educational outcomes as reported by a number of scholars (Tian, 1993). Most crucially the government blames minority monolinguals for causing recent ethnic tensions and riots. Uyghur monolingualism is regarded as a reason for separatist movements in Xinjiang. A number of observers believe that there is little evidence to support this argument.

Chinese monolingual imperialism – the Cultural Revolution The ten years of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1977 included a cultural and language revolution. There was strong enforcement of the promotion of Chinese monolingualism. Multilingualism was viewed by the state as an obstacle to class struggle and the elimination of the old to establish the new. Multilingualism became the embodiment of class difference and was openly attacked by the state, which only supported the Chinese language. The Cultural Revolution allowed the legitimization of attacks against ‘anti-revolutionary local nationalism’, which saw the purges, for example, of minority leaders in Inner Mongolia (Brown, 2007). Education nationally took a backward step. No education was available to all the population except through the study of Mao’s Red Book. Red Books were



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translated into Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian languages, but schools were not allowed to teach in these languages. Continued language revolution has resulted from the fast economic development in China. Efforts were made since 2000 to promote English as part of the educational development of all students and a strong push was made to make minorities take up Chinese regardless of their mother tongue. Multilingualism support is highly selective and depends on the perceived power of languages. Priorities were given to English and Chinese, not minority languages. Under pressure of the dominant language, maintaining multilingualism in minority languages continues to be difficult and the passing on of those languages to the next generation increasingly difficult since schools demand Chinese learning, job markets overwhelmingly demand the Chinese language and parents are forced to decline minority language education schools in favour of Chinese instruction schools for the benefit of their children’s future careers and economic well-being. Staying multilingual is not possible if the language-use domains, even those at home, are taken away. The economic imperative to speak Putonghua will lead to the vanishing of many minority languages at an increasingly fast rate, as indicated in Chapter 6. However, some minorities have learnt to use their language as an economic resource and have gained benefit as a result. The Naxi’s example shows how economic value can be derived from a minority language successfully. The Bai also use their language as an educational resource to attract external support for mother-tongue education (see Chapter 6).

Multilingualism as a factor in conflicts In Xinjiang the debate about mother-tongue and bilingual education has contributed to the tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. The ethnic conflict is partly the language conflict. The Uyghurs must learn Chinese to become bilingual, but the Han immigrants to Xinjiang refuse to learn the Uyghur language. The integration is one way, not from both sides. Unbalanced language classes in the school system have made the relationship tenser. The Han immigrants see themselves as better served by learning a more ‘advanced’ language, English, not the ‘backward’ language, Uyghur. The Han see themselves as helpers in Xinjiang, not invaders. From the Uyghur point of view the Han are only guests, not the owners of their homeland. They believe the Han should respect Uyghur culture and learn the language. The tension has been building

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up for many years. The more funds invested in the teaching of Chinese to Uyghurs, the more resentment the Uyghurs harbour. The government should change the strategy in order to achieve social integration and harmony (see Chapter 4). The language conflict in Qinghai is similar. The Han Chinese don’t learn Tibetan but the Tibetans must learn Han Chinese. And the pressure is building to speed up the process of learning Chinese (see Chapter 5). The distances between these languages can be very far, as in the case of Uyghur (Turkic), Chinese (Sino-Tibetan) and English (Indo-European), but some learners can become very competent and are able to write PhD theses in Chinese or in their own language such as Uyghur, Mongolian and Tibetan. Most of these were educated in their mother tongue (Su and Chen, 2011). Multilinguals in China provide other Chinese learners from different language groups with concrete evidence that Chinese is ‘learnable’ and that, given the right method and suitable motivation they can reach proficiency similar to native speakers. As for indigenous minorities, there is clear evidence that if they are offered the opportunity to value their first language through mother-tongue education, with this as a strong foundation they will be successful in learning second and third languages. Multilingual education in China has shown itself in a variety of models – the political asset model, the identities construction model, the new scripts model, the transitional bilingual education model and the dual education system model. Based on my study of China’s multilingualism I saw a variety of secondlanguage learners from five different language families learn Chinese and English and I met numerous successful multilinguals who speak near-nativespeaker levels of Chinese and English plus their mother tongue. Most learners at the same time developed multi-identities (Tsung and Clarke, 2010; Wang, 2012). My research into South Asian students in Hong Kong also highlights that multilinguals can construct multiple identities in a diversified society. For example, the South Asian students have constructed multiple identities in the process of schooling in post-colonial Hong Kong. Firstly, there is the double construction of their ‘home cultural and religious backgrounds’ because sometimes it is a source of resistance and protection against prejudice, while at other times they acknowledge a dual identity. Secondly, South Asian students are attached to the ‘English’ identity that served their parents well. Thirdly, there is also an ambivalent relationship with Chinese language and Chinese identities: they resist school and societal prejudice, but can also see instrumental benefits and want access to the choices that fluency in Cantonese brings. They see Hong Kong identity as a part of their identities (Tsung, forthcoming).



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For multilinguals, becoming and staying multilingual are equally difficult. Languages are enormously important for culture and identity. People don’t own languages, languages own people. Chinese people don’t own the Chinese language, Chinese language owns the people of China and it is a necessity and obligation for all the minorities to become efficient in the Chinese language. On the other hand the Chinese language has become a ‘killer’ of many minority languages which have vanished. Some may argue that these minority languages committed suicide as their speakers simply gave up the use of them or were forced to capitulate to the tremendous pressure from Chinese. How to save the minority languages that are close to extinction remains a difficult task for China. China cannot deny the 55 minority identities they have constructed or accepted. It cannot ignore the multilingualism associated with such a diversity of people. To suppress their languages is equally to suppress their people. There is a strong argument for minority human rights in terms of multilingualism maintenance. The 1980s and 1990s saw the return of multilingualism and the rebuilding of the mother-tongue education system and minority language maintenance, but rapid economic development in this period has removed most of the domains in which minority languages can be used. State and regional governments have perceived that multilingualism is a bridge for the promotion of fast economic development but a hindrance to the education system. Emphasis has shifted towards making minorities learning Putonghua/Chinese literate to suit economic development.

What multilingual models are suitable in China? Singapore offers an alternative model for China, as English is the one language for all citizens; everyone needs to learn a second language and maintain their own mother tongue: Malay/Chinese/Tamil. Under this policy, English became recognized as Singapore’s first language (L1) and is the core language of instruction and communication. However, the government maintained that Singapore’s national language will continue to be Malay. Another tenet of the policy is that all Singaporeans have to learn their mother tongue as a second language (L2). This is compulsory and is usually dependent on the father’s ethnicity. This has changed a little recently, as some Malays and Indians now choose to learn Chinese due to the growth of China. The multilingual policy has been seen as contributing to the overall increase in employment and economic growth.

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In terms of entry into universities, second-language grades were a very important criterion until recent years, where this requirement has been relaxed. In the past, if a Chinese student failed Mandarin (Putonghua) at the  GCE A Levels, he or she would need to attend a Chinese camp at the National University of Singapore. Government jobs require bilingual skills as essential criterion, especially for some departments in the various ministries in Singapore. This language requirement is consistent with the language policy which also provides incentives for people to invest their time and effort to become and stay multilinguals. Singapore’s language policy is popular among its citizens. It offers a linguistic equality, at least on the surface. Children are offered the opportunity to maintain their mother tongue while at the same time to master English. Both higher education and employment require bilingual ability and there is no issue of whether one language is useful and another language is not. China has chosen the language of the Han Chinese, which makes minority people disadvantaged as their children are placed far behind through language differences in the education system. Just like in a running race, Han children already have reached at least half way before minority children start their race. The Swiss model, a regional-based multilingualism, is a useful model for China. People living in the linguistic region must learn the regional official languages, in the interest of social harmony and political solidarity. In the case of Xinjiang, Uyghur should be taught as the regional lingua franca, and Chinese taught as the national language, with the multilingual policy promoting mutual understanding and social harmony. As for a foreign language, Xinjiang should offer Russian, not English, in order to promote national security, social solidarity, cross-border trade and communications. Inner Mongolia should do the same, to offer Mongolian languages and Russian and Chinese as a multilingual policy. In the Tibet Autonomous Region, plus Tibetan-dominated prefectures in Qinghai, Yunnan, Gansu and Sichuan, all Han and Tibetan people who live and work in the region should learn Tibetan and Chinese language; the Zhuang, Chinese and Vietnamese languages should be offered in Guangxi for the same reasons.

How to raise the value of minority languages Dutch sociologist Abram De Swaan (1993) used the term Q-value to calculate the value and power of different languages. This is a measure of the communication



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potential of a language or cluster of languages for a speaker in the system. He indicates that individuals add to their linguistic repertoire the language that returns the greatest communication payoff, that is, which increases Q-value. Based on his theory, Chinese has attained much more Q-value than minority languages for its national powerful status and a wide range of public domains across the whole of China. The value of Chinese and non-value of minority languages have been mentioned many times by teachers, parents and officials during my visits in China. De Swaan also argued (2004) that language rights and support for small languages are simply the politics of ‘linguistic sentimentalism’ and the operations of marketplaces rather than either sentiment or notions of rights ultimately govern that language choice. What has emerged from my discussions and case studies is that mother tongues among minority languages have been regarded as not useful by many parents and teachers. However, the domains of any language, and to a large degree the usefulness of that language, are controlled by the government and guided by its policy. Hong Kong (HKSAR) is a good example. The trilingual and bi-literacy policy has been implemented since 1997. Since then all higher education institutions and companies have required at least bilingualism in English and Chinese. All civil servants are required to be able to speak their mother tongue and English. There are strong cognitive grounds for promotion of mother-tongue education in Hong Kong, there is no issue of whether the mother tongue is useful or not, as its status is not below the status of English. The HKSAR can offer a practical multilingual model for China’s minority autonomous regions, a model which would also help to end the ethnic tensions and conflicts in the past few years. As Auer and Li pointed out, ‘social stability, economic development, tolerance and cooperation between groups is only possible when multilingualism is respected’ (Auer and Li, 2009: 12).

The impact of globalization on multilingualism It is clear that globalization is an important force for increasing the multilingualism of both individuals and societies. To add to their linguistic repertoire the number of people learning English as a second or third language has tripled or more. In Asia, the learning of English grew from 33 per cent of primary curricula during 1945–68 to 83 per cent in primary school and 100 per cent for secondary school by 2005 (Lo Bianco, 2009). In the last decade we also see there are an estimated 40 to 100 million people eager to learn Chinese as a second

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or third language. There are also people eager to maintain their own languages which are in decline or endangered. The last two to three decades have seen a surge of interest by scholars in studying the impact of globalization on multilingualism (e.g. Appadurai, 1996 and 2002; Blommaert, 2010; Castells, 2000; Coupland 2003, Heller 2007; Pennycook, 2010). Heller (2007) calls for researchers to change their focus ‘from stability to mobility’ and focus on the development of trajectories of linguistic and material resources over time. Pennycook (2007) argues that we need to focus on not only the global movement but also locally generated mobility. Appadurai (1996, 2002) describes globalization in terms of five landscapes that cross borders and boundaries: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideoscapes. Within these different and rapidly changing ‘scapes’ there are flows and tensions between the local and the national at micro and macro levels. The ‘ethnoscape’ is a distinct feature in the rapid economic development in the last decades in China. The trans-national and trans-local population flows by both minority and Han labour from rural areas has brought changes of a social and demographic nature and the creation of the new ethnoscape. Trans-national flows between the Koreans, Kazaks, Mongols and a number of minorities in the south have been made possible as they speak the same or similar languages. The fast-growing eastern coastal areas have become the destination of the many minorities who went there to work as labourers. Unofficial information indicates that people from more than 50 minorities who came from rural and remote areas built the massive new constructions in Beijing and Shanghai, including the Olympic stadium. The increasingly diverse patterns of internal migration have created tensions both linguistically and culturally as both the newcomers and the local people were not prepared, resulting in incidents like the riots in Shaoguan in Guangdong by Uyghurs and local Han people. The learning and teaching of Chinese and minority languages in this social context is influenced by all the five dimensions (ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideoscapes), as the learners and their identities and attitudes, the teaching curriculum and pedagogy, the status and perceptions of the languages are all being affected by social changes or flows. There is emerging diversity in what is happening at local levels in many minority areas: resistance to giving up their mother tongues, experience of discrimination, the frustrations of lack of resources and linguistic choices, which have created tensions and conflicts in China. As Mackerras (2003: 37) points out ‘the tension between ethnic identities and Chinese nationalism may mirror



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globalization and localization’. He argues that China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) will further strengthen the process of China’s integration with the world economy, bringing external influences such as new ideas, communication, technology, etc. to bear on social and economic life in China. Under this influence a weakening of nationalism and ethnic identities may be one of the outcomes. I agree with Mackerras that Chinese nationalism is likely to remain strong and minorities will tend to preserve their differences, to maintain their identities, cultures, religions and languages. Advanced technology and media such as computers, the Internet, TV, mobile phones and modern transportation have brought minority people out of isolation and remoteness. They have hastened the spread of the Chinese language, but also increased the opportunities to become bilingual or multilingual for minorities who used to speak only their mother tongue. Access by minorities in China to these technologies has also connected them to other parts of China and the world through the flow of instant communication and information and tourist interactions. The spread of information about ethnic conflicts and the struggle of other minority groups fighting for their equal rights, as well as the aspirations and prosperous economic development of some other minority groups in China, are likely to influence their perceptions and attitudes. Li and Zhu (2011: 12) argue that ‘globalization makes more visible any abuse of individual’s rights, including the rights to use whatever language one wishes. There are intergovernmental and international bodies offering support and protection of endangered languages and regulating language policies and practice, especially the policies and practices concerning the education and welfare of minority language users’. Minorities in China are more likely to realize it is important to protect and maintain their language and culture. For example, the Naxi people have seen that a lot of Chinese and foreigners are interested and attracted by their languages and cultures (see Chapter 6). They are more likely to see the value and benefit of their languages and be eager to protect them. The process of globalization has affected different minorities in different ways, but in general most of them have benefited to some degree.

The development of trajectories and future perspectives The future of minority languages is in the hands of both the minority peoples themselves and the quasi government-controlled operations of the marketplace.

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The Uyghurs and Tibetans, who have strong attachments to their languages, are going to continue to fight to protect them, but those minority groups who have less regard for their languages are likely to lose them. Unger (1997: 67) predicts the gradual disappearance of ethnic identity in south-west China, where ethnic minorities are concentrated. He argues that during the second half of the twentieth century ethnic minorities in general have adopted Han culture, abandoning their ways of life, beliefs and social mores. He believes minority languages may gradually disappear, since local ethnic languages put minorities at a disadvantage in the labour market and restrict their upward social mobility. In countries with large, ongoing migrant intakes such as Australia and the US most migrants are eager to learn English in their adopted home for their survival and ongoing economic advancement, but China has a different situation. All the minorities are indigenous people of their homeland. They are attached to their language and culture in the same way as they are attached to their land. Like the Uyghurs in Xinjiang discussed in Chapter 4 they feel that newcomers who migrate to their areas ought to respect and learn their language and culture. The PRC government is missing out on an opportunity to use the proven benefits of modern multilingual education to create a more inclusive environment for many of its minority groups. The current policy and practice have often been counterproductive to the government’s goal of maintaining a harmonious society. Many minority languages have become endangered and Beijing’s integrative policy has had the perverse but predictable effect of helping to create the inter-ethnic conflicts that it had hoped to avoid, with scenes of ethnic tension in minority regions over the last few years. Is China in the twenty-first century a ‘melting pot’, in which differences are suppressed or vanishing, or a common homeland in which diversity is celebrated and all the minority languages are a source of wealth and a bridge to solidarity and mutual understanding? The current official position is that the PRC is still celebrating ‘unity with diversity’, but there are many challenges and barriers to this, as ‘non-diversity’ seems to be the dominant political agenda in the twenty-first century. Should China opt for a multilingual or a monolingual model? Does President Xi Jinping want his legacy to be a more harmonious unity with diversity, or a less harmonious unity without diversity?



Challenges and Barriers for Multilingualism and Multilingual Education

Appendix 1  Ethnic groups and population in China Ethnic Group

Population

Percentage

Han Zhuang Hui Manchu Uyghur Miao Yi Tujia Tibetan Mongol Dong Bouyi Yao Bai Korean Hani Li Kazak Dai She Lisu Dongxiang Gelo Lahu Wa Shui Naxi Qiang Tu Mulam Xibe Kirgiz Jingpo Daur Salar Blang

1,220,844,520 16,926,381 10,586,087 10,387,958 10,069,346 9,426,007 8,714,393 8,353,912 6,282,187 5,981,840 2,879,974 2,870,034 2,796,003 1,933,510 1,830,929 1,660,932 1,463,064 1,462,588 1,261,311 708,651 702,839 621,500 550,746 485,966 429,709 411,847 326,295 309,576 289,565 216,257 190,481 186,708 147,828 131,992 130,607 119,639

91.51% 1.2700% 0.7943% 0.7794% 0.7555% 0.7072% 0.6538% 0.6268% 0.4713% 0.4488% 0.2161% 0.2153% 0.2098% 0.1451% 0.1374% 0.1246% 0.1098% 0.1097% 0.0946% 0.0532% 0.0527% 0.0466% 0.0413% 0.0365% 0.0322% 0.0309% 0.0245% 0.0232% 0.0217% 0.0162% 0.0143% 0.0140% 0.0111% 0.0099% 0.0098% 0.0090%

211

212 Maonan Tajik Pumi Achang Nu Ewenki Jing Jinuo De’ang Bonan Russian Yugur Uzbek Monba Oroqen Drung/Dulong Hezhe Gaoshan Lhoba Tatar

Language Power and Hierarchy 101,192 51,069 42,861 39,555 37,523 30,875 28,199 23,143 20,556 20,074 15,393 14,378 10,569 10,561 8,659 6,930 5,354 4,009 3,682 3,556

Source: Data from the 2010 census, http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/

0.0076% 0.0038% 0.0032% 0.0030% 0.0028% 0.0023% 0.0021% 0.0017% 0.0015% 0.0015% 0.0012% 0.0011% 0.0008% 0.0008% 0.0006% 0.0005% 0.0004% 0.0003% 0.0003% 0.0003%

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Notes 1 The laws and regulations concerned include the Guidelines for Regional Autonomy for Minority Nationalities in PRC (1952); Opinions Concerning Improving the Work of Minority Education (1980); The Constitution of the PRC (1982); The Law of Autonomy of Ethnic Minority Groups (1984); The Regulation of Illiteracy Elimination (1988); The Higher Education Law (1999); The General Language and Script Law (2000); The Law of Compulsory Education (2006); Outline of China’s Middle and Long-Term Educational Development (2010). 2 This phrase was from a letter from the Central Committee to Qinghai province dated 27 August 1958. 3 Volume 2 Chinese Textbook (Hanyu), p. 2, 2008, Xinjiang Education Press. 4 Figures are from Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2008, p. 79. 5 Volume 2 Chinese Textbook (Hanyu), pp. 12–13, 1998, Xinjiang Education Press.

Index Altaic language family 32–5 Amdo language 126 Appadurai 208 Arabic language 6, 7, 95–7, 126, 135 Australia 1, 13, 15, 27, 35, 210 Austronesian language family 36–7 Bai language 154, 155, 165–8 Bai people 159, 165–8 Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and 181–8 IMAR (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) and 68–9, 72–3 Qinghai Province and 130 XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and 99–104, 112 Yunnan and 161–2, 163–8 Billard, Liz 163 Blang language 36 Bonan language 33 Bourdieu, Pierre 3, 7, 37, 72, 120 Bouyi 31 Burman languages 29–30 Canada 20 Cantonese language 6, 27, 42 CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) 48, 175 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 1, 197–8 see also China language equality and 24, 37, 56–7, 197 Central Tai language group 176 Chen, Y 152–3 Cheng Fang 188 China 1, 5–8, 13, 56–8 see also names of regions and PRC conflict in 51 dialects and 27, 48 economy in 46, 70, 91 education and 8, 16–17, 39–42, 53, 54–5 see also education

ethnic groups and 15–17, 23, 94 see also minority groups ethnic policies 41–2, 52–6 Han Chinese 16, 23 see also Han people Internet, and the 28 language hierarchy in 38–46 language loss 46–9 language revival 49–50 languages and xi, xv, 23–6, 42–3 see also names of languages linguistic inequalities and 1 media in 44 migration and 63 minority groups see minority groups minority languages see minority languages national language and 38–42 see also Putonghua language population 43 segregation in 47 textbooks in see textbooks Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) 48, 49 Chinese language 7, 26–8, 195, 205, 207–8 IMAR (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) and 74–6 Qinghai Province and 137–8, 142–4 XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and 95 colonization 14 community attitude to language 157 corpus planning 51 Cultural Revolution, the 202–3 Cummins, J. 21, 200 Dai language 30, 46, 152–3 Dali 148 Daur language 33 De’ang language 36 De Swaan, Abram 206–7 Dong language 31

240 Index Dongba script 168–71 Dongxiang language 33 Dulong language 155 economy, the 6–7 education 13, 16–17, 39–42, 53, 54–5 see also bilingual education; education policies; textbooks; Xilinhot case studies boarding schools 73 see also Xilinhot case studies Bourdieu, Pierre and 3 China and 8, 16–17, 39–42, 53, 54–5 Education Bureau of Yunnan Provincial Government 157 first–language–first 17–18, 19 IMAR (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) and 64–76, 85–9 immersion bilingual programs 20 materials 156 mother–tongue education see mothertongue education mother–tongue enrichment programs 19 Multilingual Education (ME) 17–22 Qinghai Province and 129–34, 137–8, 142–5 Singapore and 4–5 subtractive bilingualism 20 transitional bilingual program 20 trilingual approach 80–1 XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) 96–105, 108–16, 117–21 Yunnan and 157–8 education policies Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and 181–4 IMAR (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) 64–76 see also Xilinhot case studies Qinghai and 129–34 XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and 96–100, 102–5, 112, 116, 120–1 Yunnan and 157, 161–3 English (2004) (Wang Gang) 97 English language 7, 207 China and 8 India and 8

Qinghai Province and 143 Singapore and 4–5 threat of 9–10 ethnic groups see minority groups ethnoscapes 208 Ewenki language 34, 72 French language 9 Gaoshan language 36 Gelao language 31, 152 German language 9 Germany 7 Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 173, 206 see also Zhuang language; Zhuang people bilingual education in 181–9 education policies in 181–4, 187, 192–3 Jing-Han bilingual program 188–9 languages in 175–7 literacy and 181–4 media in 190–1 minority groups in 173–5 school case studies in 184–90, 192 teacher training in 185, 190 textbooks in 186, 189–90 Guangzhou conflict 51–2 Guiliuhua language 176 Gulai school 184–8, 192 Han people 16, 23 XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and 93–4, 106–11, 119, 203–4 Hani people 159 Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) 41 Heller, M. 16 heritage language 179 Hezhe language 34 Hong Kong 6, 20, 27–8, 44, 203 education and 17, 207 HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) 41 Hu Angang 41, 52, 54, 55 Hu Lianhe 55 Hu Yaobang 94–5 Hu Yue movement 51–2 Hui Autonomous Region 197 Hui people xiii, 126

Index IMAR (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) 59–6, 206 see also Mongolia Chinese in 74–6 see also Xilinhot case studies education and 64–76, 88–9 see also Xilinhot case studies examinations and 87–8 population and 63–4 text books in 85–7 immersion bilingual programs 20 India 8 indigenous minorities 14–16 Indo–European language family 35–6, 95 Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) see IMAR intergenerational language transmission 154 Iranian language 35–6 Italian language 9 Jinuo language 155 Jing–Han bilingual program 188–9 Jing language 188–9 Jing people 188–9 Jingpo language 46, 48 Kaup, K. P. 174–5 Kazak language 32, 45 Kejia (Hakka) dialect 28 Kirgiz language 32, 45 Korean language 35, 44–5, 72 see also YKAP Kuo Min Tang (KMT) government 62 Language and Symbolic Power (1991) (Bourdieu, Pierre) 3 language documentation 157–8 language domains 155–6 language endangerment 46–9, 154 Jing and 188 Mongolian and 47, 60–1, 64, 68–74 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) language vitality assessment factors 154–8 Yunnan and 150–8 language equality 24

241

language revival 49–50, 188 language rights 10 language status planning 50–1 language value 3, 6, 37 Lahu people 159 legitimate language 3 Lenin, Vladimir 24 Lhoba language 29 LHR (linguistic human rights) 10–11 Li 31 Li, David 6–7 Lijang 168–70 linguistic conflicts 51 linguistic human rights (LHR) 10–11 Liu Bin 40 Ma Rong xiii, 46, 49, 52, 54, 145 Macao 44 Mackerras, C. 208–9 majority and minority discourse 13 Malaysia 7 Manchu language xiii, 34, 47, 50 Mao Zedong 11, 62, 93–7, 202 Maonan language 31 ME (Multilingual Education) 17–22 Miao languages 32 Miao–Yao languages 31–2 Min (Hokkien) dialect 28 Ming dynasty 60 minority languages xiii, 10–13, 154–8, 198–203, 206–7 see also language endangerment China and 37–8, 40–1, 44–6, 52–3, 57–8 future of 209–10 People’s Republic of China (PRC) and 5–6 Qinghai Province and 130–1 USSR and 5 Yunnan and 150–8 minority monolingualism 201–2 MMI (Mongolian medium of instruction) 65, 67–72, 88–9 see also Xilinhot case studies Monba language 29 Mongolia see also Mongols language and xiii, 33, 42, 43, 58 see also IMAR; Xilinhot case studies language loss and 47, 60–1, 64, 68–74 language revival and 49–50

242 Index language education and 64–76 see also Xilinhot case studies employment and 73–4 Mongolian medium of instruction (MMI) 65, 67–72 Mongolic languages 33 Mongols 59–62, 67 monolingualism xv–xvi, 201–3 mother-tongue education 17, 19–20, 54, 62, 96–105, 112, 117–19, 132–6, 163, 166, 197–200, 203–5, 207 XUAR and 96–9, 101–2, 112 mother-tongue enrichment programs 19 Mu Qian 188 Mulam language 31 Multilingual Education (ME) 17–22 multilingualism 1–4, 51, 195–6 bridge building and 196 cultures and 198–201 difficulties 201, 203 education models 204–5 ethnic conflict and 203–4 globalization 207–9 multilingual models 205–6 as political asset 197–202 Qinghai Province and 125–8 multiple identities 204 Nanzhao 148–9 national minorities 14–16 Naxi language 154, 155, 168–71 Naxi people 159, 161, 168–71 New Zealand 12, 13, 14 Northern Tai language group 176 Nu people 159 Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) 7–8 Oroqen language 34 Outer Mongolia 61 Pinghua dialects 175–6 PRC (People’s Republic of China) see China Pumi language 153–4 Putonghua language xi, 6, 24, 26, 28, 37–42 see also Mandarin language conflict and 51–2 linguistic power and 57–8

media and 44 Qinghai Province and 135 XUAR and 116 Yunnan and 158 Q–value 206–7 Qarluq, A. J. 118 Qing dynasty 16, 47 migration and 63 Xinjiang and 92–3 Qing language xiii Qinghai Program 131–4 Qinghai Province 123–5, 204 see also Qinghai Program conflict 51 education policies and 129–34 Haixi Prefecture 128 language learning in 137–8, 142–5 minority education and 130–1 multilingualism and 125–8 population 123–4 school case studies 134–43 teacher proficiency 135–9 textbooks 136, 139–42, 144 Romansh language 9 Russian language 35 Salar language 33, 46, 126–7 Salar people 126 Sanie language 46 Sarikol Tajik 35 Sautman, B. 56 Sawndip 178–80, 191 Shaoguan conflict 51 She language 152 Shemamjil 69 Shilong School 165–8 Shui language 31 SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) 165–8 Singapore 4–5, 205–6 Sino-Tibetan language family 26–32 speaker proportion 155 Stalin, Josef 24–5 subtractive bilingualism 20 Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) 165–8 Sweden 19 Switzerland 8–9, 206

Index Tai languages 30–1, 176 Taiwan 36 Tajik languages 35–6, 95 Tang, W. 179–81 Tang dynasty 46–7 TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region) 206 education policies and 129, 197 religion and 129 Tatar language 32–3 technology 28, 209 textbooks 199 Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and 186, 189–90 IMAR (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) and 85–7 Qinghai Province and 136, 139–42 Tibetan language 139–42 XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and 112 Yunnan and 156, 164 Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) see TAR Tibetan languages 28–9, 42, 43, 46, 129 media and 191 Qinghai Province and 126, 128–9, 131–4, 142–4 textbooks and 139–42 Tibetan people 124, 128–9 Tor Tajik language 35–6 total number of remaining speakers 154–5 tourism 7, 76–7, 161, 168–70 transitional bilingual program 20 Tu language 34, 127–8 Tu people 127–8 Tujia language 29, 48 Tungusic languages 34 Turkic languages 32–3 Ulanhu 62, 66–7 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) language vitality assessment factors 154–8 United States 20 Uyghur language 32, 42, 43, 58 see also XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and 95–6, 119–20

243

XUAR school case studies and 109–10, 114–16 Uyghur people 92–5, 105–11, 118–19, 203–4 see also XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) Uzbek language 32–3 Wa language 36 Wakhan Tajik language 35 Wang Gang English (2004) 97 WeChat 156 Welsh language 11–12 Wu dialects 28 Wulun Tuke 72 Xiandao language 154 Xianlai school 184, 189–90, 192 Xiaodao language 48 Xibe language 34 Xilinhot case studies 76–8 class observations 83–8 examinations and 87–8 teacher interviews 78–82 textbooks and 85–7 Xilinhot Mongolian Primary School (XMPS) 78–86 Xilinhot Mongolian Secondary School (XMSS) 78–86 Xining 123 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) see XUAR XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) 91–3, 206 Chinese language and 95, 97, 100–2, 109–19 Cultural Revolution and 97 education models and 100–1 education policies and 96–100, 102–5, 112, 116, 120–1 ethnic relations and 94–5, 97, 99–100, 105–8, 117–21, 203 examinations and 104–5 foreign language teaching and 96, 108–16 Han people and 93–5 Indo–European languages and 95 minkaohan system 100, 103, 117–19 minkaomin system 97, 100, 104, 117–18

244 Index population 43, 93 school case studies 108–17 teacher training in 113 textbooks and 112 Uyghur language and 95–6, 109–10, 114–16, 119 Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (YKAP) 35 Yao languages 31–2 Yi languages 45–6, 154, 156 YKAP (Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture) 35 YMLO (Yunnan Minority Language Ordinances) 150–1, 158 Yuan dynasty 60 Yugur language 33 Yunnan 147 Bai Shilong School case study 165–8 bilingual education in 161–2, 163–8 education levels in 159–63 education policies in 157, 161–3 ethnic groups in 147–9 language use in 158 minority groups in 160–1

minority languages in 150–8 multilingual education programs 163–4 Naxi people 168–71 Putonghua and 158 textbooks and 164 written languages in 149–50 Yunnan Ethnic Language Commission 156–7 Yunnan Minority Language Ordinances (YMLO) 150–1, 158 zero barriers approach 166 Zhou, M. 38 Zhuang languages 30, 42, 43, 155, 175–7 see also Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region education policy and 181–4 literacy and 181–4 media and 190–1 Zhuang people 173–6, 197–8 see also Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Zhuang scripts 177–83, 187, 191–2, 198 Zinan 188