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2019 Vol. 4, No. 2
Published: 2019-03-10
1
The Flexibility Principle in the Normalization of Chinese Language
Dong Kun
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 1-1 [
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NPC and CPPCC Representatives on Language and Language Life
Yu Minhong/Hai Xia/Jiang Changzhong/Ma Xiaolin/Yu Dianli
Ensuring Children’s Extracurricular Reading in Poverty-Stricken Areas to Eliminate the Urban-Rural Gap in Reading .... Yu Minhong
Putonghua Promotion in Targeted Poverty Alleviation and Ethnic Unity .... Hai Xia
Furthering the Rule by Law in the Domain of Language Work .... Jiang Changzhong
Introducing Oracle Bone Script to the General Public .... Ma Xiaolin
Including Dictionary Compiling into Academic Evaluation System .... Yu Dianli
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 5-10 [
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12
Parents as Medium Translators in the Intergenerational Transmission of
Fangyan
Wang Weihong and Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190201
Family language policy, as bottom-up language planning endeavours in relation to language use among family members, provides a lens to examine parental language practice. This study takes an ethnographic approach to explore the role of parents as mediators in intergenerational language transmission in thirteen families in Wuhan, China. Everyday communication data were collected from these families, including dinner table talks, homework tutoring interactions, and interactions in children’s playtime. Through comparative conversation analysis, the study shows that medium translation was a de facto parental language practice observed in these three-generation households where fangyan (dialect) and Putonghua (standard Chinese) were used for daily communication. Medium translation involved translation from fangyan to Putonghua or vice versa when parents engaged in family conversations between the grandparent generation and the grandchild generation. Although the grandparents played a key role in grandchild care and the grandchildren were exposed to fangyan since their births, few children could effectively speak fangyan. As the parents acted as “medium translators” between the grandparents and the grandchildren, language shift to Putonghua is ‘talked into being’ with the parents shielding their children from fangyan. This paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for fanyan transmission in family language planning in China’s sociolinguistic context.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 12-22 [
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23
Intergenerational Transmission of Hakka Dialect in Guangdong Hakka Families
Zou Chunyan
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190202
Using family language policy as the theoretical framework, this paper studies the language use (Putonghua, Hakka, and other dialects) among three Hakka families in Guangdong. From the perspective of inter-generational language transmission and maintenance, this paper analyzes the language use among grand-parent generation, parent generation and children generation in the domestic context and explores the factors affecting these language practices. The data collection methods include semi-structure in-depth interviews, family visits and observations, as well as audio and video recording of family dialogues. Through semantic analysis of interview transcript by using NLPIR, the findings show that combination of two language variants (Putonghua and Hakka) is the common feature of daily communication for these three families, and Hakka dialect acquisition of children varies from one family to another. The grand-parent generation provides a major Hakka dialect input and plays a significant role in determining the transmission of Hakka dialect in the family. Because of the declining communicative function of Hakka dialect in the family, language shift inevitably happens. However, with the grand-parent generation adherence to speaking Hakka with children, and bringing children “return to hometown” where Hakka dialect could be used beyond the family scope, Hakka dialect can still possibly be maintained.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 23-30 [
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31
Intergenerational Differences of Language Attitudes of Xibo Families
Yin Xiaorong and Li Guofang
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190203
Language attitudes are represented by the perception of a language’s attractiveness, superiority and dynamism. To a great extent language attitudes may influence the language use and acquisition of minority families as well as the mother tongue maintenance. This paper surveyed the language attitudes of 148 Xibo parents and their children respectively to see whether there exist intergenerational differences and what their causes are. The statistic results show that the scores from attractiveness, superiority to dynamism are decreasing, which displays the structural differences of each dimensions of language attitudes. The paper suggests that Xibo people and other minorities may adopt a broader view of language and innovative discourse style to maintain the language attractiveness and social superiority and to decrease their anxiety of losing mother tongue. It also believes that minority language dynamism may be better maintained by suitable family language ideology. Dynamic and continuous bilingual ideology may help generations realize economic and cognitive value of bilingualism and stimulate the agency of family members and therefore promote cooperation among families, schools and communities.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 31-41 [
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42
Family Language Policy and Planning in Transnational Marriages in China
Ding Peng
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190204
This study attempts to examine family language policy through investigating seven transnational families based in China. Only one parent is the native speaker of Chinese in these families. Research methods include ethnography, semi-structured interviews, home observations and conversations, recorded via WeChat and audio/video clips. The samples include 9 children aged 2-8. The research explores family language ideology, management and practices in their homes in China. The key findings include: 1) the parents believe that whereas Chinese language is important English as the global language is indispensable for child’s upward mobility in the future; 2) familial context is essential for Children’s bilingual and multilingual competence , especially for younger children; 3) family language policies are vital for children to develop bilingual and multilingual competence if parents communicate with them in their own mother tongues; 4) greater commitment is required from non-Chinese parent in order to foster child’s interest in his/her native tongue. Lack of willingness to do so is likely to result in monolingual children. The study also reveals parental anxiety about their children’s bilingual and multilingual development and documents the various proactive and reactive strategies they adopt to enhance their children’s language capital.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 42-50 [
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51
Voice in Family: An Ethnography of Overseas Chinese Family Language Planning
Dong Jie
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190205
This article uses Hymes’ notion of voice to analyze ethnographic data and to discuss language planning in two overseas Chinese families. As China’s economic growth and increasing global involvement, Chinese immigrants demonstrate more complex global movement trajectories than their earlier counterparts; many of them travel frequently between China and their immigration destinations for work or business purposes, bringing them more linguistic resources and making them more active on a global scale. The new and complex phenomena press us to employ a nuanced method in order to study the migrants in a holistic and comprehensive way. This ethnographic study finds that the two families demonstrate similar family language planning strategies, i.e. they use English and other immigration destination languages in the public domain, Putonghua as a preferred language in the home, and other Chinese dialects only among parents and older relatives, although the two families are of different immigration stages (the first generation vs. the third generation immigrants), and the children are of different age groups.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 51-59 [
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60
Diverse Views on Family Language Planning
Yang Hongyan, Wang Xiaomei, Li Jia, Xu Jingrong, Francesca Walls, Catherine Brennan and Vanessa Manoli
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 60-65 [
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66
A Comparative Analysis of the Language Strategy of Outward-oriented Website Texts Between Chinese and European Universities
Zheng Jianwei
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190206
This is a corpus-driven study in comparing the language use of website texts of Chinese and European higher educational institutions. To enhance the appeal of outward-oriented text is the primary goal of the language strategy employed in composing websites in both Chinese and European universities. Based on the data obtained from the corpus of outward-oriented text, this paper investigates the language strategies in terms of interactiveness, outwardness and multimediality between internet-based texts of Chinese and European universities. Drawing up the quantitative date from the corpus specially compiled, the overall appeals of the website texts are compared. The findings show that, in terms of three criteria of interactiveness, multimedialty and outwardness, as far as the former two criteria are concerned, European universities are significantly higher than their Chinese counterparts, and the latter criterion also slightly over performs Chinese universities. Overall, the appeal of the European universities is higher, with the exception of some universities of foreign studies in China, which perform slightly better than a few Europeans universities. Based on the findings, we suggest that internet-based outward-oriented texts of Chinese universities shall improve interactiveness and multimodality strategies. In other words, to enhance their attractiveness for overseas audiences thus to boost the development of China’s higher education in global market, it is necessary to embark upon a reform program to improve the language strategy in narration mode, information type and information structure.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 66-73 [
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74
Cultural Identity Planning in China: A Diachronic Study of the English Language Education Policy in China since Opening-up
Liu Yuanyuan, Deng Fei and Zhao Ronghui
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190207
In recent years, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ identification with their own culture has attracted much attention in China. There has been increasing concerns that learning English may lead to the loss of Chinese culture. Taking textual analysis as a research method, this paper makes a diachronic analysis of 38 English language education policy documents mandated in China since its reform and opening up to the world nearly four decades ago, with an aim to generalize the trends of cultural identity planning in China’s EFL context. It is found that the English language education policies adopted before the year 2000 have a strong instrumentalism orientation, where Chinese cultural identity is rarely touched upon by policymakers. In contrast, intercultural communication ability is emphasized after the year 2000, and learners’ cultural identity cultivation has been foregrounded in the policy documents. Currently, the policy discourses regarding Chinese cultural identity construction are mainly revolving around defining foreign language talents and optimizing curriculum design. Other policy factors, such as medium of instruction, contents of curriculum, family language planning and learners’ motivations, may as well influence learners’ identity construction. The paper concludes that cultural identity construction through top-down policy mechanism would be a prolonged and challenging endeavor.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 74-82 [
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83
A Comparative Analysis of Standardization Strategies Between Flemish and Netherland Sign Languages
Lin Hao
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190208
Language standardization as an essential part of language corpus planning plays a key role in language policy. Out of various motives the nation makes policy to standardize the national sign language. However, sign language is mediated via visual-manual channel in contrast with the aural-audio modality of the spoken language, independent of the spoken and written languages used in the respective countries. Therefore, the normal principles applied in the standardization of spoken languages do not always work in dealing with sign languages. VGT and NGT share many in common while the former failed and the latter succeeded in standardization. The paper attempts to compare and analyze the two cases in order to find out the causes and more preferred models and strategies in sign language standardization.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 83-89 [
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90
A Review of
Family Language Policies in a Multilingual World: Opportunities, Challenges, and Consequences
Li Yingzi
DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190209
Families have never existed independently of social, political, economic and cultural environments. This collection uses ethnography, interviews, questionnaires, observations, document analysis and other research methods to explore immigrants and ethnic minorities’ language ideology, language management and language practice in different contexts in a multilingual world, and to show the latest research in the field of the family language policy. This review gives a brief examination of this collection, summarizes its main features and implications for the studies of family language policy in China.
2019 Vol. 4 (2): 90-96 [
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