1、Bilingualism for the Minor or the Major?An Evaluative Analysis of ParallelConceptions in ChinaAnwei FengSchool of Education, University of Durham, Durham, UKThis paper is an analysis of two conceptions of bilingualism that exist in parallel inChina. One is traditional bilingualism referring to the u
2、se of a native minoritylanguage and standard Chinese by minority groups and the other, seen asbilingualism with modern characteristics, is a modern-day phenomenon in whichthe majority Han group aspire to produce bilinguals with a strong competence inmother tongue Chinese and a foreign language, prim
3、arily English, by using Chineseand the foreign language as mediums of instruction in teaching school subjects. Thefocus of the analysis is on the latter for the simple reason that current literature onthe new phenomenon is mostly available only in Chinese. An equally important aimof this paper is to
4、 explore the impact of the new phenomenon on minority educationand to examine the reason why this impact is largely ignored in bilingualismdiscussions, despite obvious consequences with respect to ethnic identity, person-ality development and academic performance of minority students. Thus, thetradi
5、tional conception is briefly reviewed at the start.Keywords: additive bilingualism, favour policies, linguistic fusionism,minority education, partial immersion, superiorC1inferior mentalityIntroductionIn its history under the communist government since 1949, China hasengaged its 50 or so minority gr
6、oups in bilingual education with the officialaim of producing bilinguals with a strong competence in Putonghuaorstandard Chinese (Chinese spoken by the majority Han nationality) so thatthey can communicate with and assimilate into mainstream society andculture while at the same time maintaining thei
7、r indigenous languages andcultures. Bilingualism by this definition therefore has a long association withminority groups and bilingual education has undergone trials, hardships andrevival in response to the political realities of the country. To the Han majoritygroup that comprises about 92% of the
8、total population, however, bilingualismwas largely a remote notion1and it hardly, if ever, appeared in their literatureof education.In the last few years, this situation has drastically changed. Bilingualism iswidely seen as a useful tool by the Han majority for improving foreignlanguage education,
9、particularly English teaching, and for developing humanresources with both specialised knowledge and skills in foreign languages. Inthe whole country, particularly in major cities and special economic zones suchas Shenzhen, a school system is rapidly being developed in which English aswell as standa
10、rd Chinese are used as the languages of instruction. From1367-0050/05/06 529-23 $20.00/0 2005 A. FengThe International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Vol. 8, No. 6, 2005529kindergartens to tertiary institutions, bilingual education has become part ofthe everyday vocabulary not only
11、of educationists but also of ordinary people.Catalytic factors, such as Chinas firm belief in its open-door policy,membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001 and thesuccessful bid for the 2008 Olympic Games in the same year, have helped topromote bilingualism and to reshape Chinas educ
12、ation system as a whole.Although substantial literature exists in English on foreign language (primar-ily English) learning and teaching and on language policies in China (e.g.Adamson, 2001; Cortazzi Hu, 2002; Maley, 1995; Ross, 1993; Zhou,2004), the literature on the new phenomenon is for the most
13、part onlyaccessible in Chinese.For this reason, while this paper presents an analysis of the parallelconceptions of bilingualism, it puts an emphasis on the new trend, aiming toexamine the notion of bilingualism for the majority as conceptualised byeducationists and language scholars. The response f
14、rom the general public andimpacts on all stakeholders of education are also examined. Above all, basedon the evaluative analysis of the parallel conceptions, the paper discusses theinterrelationship of the seemingly separate phenomena, i.e. the impact of thisnew movement on minority education of the
15、 country.Bilingualism for the MinorityIn China, the Han nationality is the absolute dominant group comprisingabout 92% of the total population. The official language spoken by thismajority population is called Putonghua, Mandarin Chinese or standardChinese, which is based on the Beijing dialect. The
16、 standard Chinese that theHan people speak, therefore, may vary from one region to another. Thismajority Chinese-speaking population has further expanded in recent decadesto include about 30 million people from minority groups such as Hui andManchu nationalities who have gradually given up their own
17、 languages to useChinese as their first language. Nowadays, according to estimate, only about5C16% of Chinas population speak minority languages (Bao, 1995). However,this population still numbers about 60 million, forming 50 or so minoritygroups scattered in five autonomous regions and other provinc
18、es that covermore than half of the total area of the country and border on a dozen or soneighbouring countries. Minority education is clearly important for thegovernment as well as for these groups in terms of national unity andpolitical stability. Official education documents often state explicitly
19、 that themain purpose of minority education is to maintain political stability and unityof all nationalities.Bilingual education has had a long history for ethnic minorities in the fiveautonomous regions and other provinces. Some historians trace the notion ofbilingualism back to the 3rd century whe
20、n the country was united in the QinDynasty and the Han majority began to colonise remote areas of the country(Dai He, 1998; Ouyang Zhongguo Shaosu Minzu ShuangyuJiaoxue Yanjiuhui, 2002; Zhou, 2000, 2001). A review of the literature revealsthat while accomplishments in terms of policy, teaching metho
21、dology,textbook publication, and teacher training and levels of literacy are evident,particularly in statistical terms, there are still many challenges and barriers inbilingual schooling and research. There is a general consensus that favourablepolicies are important but in no way do they guarantee
22、the effectiveness ofbilingual education.Sociopolitically, for example, Article 19 of the 1982 Constitution states thatthe state promotes the nationwide use of Putonghua (standard Chinese), astatement which is elaborated in a decree issued recently by the centralgovernment (The Decree ., 2000). Stite
23、s (quoted in Lin, 1997: 197) commentsthat this provision provides the legal and ideological context of Chinasofficial stand on societal bilingualism. Standard Chinese is thus reserved forformal and official transactions, while ethnic minority languages are at bestused only in informal domains. Comme
24、ntators such as Lin (1997) argue that,as standard Chinese is the avenue to economic opportunities and socialacceptance, minority children are bound to be disadvantaged socioeconomic-ally if they do not master the majority language.In the last two decades, policies and official publications have plac
25、ed a highpremium on the notion of Min-Han Jiantong, literally master of both the homelanguage and standard Chinese, as the ultimate goal of bilingual education forEvaluative Analysis of Parallel Conceptions in China 531minority groups. For example, Zhuang-Han Jiantong (Master of Zhuanglanguage and s
26、tandard Chinese) is stipulated in regional policy documents asthe final aim for the largest minority group in China (Zhuang nationality inGuangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region), Zang-Han Jiantong for the Tibetansand Yi-Han Jiantong for the Yi nationality in Sichuang (Dai Hoffmann, 1989; Paulston, 1992).
27、This is obviously the case with manyminority students, particularly those living in autonomous regions in China.It becomes apparent that, in bilingual education, it will be detrimental tominority children if the notion of Min-Han Jiantong is applied as a top-downpolicy to all situations.A major crit
28、icism of the notion results from the lack of effective bilingualpolicies and curricula to support it. Based on both a literature review and theirempirical work, Ma and Xiao (2002a, 2002b) argue that there is enoughevidence to show that minority children often suffer from cultural disconti-nuities an
29、d thus a fear of learning standard Chinese as a result ofinappropriate bilingual planning. National textbooks in standard Chinesecontain literature on the Han culture of course. While grammar of thelanguage may be acquired through instruction, its cultural meaning isarguably more problematic. Minori
30、ty children transferring from learning in532 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualismtheir home language to subject learning in Chinese often feel that they arereading Tianshu (heavenly books). Many children drop out of school at anearly age particularly when this Tianshu ef
31、fect is coupled with minorityeducators tendency to label minority children as slow learners with low IQor blame minority groups for their traditionally isolated cultures that tend toreject anything alien including the Han culture (Qian, 2002; Zhang, 1999). Maand Xiao maintain that it is the inapprop
32、riate policies, curricula and negativeattitudes that are the true barriers and challenges in bilingual education forminority groups. They further argue that measures should be taken to adaptthe content of learning materials so as to ease the negative impact on learnersduring transition as irrational
33、ly imposing Han language and culture onminority children is detrimental to their cognitive development.What is presented by the critics of minority education here is clearly a caseof what Cummins (1996, 2000) calls the coercive relations of power, i.e. theexercise of power of a dominant group to the
34、 detriment of a subordinategroup. The society dominated by a powerful group tends to blame thevictims for their genetic inferiority instead of seeking for the true cause of theschool failure of subordinate group children (Cummins, 1996). In an earlierdiscussion, Cummins (1986) also argues that a min
35、ority child may becomeacademically disabled if the language and culture of the child are excluded,minimised or quickly reduced in school. The cultural discontinuities and theTianshu effect identified in Ma and Xiaos (2002a, 2002b) study reflectprecisely the cause (exclusion of the minority language
36、and culture) and theeffect (academic disability of the minority child) as argued by Cummins.Educators such as Lin (1996, 1997) talk in terms of the great-Han mentality.People with this mindset perceive minority groups as primitive, intellectuallyunderdeveloped, economically dependent and thus covert
37、ly or overtlymarginalise them. In education, this mindset is often reflected in exclusionaryand assimilationist orientations which aim to make minority students invisibleand inaudible or overlook them (Cummins, 2000: 45C152). This approach issometimes evident in official documents. A recent Ministry
38、 of EducationCircular on Hanyu Shuipin Kaoshi (HSK, the Chinese proficiency test) used forminority students (Jiaoyubu ., 2002) admits openly that these HSK tests are infact intended for foreigners learning Chinese. They overlook the experience ofminority students and therefore new tests have yet to
39、be designed. In an articlethat appears in the official flagship newspaper for education, ZhongguoJiaoyubao (2003), the author, a senior scholar cum policy maker, explicitlyclaims that the mainstream language in bilingual education in minorityregions must be the Han Chinese.The great-Han mentality is
40、 also reflected directly or indirectly in localeducational policymaking and practice. Despite the fact that the language ofminority students is officially encouraged in bilingual education in minorityregions, Jiayang (1999) reports that in some schools and regions head-teachersand leaders openly exp
41、ress their dislike of the Tibetan language and argue,regardless of circumstances, against adopting a truly bilingual model ofbilingual education which allows the use of the minority language as themedium of instruction. In discussing bilingual education in Yi -dominatedregions, Shen and Luo (2001) p
42、oint out that measures such as translatingEvaluative Analysis of Parallel Conceptions in China 533Chinese science textbooks and nationwide exam papers into the Yi languageare clearly effective in facilitating their academic study and exam results.Nevertheless, once they enter a tertiary institution
43、their mother tongue has nomore role to play and they are forced to study all subjects in Chinese. Manysimply cannot cope and lag behind. As a result, the enrolment of Yi bilingualschools keeps dropping year after year. Many so-called bilingual schools infact adopt a Chinese-only approach similar to
44、that of the structured immersionprogrammes in the USA (Brisk, 1998) in which school subjects are taught in themajority language to a homogeneous group of minority children with littlenative language support (August Zhou,2001). Nevertheless, in most other regions, insufficient societal effort indevel
45、oping learning and teaching materials for minority students andteachers, limited job opportunities locally and the difficulties minoritygraduates face in the larger job market often hamper the development ofstrong forms of bilingual education. For these reasons, Bao (1995) and Lin(1997) note that in
46、 minority regions it is common that parents, including localgovernment officials, have become increasingly reluctant to send their childrento minority schools where the minority language is used as a medium ofinstruction.534 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and BilingualismBilinguali
47、sm for the MajorityThe notion of bilingualism seems to have grown a pair of wings in the lastfew years and flown from the territory of minority education to capture theattention of an entirely different group of people, this time the majority Hanpeople, particularly those living in political and eco
48、nomic centres such as bigcities, coastal areas and special economic zones. The bilinguals desired are notthe Min-Han Jiantong individuals as described before but people who arecompetent in a foreign language, primarily English, as well as mother tongueChinese. The purposes of the two kinds of biling
49、ual education are thereforequite different. Linguistically, the former can be said to develop in minoritystudents a strong competence in the majority language, namely standardChinese, while maintaining the mother tongue language and the latter toimprove foreign language competence and particularly the English learningexperience of the majority. Sociopolitically, the purpose of the former is, asdiscussed before, to create a bicultural identity (minority cultural identity andpolitical or citizenship allegiance to the state) whereas the latter is no
