Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia the Impact of Globalization Processes on Language

Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia

Advances in Sociolinguistics Series Editors: Professor Sally Johnson, Professor of Linguistics, University of Leeds, UK Dr Tommaso M. Milani, Senior Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Since the emergence of sociolinguistics as a new field of enquiry in the late 1960s, research into the relationship between language and society has advanced almost beyond recognition. In particular, the past decade has witnessed the considerable influence of theories drawn from outside of sociolinguistics itself. Thus rather than see language as a mere reflection of society, recent work has been increasingly inspired by ideas drawn from social, cultural, and political theory that have emphasised the constitutive role played by language/discourse in all areas of social life. The Advances in Sociolinguistics series seeks to provide a snapshot of the current diversity of the field of sociolinguistics and the blurring of the boundaries between sociolinguistics and other domains of study concerned with the role of language in society. Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defence of Languages Edited by Alexandre Duchne and Monica Heller Linguistic Minorities and Modernity, 2nd Edition: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography Monica Heller Language, Culture and Identity: An Ethnolinguistic Perspective Philip Riley Language Ideologies and Media Discourse: Texts, Practices, Politics Edited by Sally Johnson and Tommaso M. Milani Language in the Media: Representations, Identities, Ideologies Edited by Sally Johnson and Astrid Ensslin Language and Power: An Introduction to Institutional Discourse Andrea Mayr Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship Edited by Guus Extra, Massimiliano Spotti and Piet Van Avermaet Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space Edited by Adam Jaworski and Crispin Thurlow The Languages of Global Hip Hop Edited by Marina Terkourafi The Language of Newspapers: Socio-Historical Perspectives Martin Conboy The Languages of Urban Africa Edited by Fiona Mc Laughlin

Globalization of Language and Culture in AsiaThe Impact of Globalization Processes on Language

Edited by Viniti Vaish

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com Viniti Vaish and contributors 2010 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. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-8470-6183-6 (Hardback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

Contents

Notes on Contributors 1. 2. 3. Introduction: Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia Viniti Vaish Global Mandarin Goh Yeng Seng and Lim Seok Lai Muslim Education and Globalization: The Re-(de)positioning of Languages and Curriculum Content in Southeast Asia Saeda Buang Language Idealism and Realism in Globalization: Exploring Homogeneity Beliefs in Japan Masakazu Iino Linguistic Capital, Study Mothers and the Transnational Family in Singapore Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew Globalization and English Teaching in Sri Lanka: Foreign Resources and Local Responses Kaushalya Perera and Suresh Canagarajah Pedagogy, Culture and Globalization in India Viniti Vaish Flows of Technology: Mandarin in Cyberspace Shouhui Zhao Globalization and South Koreas EPIK (English Program in Korea) Mihyon Jeon

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4.

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5.

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106 120 139

7. 8. 9.

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10. Globalization and Language-in-Education Policy Shift in Malaysia: Challenges of Implementation Saran Kaur Gill, Radha M. K. Nambiar, Noraini Ibrahim and Tan Kim Hua

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Contents

11.

Globalization: Medium-of-Instruction Policy, Indigenous Educational Systems and ELT in Sri Lanka Indika Liyanage Index

206 231

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Notes on Contributors

Saeda Buang, a senior lecturer at the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group, was the guest co-editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education Special Issue: Muslim Education Challenges, Opportunities and Beyond in 2007. She has written articles and chapters for refereed journals and books, respectively, on the madrasah or madrasahrelated issues. Suresh Canagarajah is Kirby Professor in Language Learning at Pennsylvania State University. He teaches courses in World Englishes, ethnography and academic discourse. He is the author of Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching (OUP, 1999), Geopolitics of Academic Writing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002) and Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students (University of Michigan Press, 2002). Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew is Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. She has published widely in the areas of education and linguistics, comparative religion and womens studies, her latest book being Emergent Lingua Francas: The Politics and Place of English as a World Language (New York: Routledge, 2009). She is also active in civic life and sits on the board of several NGOs both in Singapore and abroad. Saran Kaur Gill is Professor of Sociolinguistics in Multi-Ethnic Nations, at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, FSSK, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She researches and publishes in the area of language policy and planning with a focus on managing ethnic, national and global identities. She is also Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Industry and Community Partnerships). Goh Yeng Seng is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group (Chinese) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He received his B.A. in Chinese language and literature from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the School of Oriental vii


and African Studies, University of London. His teaching and research interests have been concerned primarily with phonological theory, Chinese linguistics, Chinese lexicography, teaching Chinese as a second language, global Mandarin and varieties of Mandarin, bilingualism and multilingual societies, contrastive linguistics and translation studies, Chinese-English language policies and language education, and Chinese diaspora. Tan Kim Hua is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, FSSK, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her research interests are in the area of technology-enhanced language studies, corpus informed studies and e-lexicography. Noraini Ibrahim is Head, Unit of Foreign Languages and Translation, School of Language Studies and Linguistics, FSSK, UKM. Her main areas of interest and research are forensic linguistics, institutional discourse, ESP and CLIL. Masakazu Iino is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his research interests include language planning and language policy, and intercultural communication. Mihyon Jeon is an assistant professor at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University, Toronto. Her research interests include diaspora and language issues, global English, and language education program and policy. Lim Seok Lai is currently a Lecturer with the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group (Chinese) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, where she received her Diploma in Education, B.A. and M.A. in Chinese language and literature. Her research interests are in the fields of CL2 acquisition, CL2 curriculum design and the development of online teaching materials for CL2 learners. Indika Liyanage is a senior lecturer in applied linguistics & TESOL in the Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Australia where he researches and trains ESL teachers. He also works as an international consultant on TESOL in the Pacific.

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Radha M. K. Nambiar is an Associate Professor with the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, FSSK, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her research interests include the area of academic literacies, learning strategies and language acquisition. She is especially interested in understanding how learners learn and what can be done to make learning more efficient and effective. Kaushalya Perera is a Lecturer at the English Language Teaching Unit, University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka. She has a B.A. in English Literature and Language, and an M.A. in Linguistics. Her research interests are in language planning and policy and reading in a second language. Viniti Vaish is Assistant Professor at Singapores National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University where she is affiliated with the Centre for Pedagogy and Practice and the English Language and Literature Department. She has published in World Englishes, Linguistics and Education, Language Policy and numerous other journals. Shouhui Zhao is professional language teacher. He has taught Chinese language and culture at seven universities and in five countries for the past 22 years. His recent work was published by Springer (2008) and Cengage Learning (2010) and his papers appear in Current Issues in Language Planning, Language Policy, Asia-Pacific Education Researcher and Pedagogies: An International Journal and many other journals.

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1

Introduction: Globalization of Language and Culture in AsiaViniti Vaish

It is serendipitous that a book about globalization is being edited by someone working in Singapore which is, quite simply, the most globalized country in the world. This book began with my hunch that despite the homogenizing effects of globalization, Asia shows some unique aspects of language and culture which have not been given adequate air time in applied linguistics journals. When I received chapters from my contributors, who are all bilingual insiders conducting research in Asian countries, I realized that, indeed, there was some basis for my hunch. The fact that books on globalization (see Rubdy, 2008) invariably organize themselves around countries signals that the most important aspect of the juggernaut of globalization is its local avatars. This book presents chapters from India, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Korea. In keeping with the animal metaphors favoured by economists, these countries include lumbering elephants like India and China, and the fast paced tigers of South East Asia. In addition there are chapters on Mandarin and Arabic, which are languages of immense cultural and spiritual capital, and, in the case of Arabic, not country specific. Other Asian countries, like Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia are not represented, which is a shortcoming of this book. Is globalization, then, the process of homogenization, regionalization or syncretism? How can globalization be measured in the social sciences, especially in Applied Linguistics? Most importantly what are the unique aspects of globalization in Asia? Are you, as a reader, for or against globalization? And finally, what is the contribution of Applied Linguistics to a topic which is dominated by the disciplines of economics, sociology and anthropology? In this extended essay I explore answers or, as the case may be, non-answers, to these questions while at the same time introducing the ensuing chapters and indicating how the chapters contribute to our understanding of this topic. 1


Defining the nature of globalizationThe economist Bhagwati (2004) takes a position in his book In Defense of Globalization, a position that is shared by Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen (2004). I will discuss this stance in the section titled are you for or against globalization. Suffice it here to state Bhagwatis definition: Economic globalization constitutes integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, direct foreign investment (by corporations and multinationals), short term capital flows, international flows of workers and humanity generally, and flows of technology . . . (2004, p. 3). Bhagwati uses the word flows in his definition which is also used by the cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (1996) in his definition of the term globalization. The significance of flows lies in its directionality: globalization is not a linear process from West to East; the flow can be any direction. Cultural anthropologist Pieterse (2004) defines globalization as an objective empirical process of increasing economic and political connectivity, a subjective process unfolding in the consciousness as the collective awareness of growing global interconnectedness, and a host of specific globalizing projects that seek to shape global conditions (p. 17). An interesting aspect of this definition is that globalization is defined as both an empirical and a non-empirical process. Economic connectivity can be measured on the basis of the amount of remittances that migrant workers send back to the home country, and the amount of money that is traded in a 24-hour period on stock exchanges. However, awareness of . . . global interconnectedness is hard to measure and I will come back to this issue in the section on the methodologies for researching globalization. In his book on the cultural aspects of globalization, Pieterse (2004), somewhat simplistically, clusters the vast literature on this sub topic into three distinct paradigms. The first is the paradigm of cultural differentialism, which separates the world into civilizational units in conflict with each other, and for which Samuel Huntington (1996) has been severely critiqued. In Pieterses (2004) critique Huntingtons theory is a crude rendition of civilizational difference which spreads fear in the West by highlighting the threat of two main forces: Islam and the yellow peril of the Chinese. The second paradigm is based on the sociologist Ritzers (2008) theory of McDonaldization which refers to the homogenization of the world in terms of fashion, eating habits, housing styles, lifestyles, etc. This is problematic not only because it is Americacentric instead of polycentric, but, more importantly, because it denies agency to those being globalized. The third paradigm, which Pieterse (2004) promotes, is that of hybridity or global melange, which, in a 2

Introduction

moment of extreme simplicity, he defines as the synthesis that acts as the solvent between these polar perspectives (p. 57). Appadurais (1996) definition is that globalization is the flow of ideas, images, people, technology and money which can be both centrifugal and centripetal and, most importantly, highly unpredictable. For instance the idea of nationalism and the concept of India as an independent nation state were imbibed by freedom fighters in India like Rabindranath Tagore and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi because of their experience of studying in and through English. This is an illustration of ideas and images flowing from the West to South Asia. When Gandhi formulated his ideas of organized non-violence, symbolized in the powerful image of a half-naked wiry man striding forward with a staff, and this was embraced by Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr, it was a flow of ideas and images flowing back to the West from South Asia. Today the anti-globalization movement has taken the idea of organized non-violence from M. K. Gandhi (Sklair, 2006) which is another illustration of the flow of ideas from South Asia to the West and beyond. In Applied Linguistics Ritzers idea of Mcdonaldization manifests itself as linguistic imperialism and the spread of global English. This is linked with its own anti-globalization movement of linguistic human rights in which English and the processes of cultural globalization are seen as eroding indigenous languages and cultures. These positions are well documented, as are their critiques, thus I do not plan to discuss them here except to make the link between Applied Linguistics and globalization literature. (For a succinct statement on these positions and their critiques see Pennycook, 2006). The central concerns of applied linguists vis a vis globalization are the increasing use of English as medium of instruction in national school systems and the spread of global English with the concomitant loss of indigenous languages and cultures (though it has never been conclusively proven that the rise of English and the loss of mother tongues are in a cause and effect relationship). In this book the chapters by Viniti Vaish and Saran Kaur Gill et al. explore English as one media in dual medium education in India and Malaysia respectively. Whereas Saran Kaur Gill et al. emphasize the challenges facing Malaysias national school system due to this language in education policy, Viniti Vaish emphasizes that globalization is increasing access to the linguistic capital of English for the urban disadvantaged in India. Mihyon Jeons chapter on the English Program in Korea situates Korea in a postcolonial theoretical framework. The author thinks that Korea is hegemonized under American neo-liberal policies and that Korea is an illustration of the spread of global English in East Asia. Though Viniti Vaish finds 3


postcolonial theory impoverished and outdated for discussing English Language Teaching (ELT) in India, Mihyon Jeon finds it a good fit for ELT in Korea.

The measurement of globalizationEconomists and political scientists have well placed quantified measures of this phenomenon. For instance the annual A. T. Kearney/ FOREIGN POLICY Globalization Index ranks 62 countries. The rankings are based on four dimensions: economic integration, personal contact, technological connectivity and political engagement. The methodology and data sources for these rankings are available online (www. ForeignPolicy.com; www.ATKearney.com). What is interesting is that Singapore, the tiny tiger of Asia, has consistently come out number 1 in this prestigious index in both 2006 and 2005. The other Asian countries in the top 30 are Malaysia, which ranked 19 in 2006, Japan which ranked 28 and South Korea which ranked 29. Philippines lost the 30th position to Romania and was ranked 31. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India are at the bottom of this list of 62, though, in the inexorable march to globalization, they have done better than countries which did not make it to the list at all. Census results, or sociolinguistic surveys, which have been used in the past to measure language loss and shift, are still a good measure of globalization. They can provide figures for the spread of English and the loss of mother tongues, though, as I pointed out earlier, these phenomena cannot be presumed to be in a cause and effect relationship. Census results can also provide valuable information on how family structure is changing due to high levels of mobility amongst people, which, according to Giddens (2002) is an important indicator of globalization. These quantitative measures have always been available to researchers; however, such measures tend to document change only after it has become substantial so that large-scale surveys can pick it up with significant effect sizes. On the other hand, small scale in-depth studies, like the one presented by Phyllis Chew in this book, about study-mothers in Singapore, are a powerful method of exploring changes due to globalization that are discernable in family structure. There remain enormous knowledge gaps in the methodology for measuring globalization especially in Applied Linguistics. Quantitatively we still do not have a reliable gauge for the languages in which users access the World Wide Web. This measurement is imperative because the new frontier for the spread of languages is not the national boundary but cyberspace. In a chapter aptly titled Flows of technology Shouhui Zhang explores technological challenges in using Mandarin 4

Introduction

on the computer. Due to socio-political differences between hanzi using countries, like China, Japan, Taiwan, etc., there is, as yet, no standardized form for Chinese characters on the computer. Though there is great attention paid to English in globalization studies, other languages which are proliferating rapidly, like Mandarin and Arabic, have been ignored, a gap that this book tries to bridge. There is a need for ethnographies, cases, area-studies and observations of globalization with a focus on how languages and cultures are affected in communities by the inflow and outflow of people, images, ideas, technology and money. Blommaert (2003) calls for more ethnographic studies which are sensitive to the scale and speed with which linguistic variation and language shift takes place. Thus there needs to be a paradigm shift in looking at the ethnography not as the study of small things but as illustrations of global trends in language. However, most measures or indicators of globalization privilege a quantitative approach. For instance the sociologist Guillen (2001) measures globalization from 1980 till 1998 on the basis of 4 indicators: economic, financial, social & political, and bibliographical. For each of these indicators the author offers a quantitative figure. Quantitative figures, for instance those which measure the growing numbers of tourists and migrants, are woefully inadequate for measuring the cultural and linguistic aspects of globalization.

Globalization in AsiaWe now turn to the heart of the matter: what exactly are the unique aspects of globalization in Asia that sets this part of globe apart from the rest of our world? The first, I think, is the resilient and strong nationstate model. Secondly there are challengers to global English like Mandarin, Hindi and Arabic not only in the number of speakers but also in the cultural and spiritual capital that is associated with these languages. Thirdly, aspects of Asian culture like Bollywood and Japanese anime are spreading across the globe with consequences in the way that Asians perform identity. And finally the Western economic model of unbridled, unregulated capitalism is under serious attack due to the global financial crisis of 2008 which is making the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998 look like a ripple compared to a tsunami. The processes of globalization are supposed to weaken the state and Appadurai is convinced that the nation-state, as a complex modern political form, is on its last legs (1996, p. 19). Even in his later work, Appadurai (2001) insists that I am among those analysts who are inclined to see globalization as a definite marker of a new crisis for the sovereignty of nation-states (p. 4). However, countries like Singapore and Malaysia, both of which get a high rank in the A. T. Kearney 5


Globalization index, are reputed to have a strong state with tight regulations in most sectors including the economy and mass media. These highly globalized Asian countries have put paid to Appadurais view. Singapore and Malaysia are environments of dirigisme where governments exercise considerable control on the economy, mass media, education and language planning. According to Gopinathan (2008) the East Asian developmental state is still the model that Singapore follows, as do the countries of Taiwan, South Korea and Hongkong, in which the state governs the market instead of being governed by it. Singapore has also aligned itself to the view that the neo-Confucian ideology is a sensible alternative framework for socio-economic and political organization (Gopinathan, 2007, p. 59), which is an ideology in which discipline and hierarchy play a key role in peoples behaviour towards the state. Goh Yeng Seng and Lim Seok Lai in this book raise awareness about the increasing numbers of Mandarin learners in the United States of America. Though the number of Mandarin speakers in the world outnumber native English speakers (as do the number of Hindi speakers ) they point out that Mandarin may not be considered global because the bulk of Mandarin speakers live in and not out of China. However, the impact of the large number of Mandarin speakers can be seen on language use on the internet, which has led Dor (2004) to speculate that in future English will be surpassed by other languages on the internet. I surmise that as languages like Arabic, Mandarin and Hindi become more computerfriendly, there will be an increasing number of users who google, game and blog in these languages rather than English. Saeda Buang in her chapter in this book explores the religious importance of Arabic in South East Asia, a topic rarely seen in Applied Linguistics journals. Through primary and secondary research she documents that though English and Malay have changed their roles, Arabic has held its status as the language of immense spiritual capital for Muslim people. In addition its domains are expanding as it becomes the language in which business is done with the Middle East. A similar claim for the entrenchment and preservation of Arabic is documented ethnographically by Rosowsky (2006). In this study of a South Asian Muslim community in the UK, the spoken language at home is Mirpuri Punjabi, with English and Urdu as languages of literacy. Arabic is the language of liturgical literacy being acquired in mosques by adults and children. In this community language attitudes favour the learning of Arabic over that of learning Mirpuri Punjabi or Urdu thus affirming the importance of Arabic and religion. That English is a world language because of its econocultural properties and the agentive acceptance of the colonies (Brutt-Griffler, 2002) is yet another triumphalist view. The term econocultural for English is problematic: I do not see that that world economy is linked via English. 6

Introduction

What about the Chinese, German and Japanese economies? Are these linked via English? And I do not believe that there is such a thing as world culture. The gaze in applied linguistics and related fields needs to shift from English to new ideas like the increasing numbers of Mandarin learners, how Arabic unites Islamic peoples as a global language and the entrenched nature of Hindi in India despite the fact that English is its co-official partner. Though the spread of English is written about ad nauseum, the entrenched nature of Hindi and its resistance to the spread of global English despite a rapidly globalizing India has gone unnoticed. A look at the figures for Hindi in the census of India from 1971 till 2001 shows that the number of Hindi speakers is rising at an average of about 25 per cent every decade. There are currently about 422 million Hindi speakers and if the trend continues this number will surpass the half a billion mark by 2011. The decadal increase in Hindi speakers existed before India started globalizing in 1991 and is continuing, thus showing that globalization has not affected India with the penetration of English as it has in certain other parts of the world. One of the reasons for this is that globalization is about multinationals penetrating large local markets through local languages, a strategy that supports additive bilingualism (Vaish, forthcoming). Quite simply, if the COKE Company advertises in English in India it will reach 2 per cent of one billion people; if it advertises in Hindi, nearly half a billion. A similar sociolinguistic situation exists in Japan. Masakazu Iino in his chapter in this book documents two phenomenon happening simultaneously. The first is the spread of English in elementary schools as a compulsory subject even though English is not really used by the Japanese for communicative purposes. The other is the teaching of Japanese to inbound immigrants and their children who are increasing in number and are being encouraged to become the residents of Japan, an immigration policy which is resulting in a disturbing rise in national pride. Thus the examples of India and Japan show the entrenchment of languages despite, or because of, globalization. Cultural globalization has numerous nodes in Asia like Bollywood movies made in Mumbai, the Japanese anime cartoons and Kung Fu movies made in Hong Kong which are subtitled in as many as 17 languages and distributed to specific diasporas. These cultural spaces, which are dominated by languages like Hindi, Japanese and Mandarin, ignore and challenge the spread of English. Vaish (2007) has shown how Chinese and Indian children in Singapore are networked into the pan-Chinese and pan-Indian culture through their engagement with Canto-pop music and Tamil movies respectively. She thus empirically challenges the idea that Asian youth are passive victims 7


of cultural globalization, or what Brutt-Griffler (2002) calls world culture that emanates from the West. Finally, we come to the global financial crisis of 2008 which has upstaged the Asian financial crisis of 19971998. It is not my area of expertise or the purpose of this introduction to give an economic interpretation of these crises. More importantly, having lived in Singapore through both these crises, I want to point to some cultural impressions of the same. In 19971998 the International Herald Tribune and the Economist magazine carried numerous articles which berated the crony capitalism of East Asian countries and held it responsible for the near collapse of countries like Indonesia. There was a sense that the Western capitalist model had been imperfectly supplanted in East Asia, thus resulting in the crisis. The global financial crisis of 2008 has, ironically, made Asian economies look better, though they are by no means totally unaffected by the crisis. However, the protectionist policies of governments in developmental states, which earlier were berated as part of a patriarchal neo-confucianist system, are now considered sensible as they have prevented banks from collapsing. Once again the gaze is on Asia, this time on nationalized banks and businesses, which are part of a patriarchal culture in which the government controls the market. Now the unbridled market capitalism of the West and the mythical selfcorrecting nature of this market are under attack.

Are you for or against globalization?If there was a debate in which the motion was: this house believes that globalization is a benign process which can benefit both rich and poor countries, would you be for or against? In academia this seems a trite question to ask as academics are above taking positions. However globalization is one topic that makes many scholars take a stance and argue from their point of view. Scholars are divided between those who see globalization as a benign process (Bhagwati, 2004; Sen, 2004; Friedman, 2005) and those who see globalization as a process that will harm the environment and deepen the existing divide between the rich and the poor, the technologized and non-technologized (Shiva, 2004; Sklair, 2006). Sen (2004) persuades that globalization is not particularly Western and it is not a process that makes the poor poorer. He gives numerous examples from history to show how ideas from the East spread to the West through trade, travel and migration, like the decimal system which was developed in India between the second and sixth centuries and was carried to the West by Arab traders. Bhagwati (2004) substantiates Sens contention that the poor do not become further disenfranchised 8

Introduction

because of the processes of globalization, and attempts to prove that globalization can benefit all social classes if it is managed. For both these economists market capitalism must go hand in hand with public policies in education, land reform, microcredit facilities and appropriate legal protection for labour. Thus the real issue is the equitable distribution of globalizations benefits through appropriate public policy. Both these economists are well aware of the shortcomings of globalization. Bhagwati writes that A dramatic example of mismanagement of globalization . . . is the imprudent and hasty freeing of capital flows that surely helped to precipitate the Asian financial and economic crisis starting in 1997 (p. 35). Thus he asserts that globalization must be managed so that its fundamentally benign effects are ensured and reinforced (Bhagwati, 2004, p. 35). My own work on globalization and English language education in India draws extensively on the work of Bhagwati and Sen (Vaish, 2008). I find that a postcolonial doom and gloom view of English in India is not productive because there is high demand for this product from the disadvantaged who should be given equitable access to this linguistic capital. The reason for this demand is the burgeoning of new employment sectors, like call centres, which employ English-knowing bilinguals. The government school system is rising to meet this challenge and my book, Vaish (2008), is the story of one such school. At the same time I acknowledge that these changes in India are not across the board and large parts of rural India are not seeing the effects of globalization. In his research on Bangladesh Bruthiaux (2002) rightly comments that English language education is of no use for the poorest of the poor because they do not have access to the global economy. Yet, globalization can bring new employment opportunity to the disadvantaged and when coupled with appropriate public policy, in this case a dualmedium language in education policy, it can create what Friedman (2005) calls a level-playing field or a flat world. My concern is not that English spreads, and neither is it, I think, the concern of most Asians. My concern is that English has been spreading along class lines. Opponents of globalization are not convinced. In a polemical essay on the environment Shiva (2004) argues that Globalization is not the cross-cultural interaction of diverse societies. It is the imposition of a particular culture on all others . . . It is the predation of one class, one race, and often one gender of a single species on all others (p. 422). Though his tone is more neutral Guillen (2001) agrees that Globalization . . . is also an ideology which is loosely associated with neoliberalism and with technocratic solutions to economic development (p. 236). Shivas negative view of global institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is echoed by Kushalya Parera and 9


Suresh Canagarajah in their chapter on Sri Lanka in this book. Their perspective, which is similar to the postcolonial stance taken by Indika Liyanage in his chapter, is that the educational policies of the World Bank in Sri Lanka privilege English-speaking countries and disenfranchise indigenous languages and educational practices of Sri Lanka.

Globalization and Applied LinguisticsApplied Linguistics does not have a strong voice on the topic of globalization which is dominated by economists, sociologists and anthropologists. In measuring globalization through bibliographic indicators Guillen (2001) records the annual entries in sociological abstracts, economics literature, politics & international relations, historical abstracts, anthropological literature and books in print. He completely bypasses abstracts in applied linguistics though he acknowledges that the alleged rise of a global culture has to do with whether or not a global language is emerging (p. 254). And to substantiate his claim that there is no global language as yet, he quotes Mazlish (1993), who is a historian!. Similarly Appadurai (1996) in his interdisciplinary book on globalization references historians, literary critics and economists but does not even mention language and does not reference a single applied linguist. Bruthiaux (2008), in a trenchant review of papers published between 2001 and 2004 in applied linguistics journals regarding globalization, finds that applied linguists are not interdisciplinary in their research and rarely reference economists. They tend to have a negative view of globalizations linguistic and a positive view of its cultural consequences. Though they use the word as a keyword in their papers they do not grapple with its definitional and ideological nuances. As Blommaert (2003) rightly points out, when sociolinguistics attempts to address globalization, it will need new theory (p. 607) and this theory has yet to emerge. Specifically the new theory will have to re-examine traditional concepts like that of the homogeneous speech community because mobility of people has thrown speech communities into disarray. All these reasons contribute to other disciplines not looking at applied linguistics for direction in research on globalization. My own concern is that the enormous influence of postcolonial theory makes applied linguists unable to differentiate between colonialism and globalization though they are always ready to report similarities. For instance Kumaravadivelu (2006) calls the two twins implying that they not only look the same but also have the same ominous origins. He comments that the projects of globalization and empire have always been intricately interconnected (p. 3). Though certain geographical locations in the world could definitely provide a case for the continuity 10

Introduction

between the processes of colonization and globalization, the differences are not so well emphasized. For instance the centreperiphery dichotomy prevalent in postcolonial studies is not sustainable in an era of globalization. Also, the perception of youth about English as a colonial imposition in the postcolony is very different from that of theorists. And finally, the doom and gloom postcolonials do not take into account the view of those economists, journalists and applied linguists who are more upbeat about globalization.

ConclusionOn 31 January 2009 the title of the BBC show Newsnight was globalization in retreat. The program showed Joseph Stiglitz, the famous economist, saying that though Americans hate the n word, there will be a move to nationalize American banks. The anchor went on to comment that this was one of the steps of deglobalization taking place due to the world financial crisis of 2008. What the effect of deglobalization will be on language and culture remains to be seen. Before I close, a few words about the contradictions between the stances and/or theoretical foci of the contributors and their styles are in order. The chapters bring diverse perspectives to globalization: some authors see it as a benign process, others as the ideology of neo-colonialism. There are postcolonial theory buffs here and those who find this theory dated. Many of the chapters do not conform to the strait-jacket of sub-headings imposed on us by journals: methodology, data-collection, discussion, etc. I have not insisted on this as I want to privilege national scholars who might not, as yet, have started on the treadmill of producing text for journals. Thus the book promises theoretical promiscuity, contradictory views of globalization, and unpredictable styles.

ReferencesAppadurai, A. (1996), Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (2001), Grassroots globalization and the research imagination, in A. Appadurai (ed.), Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 119. Bhagwati, J. (2004), Defense of Globalization. Oxford: OUP. Blommaert, J. (2003), Commentary: a sociolinguistics of globalization, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7 (4), 607623. Bruthiaux, P. (2002), Hold your courses: language education, language choice, and economic development, TESOL Quarterly, 36 (3), 275296. (2008), Dimensions of globalization and applied linguistics, in P. K. W. Tan and R. Rubdy (eds), Language as Commodity: Global Structures, Local Marketplaces. London: Continuum, pp. 1730.

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Brutt-Grifer, J. (2002), World English: A Study of Its Development. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Dor, D. (2004), From Englishization to imposed multilingualism: globalization, the internet, and the political economy of the linguistic code, Public Culture, 16, 97118. Friedman, T. (2005), The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century. London: Allen Lane. Giddens, A. (2002), Runaway World: How Globalisation is Reshaping our Lives. UK: Prole Books. Gopinathan, S. (2007), Globalisation, the Singapore developmental state and education policy: a thesis revisited, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 5 (1), 5370. Guillen, M. F. (2001), Is globalization civilizing, destructive or feeble? A critique of ve key debates in the social science literature, Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 23520. Huntington, S. P. (1996), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006), Dangerous liaison: globalization, empire and TESOL, in J. Edge (ed.), (Re) locating TESOL in an Age of Empire. UK: Palgrave, pp. 127. Mazlish, B. (1993), An introduction to global history, in B. Mazlish and R. Buultjens (eds), Conceptualizing Global History, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 124. Pennycook, A. (2006), Postmodernism in Language Policy, in T. Ricento (ed.), Language Policy: Theory and Method. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 6076. Pieterse, N. (2004), Globalization & Culture: Global Melange. Oxford: Rowman & Littleeld Publishers, Inc. Ritzer, G. (2008), The Mcdonaldization of Society 5. Los Angeles, CA: Pine Forge Press. Rosowsky, A. (2006), The role of liturgical literacy in UK Muslim communities, in T. Omoniyi and J. A. Fishman (eds), Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 309325. Rubdy, R. (2008), English in India: the privilege and privileging of social class, in P. K. W. Tan and R. Rubdy (eds), Language as Commodity: Global Structures, Local Marketplaces. London: Continuum, pp. 122145. Sen, A. (2004), How to judge globalism, in F. J. Lechner, and J. Boli (eds), The Globalization Reader. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1622. Shiva, V. (2004), Ecological balance in an era of globalization, in F. J. Lechnerand J. Boli (eds), The Globalization Reader. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 422430. Sklair, L. (2006), Capitalist globalization and the anti-globalization movement, in S. Dasgupta and R. Kiely (eds), Globalization and After. London: Sage, pp. 293319.

12

Introduction

Vaish, V. (2007), Globalization of language and culture in Singapore, International Journal of Multilingualism, 4 (3), 217234. (2008), Biliteracy and Globalization: English Language Education in India. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. (forthcoming), Globalization and multilingualism: text types in the linguistic ecology of Delhi, in Applied Linguistics.

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2

Global MandarinGoh Yeng Seng and Lim Seok Lai

Chapter summary Due to the emergence of China as an economic powerhouse, Mandarin, as the officially recognized standard language of mainland China and Taiwan, and the lingua franca of the overseas educated Chinese diaspora, is widely believed to be the most likely candidate among the worlds languages to attain the status of a language second only to English. This chapter explores the following issues: 1. defining the global status of a language, 2. the impact of Chinas resurgence, 3. the global spread of Mandarin, 4. the current status of Mandarin, 5. defining Mandarin: problems of nomenclature, 6. barriers to the spread of Mandarin, 7. teaching Chinese as an international language and 8. future prospects: challenges and opportunities.

Along with the economic rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) in the new millennium, the ecology of world languages is undergoing a major restructuring, with Mandarin competing alongside Spanish, HindiUrdu and Arabic for global language status after English, the first acclaimed world language. As noted by Crystal (2003: 9), A language does not become a global language because of its intrinsic structural properties, or because of the size of its vocabulary, or because it has been a vehicle of a great literature in the past, or because it was once associated with a great culture or religion. It also has little to do with the number of native speakers who speak it. To progress as an international medium of communication, a language needs to have a strong power-base, be it political, military or economic. Examples are numerous throughout the history of mankind. Languages such as Greek, Latin, Chinese and Spanish spread to the Middle East, Europe, Japan, Korea and Vietnam and America during different periods in history for the same reasons: the political, military or economic might of their native speakers. English, the first acclaimed global language, spread around the globe in the nineteenth century as a result of British colonial imperialism and continued its global presence when America emerged to become the de facto superpower by the end of the twentieth century. 14

Global Mandarin

Since its re-emergence as an economic powerhouse at the turn of the new millennium, China has been exerting immense influence politically, economically, as well as linguistically, in the international arena. Mandarin, being the officially recognized standard language of the Peoples Republic of China (henceforth China) and the Republic of China (henceforth Taiwan), and the lingua franca among the educated Chinese diaspora, is widely believed to be the most likely candidate amongst the worlds languages to attain the status of a language second only to English. This chapter discusses the key issues in relation to the future of Mandarin as a global language. We begin the discussion with a definition of exactly what makes a language a global language. Thereafter we discuss Chinas resurgence and its impact on world markets, as well as the consequent effect on its language and culture. This is followed by a discussion on the global spread of Mandarin over the past two decades, its current status, and the problems encountered. The challenges and opportunities faced by the Teaching of Chinese as a Foreign Language (henceforth, TCFL) industry, in pursuance to the world-wide proliferation of Chinese as a Foreign Language (henceforth, CFL) learners, are discussed next. The last section summarizes the future prospects of global Mandarin.

Defining the global status of a languageTo attain a global status, a language needs to fulfil 2 requirements. First it should receive due official recognition within the international community. According to Crystal (ibid.: 3), a language achieves global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. This special status can be achieved either by making it an official language of the country or by requiring it to be studied as a foreign language. Second it needs an expanding number of non-native users. As mentioned earlier, a language does not achieve global status through the sheer number of native speakers. Such a numerical definition of global status would mean that Latin could never have been an international language throughout the Roman Empire for the simple fact that the Romans were less numerous than the peoples that they had conquered. English would never have been considered a global language if it had only been spoken in the United Kingdom. Mandarin, based on the sheer number of native speakers, would have long been considered a global language, a claim that would have been deemed absurd in the years of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (from 1966 to 1976). Rather, the global status of a language is determined by its degree of penetration into or prevalence within the community of non15


native speakers. There is nothing great about a language being widely used among its own native speakers, no matter how numerous they may be. It is only when even non-native speakers likewise seek to learn the language that the language has a legitimate claim to global status. The number of non-native speakers, which is a point that we will take up subsequently for the case of Mandarin, is indeed a very important indicator or barometer of the level of global status of a language. As noted by Graddol for the case of global English, Native speakers may feel the language belong to them, but it will be those who speak English as a second or foreign language who will determine its world future. (2000: 10).

The impact of Chinas resurgenceIn the 1980s, after the prolonged period of the Cultural Revolution which resulted in extreme social instability and economic stagnation, the Chinese government in an attempt to revive its economy made major adjustments to its policies in order to achieve economic reconstruction. In the 20 years that followed, under the effect of sound economic policies in a rapidly globalizing world, China emerged, rather miraculously, as an economic powerhouse at the turn of the new millennium. In 2007, Chinas GDP exceeded US$3 trillion, ranking it behind the USA, Japan and Germany, as the worlds 4th largest economy. A recent report by economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (9 July 2008; 2008a and 2008b) predicted that Chinas economy backed by strong domestic demand will overtake that of the USA in 2035 and its GDP will hit an impressive US$82 trillion in 2050, compared with US$44 trillion for the United States, making it the worlds number one economy. The speed and scope of Chinas economic development over the past two decades have indeed been remarkable and its effects have been felt globally. International economic expansion has transformed China in many ways. During the initial stage of its resurgence when international trade and a global market was taking form, China adopted an open-door policy, inviting foreign manufacturers to set up mega-scale factories within its confines. Over a span of 20 years, China has moved dramatically from the paradigm of qianlongwuyong a hidden dragon (closeddoor policy) to that of feilongzaitian a flying dragon (open-door policy) and has now become an important driving force behind the world economy. Lured by low operation and labour costs, foreign investments streamed in and in no time, China emerged as the factory of the world, benefiting from the influx of foreign funds, technologies and expertise. 16

Global Mandarin

As its economy grew and its people became wealthier, China, with its population of 1.3 billion, gradually morphed from the factory of the world into an enormous world consumer market. Over time, backed by a booming economy, local manufacturing made tremendous progress and Chinas position shifted swiftly from a technology-import nation to a product-export nation, further promoting its economic impact worldwide. In recent years, fuelled by a large-scale expansion of foreign investments overseas, Chinas economic supremacy has been widely acknowledged and the resulting massive economic growth has led to a stronger than ever Renminbi (RMB), the official currency of China. As observed by Crystal in the case of global English (ibid.: 10), Any language at the centre of such an explosion of international activity would suddenly have found itself with a global status. The current economic rise of China has indeed laid a solid foundation for its language and culture to flourish globally.

The global spread of MandarinA paradigmatic world view: the three concentric circles of Mandarin usersAs China and its people venture out internationally, the Chinese diaspora gradually expands and its language spreads to different parts of the world. As Chinas economy expands and its currency strengthens, the global status of its language ascends and people around the world are attracted to the language for its economic benefits. The complex situation arising from the spread of global Mandarin can be represented using Kachrus model of three concentric circles (1985), namely, the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle, which takes into consideration the different ways in which a language has been acquired and is currently used in different countries and regions (see Figure 2.1): The Inner Circle of native users The Inner Circle refers to the traditional Zhongyuan (Central Plains) base of Mandarin, which includes mainland China and Taiwan, where it has served not only as a dominant working language of administration (in both the public and private sectors), education, law, mass communication, science, technology, commerce and so on, but also as a common language of a linguistically heterogeneous country. Based on figures reflected in the China Population and Employment Statistics Yearbook 2008 and the data released by the Department of Household 17


Expanding circle

Outer circle

Inner circle Zhongyuan Zone Overseas Chinese Zone Foreign Language Zone

Figure 2.1 The three concentric circles of Mandarin users

Registration of Taiwan (http://www.ris.gov.tw/version96/statis_111), the combined population of the Inner Circle adds up to 1.35 billion. Despite its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong is not placed within the Inner Circle. Instead, it is placed in the Outer Circle as its sociolinguistic situation, with a history of British colonization, is rather complex. To date, English still enjoys a prestigious status and continues to function as the dominant administrative language of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Cantonese is the de-facto official dialect and remains the preferred tongue for daily communication for the vast majority of its people; Mandarin, though gradually rising both in terms of number of users and social status, has yet to play any significant role in Hong Kong. The steadily expanding Outer Circle of second language users The Outer Circle represents overseas Chinese communities around the world, formed during different periods of time as a result of migration, where Mandarin has been used as a lingua franca since the early days of settlement and continues to spread through the medium of education. According to the latest figures listed in the online New World Encyclopaedia (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Overseas_ Chinese retrieved on 10 January 2009), the population of the Chinese diaspora is estimated to be close to 40 million. Martin Jacques, a visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Center, London School of Economics, commented that one distinct characteristic of the Chinese diaspora is that it is numerically large and spread all around the globe, from 18

Global Mandarin

Africa to Europe, East Asia to the Americas. He gave the following estimation on regions with a significant Chinese population in various parts of the world:there are now at least half a million Chinese living in Africa, most of whom have arrived very recently. There are more than 7 million Chinese in each of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, more than 1 million each in Myanmar and Russia, 1.3 million in Peru, 3.3 million in the US, 700,000 in Australia and 400,000 in Britain about 40 million in all, which is almost certainly a considerable underestimate. (http://chinadaily.cn/opinion/2008-06/18/)

Jacques also pointed out that China is already a global power and is still developing. And as its rise continues, as Chinese worldwide interests grow exponentially, the Chinese diaspora is likely to expand greatly. Due to differences in the historical development of overseas Chinese communities in the provision of Chinese education and their degree of closeness with the Inner Circle, Mandarin now plays a very diverse role in these multilingual settings and the level of mastery of their speakers varies accordingly. In overseas Chinese communities in the USA and the European countries, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar and other territories where Mandarin is not the dominant language of their countries of residence, the use of Mandarin is typically confined to the home domain or within the Chinese community itself. Chinese language classes are not included in the main-stream education system and are conducted mainly on a voluntary basis in Chinese schools set up by non-official organizations outside curriculum time. Teaching materials are usually provided by overseas Chinese organizations and the contents are either inclined towards Taiwan or mainland China. In states such as Singapore and Malaysia, where Mandarin is a common language within the Chinese community, the teaching of Chinese language is either fully administered by a government ministry (e.g. the Singapore Ministry of Education) or by a non-official independent local federation of the Chinese community (e.g. United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia). Emphasis is placed on the transmission of Chinese culture and traditional values rather than the mastery of linguistic skills. Within the Inner Circle, Singapore stands out as the only nation that places a lot of emphasis on the teaching and learning of Chinese language. In Singapore, Mandarin enjoys the status of an official language alongside English, Tamil and Malay, and is made a compulsory academic subject for ethnic Chinese students from primary up to secondary or pre-university level for a span of 10 to 12 years. 19


The proliferation of the Expanding Circle of non-native users The Expanding Circle involves those regions of non-native users, where the language is recognized as an increasingly important international language. It includes Japan, South Korea, North America, European Countries and an increasing number of other regions where Chinese is taught in educational institutions as a foreign language. In the past decade, with a sharp rise in demand for CFL courses, the TCFL has been flourishing within and outside the borders of China. The growing popularity of the subject is evident in the number of students wanting to learn it. In 1997, the number of foreign students enrolled in CFL courses in mainland China was estimated at 43,000. In 2005, the figure expanded to 140,000, marking a threefold increase. Recent data indicated that there are more than 330 colleges offering TCFL programs in China, receiving about 40,000 foreign students to learn Chinese every year (www.wei.moe.edu.cn retrieved on 10 January 2009). The prospects of the TCFL overseas are promising. The economic and linguistic expansion of China has prompted many governments and nongovernmental organizations around the world to realign their language perceptions and to recognize Mandarin as a language of opportunity. The US government implemented a series of policies in favour of the teaching and learning of the language, including the National Flagship Language Initiative, which classified Chinese as a critical need language. In 2006, the College Board officially established the AP Chinese Language and Culture course, listing Chinese as an important foreign language at high school level in the USA. An increasing number of schools in all parts of the world have since included the TCFL in their curriculum. The number of non-native learners taking Chinese as a foreign language in higher institutions across the globe and undertaking the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi Chinese Language Proficiency Test administered by Guojia Hanyu Guoji Tuiguang Lingdao Xiaozu Bangongshi The Office of Chinese Language Council International (OCLCI), Beijing, China, has multiplied over the past decade, indicating the growing international status of Mandarin. The Language Situation in China Report: 2005 estimated that by 2005, the number of foreigners learning Chinese as a foreign language is close to 30 million. Extrapolating from current trends, OCLCI projected that the number of CFL learners will exceed 100 million by 2010. The development of global Mandarin in the Outer and Expanding Circles is further enhanced by Chinas adoption of a new peaceful development strategy that includes the setting up of the Confucius Institutes (CI), modelled on the British Council, German Goethe Institute and French Alliance Franaise, via OCLCI in 2004 with the stated 20

Global Mandarin

mission of making the Chinese language and culture teaching resources and services available to the world and meeting the demands of overseas Chinese learners to the utmost. (http://hanban.edu.cn retrieved on 24 June 2009) According to figures provided by OCLCI on the above official website, by April 2009, a total of 326 CIs have been set up in 81 countries and regions. No official figure has been provided about its current student population but a rough estimation made earlier by Dou (2008) suggests that a total of 46,000 students worldwide had enrolled in courses provided by 125 CIs by the end of 2007 (http://kbs.cnki.net/ forums/45205 retrieved on 10 January 2009). As the number of CIs has more than doubled over the past year, its student population can also be expected to be steadily expanding. The sudden sharp rise in the population of CFL learners worldwide in conjunction with Chinas economic upturn over the past decade supports Crystals argument that the shift in economic relations has a profound effect on the popularity and use of a language. It is thus clear that the major force underlying the spread of a language is more often external than internal. Learners of a foreign language are usually motivated by external factors in the case of Mandarin, economic ones which provide access to personal betterment or lucrative markets; they are less likely to learn a language on the basis of internal language-specific factors such as aesthetic qualities, literary power or cultural heritage, which in Crystals words, can motivate someone to learn a language, of course, but none of them alone, or in combination, can ensure a languages world spread. (Crystal, 2003: 9). The Expanding Circle may be a good measurement of the global status of a language but it is often the Inner Circle that is the cause or explanation for the rise of that language. The degree of global status of a language is determined by the degree of power projected by native speakers of the Inner Circle into the Outer and Extending Circles. Power is projected in mainly military or economic dimensions. The recent ascent of global Mandarin is clearly a result of economic forces. The Outer Circle has now been recognized by many to be an economic force to be reckoned with. However, the Outer Circle per se does not have the global clout to uplift the international status of Mandarin. It is the economic rise of the Inner Circle that is the pivotal factor for the ascent of global Mandarin.

Advancement in CL-operated information technologyOutside the realm of TCFL, a number of recent significant development trends in other domains also demonstrate the wide use of Mandarin 21


across the globe. In the field of information technology traditionally dominated by English Chinese has entered the world of computers with the rapid development of many Chinese-rich computer tools such as the Chinese Internet, Chinese search engines (e.g. Chinese Yahoo, Chinese Google, Yam, SOHU, Baidu) and the Chinese version of all major American programs, including the Windows operating system and Microsoft word-processors. The IT industrys exploration and development of software and IT-related technologies using Chinese as the language medium has 2 important implications. First, it indicates that the pulling power of the vast lucrative Chinese market is strong enough to steer the Englishdominated IT industry to channel resources and make linguistic accommodation for their products to cater to the needs of the Chinese users. From here, we can conclude that Mandarin, the language behind an emerging Chinese economy, no longer functions simply as a means of communication. In fact, it is in itself a market, a profit-generating commodity whose existence is increasingly valued in the world. Secondly, the break-down of the close linkage that once existed between computers and English and the current development in internet technology have broken geographical barriers and reinforced the use and accelerated the dissemination of the Chinese language as well as other regional languages across the globe. The effect is twofold. For the fast-expanding overseas Chinese diasporic communities, advancement in CL Internet technologies makes it possible for community members to keep in close contact with their motherland, as well as with one another, through the establishment of a virtual language zone (Dor, 2004: 111) via the Chinese language, thereby expanding and reinforcing its use. For the non-native communities, as the internet becomes more accessible and more widely used, those looking for business opportunities in China or with China can now gather relevant first-hand information and communicate directly with their Chinese counterparts via the World Wide Web, a function that was traditionally monopolized by English. As clearly pointed by Hancock (1999), proficiency in the language of the business partner will put one in an advantageous position in the increasingly globalized, competitive business world:The World Wide Web has accelerated the trend to globalization, and globalization requires companies to form partnerships or more structured alliances with local companies. Cross-border mergers, acquisitions and collaborative projects are increasingly common and their success relies partly on good personal relations and communications between individual participants. Good relations and communications in turn rely partly on the parties being

22

Global Mandarin

familiar with each others languages. Internal documents or local regulation and practices will be clearer if the language is understood; ideas and inspirations will be more easily shared. Not even attempting to speak the local language could alienate other parties. (1999: 35)

There is an emergent literature documenting the spread of the Chinese language as well as other regional languages on the World Wide Web. Based on the estimated and projected figures of internet users provided by Global Reach (n. d.), an online marketing firm, Dor (2004: 99) predicts that the internet is going to be a predominantly non-Englishlanguage medium as virtual communities, particularly that of global businesses, gradually recognize the needs of an evolving global consumer market and begin to adopt a multilingual strategy to penetrate local markets in their own languages (ibid.: 102). The latest statistics released by the Internet World Stats (http://www.internetworldstats. com retrieved on 24 June 2009) strongly support Dors observation and clearly signal a speedy expansion in the number of non-English internet users over the past decade. Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian and Arabic are the five fastest growing internet languages on the Top 10 list which have registered strong growth of between 619 per cent and 1,545 per cent from 2000 to 2008. Chinese, which is ranked second on the list in terms of number of users, records a total of 321 million users, as compared to 463 million English users, and registers a remarkable percentage growth of 894.8 per cent.

Mass mediaMandarin TV channels Since the 1990s, as part of its concerted effort to exert its influence over various regions, beginning with South East Asia and later moving on to Africa and beyond, China has been making its presence felt through the infiltration of its soft power, a term coined by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s, which was subsequently used widely in academic and political circles. On the basis of Nyes discussion, Joshua Kurlantzick (2006) examined the growth of Chinas soft power in a broader manner and defined it as Chinas ability to influence by persuasion rather than coercion. According to Kurlantzick, China crafted a more nuanced strategy reinforcing the concept of peaceful development through efforts like the establishment of Confucius Institutes, expanding CCTVs international broadcasting and increasing the provision of Chinese language teachers to the region (http://www. carnegieendowment.org/files/PB_47 retrieved on 10 January 2009). 23


Recent development in the realm of television has indeed signalled Chinas emergence and the massive global spread of the Chinese language and its culture. The development comprises two phases. The first phase which started in the mid 1990s saw the establishment of global Mandarin channels such as Chinese MTV and Chinese Cable TV that were based in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the so-called Greater China region. Examples include Chinas CCTV4, Taiwans TVBS and CTN, and Hong Kongs Phoenix TV. These Mandarin TV channels offer a broad mix of programmes ranging from information (e.g. news reports, current affairs and documentaries) to entertainment (e.g. movies, variety shows and MTV) for a world audience via satellites. Although the content and focus of the various Mandarin TV channels may differ, the underlying goal is a common one: to reach out to a pan-Chinese audience, offering them greater diversity and a Chinese perspective in the global information flow and most importantly, penetrating the media world with the soft power of the Greater China region. The second phase began roughly at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is represented by the establishment of numerous regional Mandarin TV channels USAs SinoVision Inc., China Star TV and The Chinese Channel/World Today Television; Australias Channel 31; Thailands TCTV and Japans CCTV DAIFU all aimed at servicing the steadily expanding Chinese diasporic communities located in different corners of the world. The dynamic development of the global and regional Mandarin TV channels reinforces our observation that with Chinas outward venture, overseas non-native second language communities are fiercely expanding and there is tremendous demand and hence a vast market for Chinese TV media worldwide. This development for Chinese TV media has an important supporting role to play in the global spread of Mandarin and of Chinese culture. Print media The history of overseas Chinese print media can be traced back to the 1900s. To date, about 500 newspapers/magazines are in active publication, out of which 100 are daily or weekly newspapers and about 230 are magazines. Over the past decade, the most significant development of Chinese print media is the emergence of corresponding online websites which are capable of publishing and releasing news and information to a worldwide audience as and when it happens, hence overcoming the inherent time and geographical limitations of its hard-copy counterparts. Some examples include www.people.com.cn (Renminwang), 24

Global Mandarin

www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/southnews/ (Nanfangzhoumo), www. zaobao.com (Lianhezaobaowang), www.yzzk.com (Yazhouzhoukan) and www.chinatimes.com (Zhongguoshibao) retrieved on 25 June 2009. An emerging trend worth observing is the establishment of the online Chinese versions of traditionally non-Chinese publications, the most prominent being BBC Chinese.com, which aims at offering Western perspectives to the massive Chinese audience both within and outside Chinas borders. Apart from signifying the existence of a worldwide market for online Chinese print media, the above rapid developments also lead to the establishment of a cross-border, cross-cultural Chinese information platform which has an important role to play in elevating Mandarins global status.

The current status of MandarinThe growing dominance of China and its language has been strongly felt in the global community, leading Newsweek (9 May 2005) and Time magazine Asia (26 June 2006) to feature special reports in recent issues to highlight the future upward prospect of the status and use of Mandarin, emphasizing the growing importance of mastering the language. In its cover story: Chinas Century, Newsweek examined all aspects of Chinas rise as a powerful global force and how it may challenge US pre-eminence. Special Correspondent William Lee Adams reported that as China rushes towards superpower status, the State Department has designated Chinese a critical language and in response to this, American students are rushing to learn Chinese, as is evident in the sharp increase in enrolment for Chinese classes in public schools. Time magazine Asia, in its cover story entitled Get Ahead! Learn Mandarin!, observed that millions of people worldwide are rushing to learn Mandarin as it is currently seen as a key skill for people hitching their futures to Chinas economic rise. Quoting the words of David Graddol, who noted that In many Asian countries, in Europe and the USA, Mandarin has emerged as the new must-have language, the report speculated that Mandarin is en-route to becoming the worlds other lingua franca. In a similar vein in A Bull in China (2007), American investor and financial commentator Jim Rogers tells readers that The very best advice of any kind that I can give you is to teach your children or your grandchildren Chinese. It is going to be the most important language of their lifetimes. Assuming that Chinas growing dominance in international economic and political scenes is maintained, it would be reasonable to predict that not too far off in the future, Mandarin will attain a global 25


status. It might be premature at this point in time when the world is in the early stage of economic, political and demographic transition to speculate on the possibility of Mandarin displacing English to become the sole global language in the world. Nevertheless, it is certainly a worthy candidate to take note of, with the potential to compete alongside English to be one of the worlds dominant languages. The two-decade affair of Chinas economic development explains why the rise of global Mandarin is only a recent event. Hence global Mandarin as a worldwide phenomenon is still relatively in its infancy and many teething problems remain to be solved. It is to these problems that we now turn.

Defining Mandarin: problems of nomenclatureThe nomenclature of language used in different Chinese communities is a complex issue. Not only are different varieties called different names in different regions, but to complicate matters, different terms are used to distinguish spoken and written versions. Mandarin, the spoken standard that belongs to one of the seven major groups of Chinese languages (Yuan et al., 1960), is an internationally recognized standard language, officially defined as the common language of China based on the northern dialects, with the Beijing phonological system as its norm of pronunciation (Norman, 1988, Zhou, 1997). However, this spoken version is referred to as Putonghua (the common language) or Hanyu (literally the language of the Han, used also to refer to its written form) in mainland China; Guoyu (national language) in Taiwan; and Huayu (the language of the Hua = Chinese) or Zhongguo yuwen (literally the language of China, referring to both the spoken and written forms) in overseas Chinese communities. The corresponding written forms are termed Guowen in Taiwan and Huawen beyond China. The proliferation of names for the Chinese language is a result of a particular set of historical nuances and continues to carry sociolinguistic overtones. It is a complex and sensitive topic requiring special attention which will not be the focus of our discussion here. However, we point out that the lack of a common term for the Chinese language, especially within the realm of Chinese linguistics and sociolinguistics, poses problems, and impedes discussion of the languages use, as it often results in misconception and difficulties in establishing common platforms. As such, for the benefit of our discussion here, Mandarin is used to refer to the standard spoken forms of the Chinese language that exist in all parts of the world. On the other hand, Chinese language, which includes both the spoken and written forms, is used 26

Global Mandarin

when discussing issues pertaining to the teaching and learning of CFL, the internet or the mass media.

Barriers to the spread of MandarinEven though the momentous economic rise of the Inner Circle and increasing globalization across the world have provided propitious conditions for the spread of Mandarin, pending cross-strait language issues and other external factors are impeding the languages global spread. First, as an international medium of communication, global Mandarin faces some orthographical barriers resulting from the historical confrontation and diverging political ideology of the governing parties of mainland China and Taiwan. These orthographical barriers include competing standards of Jiantizi simplified Chinese characters versus Fantizi complex Chinese characters, and Hanyupinyin versus Zhuyinfuhao phonetic transcriptions. China has adopted the simplified character and Hanyupinyin systems while Taiwan opted for the complex character and Zhuyinfuhao systems. As such, books, magazines, newspapers, dictionaries and teaching materials from the two regions come in different versions reflecting the said orthographical variations. From the perspective of language education, the above man-made differences might not have much impact on first language learning but they will certainly cause confusion in, and impose unnecessary difficulties on, the learning of Chinese as a second or foreign language, which will in turn affect the learning outcome and the effectiveness of cross-border communications. The above differences in orthographical standards have also been reflected in computer encoding systems, and gave rise to GB2313, the first simplified Chinese character encoding system launched by China in 1980, and shortly thereafter, the Big 5, its complex Chinese character counterpart developed by Taiwan. This topic has been dealt with in detail by Shouhui Zhao in his chapter in this book. As these two systems are incompatible, when internet users from the two sides of the Taiwan straits use different operating systems to access one anothers websites and email systems, they run into encoding problems and are greatly inconvenienced. In recent years, although China has successfully developed GB18030, the upgraded version which has solved the 3-decade long problem of incompatibility between simplified and complex Chinese characters, the new system has yet to be formally accepted by Taiwan. The conflicting orthographical variations, if not standardized, will handicap global Mandarin in its role as an international medium of communication. The question of which standard to adopt is beyond the dictates of any single individual. In the end, the present orthographical 27


barriers can only be removed via a political solution which entails tactful negotiations between mainland China and Taiwan. Secondly, unresolved external issues arising from the standardization of the regional varieties of Mandarin in the Outer Circle have given rise to hurdles in the path of global Mandarin. The formation of regional varieties is the inevitable result of a languages spread to nonnative environments, giving rise to both a variety of forms and a diversity of cultural contexts within which the language is used in daily life. Regional varieties arise out of differences in social lives and are sometimes a result of differing social ideologies. Take the naming of traditional Chinese music in different territories as an example: in China, it is termed minyue (ethnic music); in Taiwan, it is called guoyue (national music); in Hong Kong, it is referred to as zhongyue (China music) and in Singapore, it is known as huayue (Chinese music). Another oftenquoted example is the varying names used in different regions for the term taxi. In Taiwan, it is known as jichengche (calculate-distance-vehicle); Hong Kong and Singapore each coined a translated version based on its English pronunciation and call it dishi and deshi respectively; in China, it is either called mianbaoche, which literally meant bread-car or chuzuche (rent-car, a term which is used to refer to rental car in Singapore!), and the act of taking taxi is referred to as dadi, a newly emerged term which is difficult to comprehend in both its spoken and written forms. As is evident from the above examples, these regional variations, if left untackled, can pose difficulties in cross-border communication and language learning. However, as language is known to be closely tied to territory, and to cultural identity, the standardization of regional varieties has long been a contentious issue that has proven to be easier said than done. As is the case for English, the attempt to fix and ascertain the English language began as early as the eighteenth century but was never entirely successful (Graddol, 2000). When dealing with the standardization of regional varieties of Mandarin, the conflicting issue of national loyalty versus international intelligibility needs to be carefully considered and tactfully dealt with. However, one developing trend worth noting is that the forces of globalization are challenging the long existing close bond between language, territory and cultural identity, making a significant impact on the global use of a language. Modern communicative tools such as the internet have made it easier for language users from all regions to overcome geographical barriers and come into frequent, wider and closer contact. Over time, as the identity of global citizens gradually evolves and territorial differences diminish, it is possible that the regional varieties of a language will slowly go through a process of self-adjustment and eventually coalesce to become a hybrid language that supersedes all regional 28

Global Mandarin

varieties and is commonly accepted and widely used in the global community. The possible emergence of such a hybrid Mandarin, which may seem idealistic at this juncture, will help to eradicate territorial and identity barriers and serve as the driving force behind its global spread. The third barrier that needs to be overcome relates to a set of teething problems currently faced by the global Mandarin language service industry, in particular, insufficient quality control over CFL courses and the professional quality of Chinese language instructors, as well as the lack of a set of common guidelines and international standards in the administration of Chinese language proficiency tests. The CFL teaching industry, which is still in the early stages of development, has been caught unprepared by the sudden surge in demand. As a result, there is a worldwide shortage of qualified instructors to effectively run CFL courses. Due to the absence of an independent professional body to monitor the Chinese language service industry, the quality of courses varies greatly and so does the learning outcome. If left unchecked, this might have a negative impact on the learning of the Chinese language and impede the global spread of Mandarin. Apart from conducting Chinese language courses, service providers around the world are also competing intensely in the administration of Chinese language proficiency tests. These tests, which aim to assess the Chinese language proficiency of non-native speakers, usually form part of the requirements for college admission or employment. As it is a newly explored avenue which is capable of generating substantial revenue, a growing number of organizations and universities are designing and administering their own version of Chinese language proficiency tests, some of which are listed in Table 2.1 below: Without a set of internationally recognized standards to fall back on, the assessment criteria and grading systems adopted by the various organizations vary considerably. As a result, the tests are somewhat localized in nature and their results are usually recognized only in the country or region where they are administered. From the perspective of CFL learners, the lack of a widely accepted proficiency test like the TOEFL test for the Chinese language is a great drawback in the globalizing world where movement across different lands in search of better education or job opportunities is quickly becoming a norm. In order to clear the path for Mandarins spread, common guidelines and internationally accepted standards need to be set.

Teaching Chinese as an international languageFrom its start in the 1950s, TCFL only began to take off in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, after China started adopting a suite of 29


Table 2.1 Types of Chinese language proficiency tests Name of test Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi Acronym HSK Organization/Country Beijing Language and Culture University, China Steering Committee for TOP-Huayu, Taiwan College Board, USA College Board, USA Centre for Applied Linguistics, USA International schools worldwide Japanese Association of Chinese Language Certification, Japan Japanese Association for Chinese Language Exchange, Japan

Test of Proficiency Huayu TOP Scholastic Assessment Tests II Advanced Placement Test Chinese Chinese Proficiency Test International Baccalaureate Chinese Chinese Proficiency Test Japan Test of Communicative Chinese SAT II AP Chinese CPT IB Chinese CPTJ

TECC

open-door policies. In the 1980s, the first batch of renowned Chinese universities, including Beijing Language and Culture University, Peking University, Beijing Normal University, Fudan University, East China Normal University, Xiamen University, Sun Yat-Sen University and Jinan University, either resumed or began to set up CFL courses, recruiting foreign students on a large-scale. After a decade or so of speedy development, a comprehensive programme structure, curriculum and corresponding pedagogical resources were put in place, laying the foundation for the brand-new qingjinlai welcome era of TCFL, in conjunction with Chinas economic rise. The welcome era saw a sudden rush of foreign students mainly teenagers and adults from the Outer and Expanding Circle to China, wanting to learn more about the country and its language. It had the following characteristics: First, learners were highly motivated to learn and their goals were clear-cut: they were either learning Mandarin to facilitate communication with their Chinese business counterparts, or to attain a level of proficiency that would allow them to live, study or make a living in China. Second, they were immersed in a favourable social environment that provided ample support for the learning of Mandarin, 30

Global Mandarin

as there was plenty of out-of-classroom language input as well as authentic situations for conversational practice. Blessed with such favourable conditions, the learning outcome was, more often than not, favourable. As China continues its economic expansion in the twenty-first century, the status of Mandarin rises accordingly and is creating strong demand for Mandarin courses in the Outer and Expanding Circles. TCFL has shifted from the qingjinlai welcome era to the zouchuqu venture out era. The international market for the teaching and learning of CFL, as discussed earlier, is indeed a massive one. However, it must be strongly emphasized that as the make-up of learners, and the learning conditions and social environments of the various Circles are distinctly different, the successful teaching and learning experiences of CFL conducted in the Inner Circle might not be directly relevant to that of the Outer and Expanding circles. Take the teaching and learning of Chinese language in Singapore for example. As a result of the successful implementation of educational and language policies, Singapore despite being the only multi-ethnic nation with a Chinese-majority population in the Outer Circle has undergone a massive language shift over the past 4 decades. English has emerged as the dominant language in all formal domains of daily life and is fast becoming the dominant language in many homes (MM Lee Kuan Yews speech on 17 March 2009, www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_ releases/agencies/mica/speech/S-20090317-1). Under the bilingual education system of Singapore, all ethnic Chinese pupils regardless of their home language bac

Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia the Impact of Globalization Processes on Language

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