Introduction: The Context of the Theory and Practice of China’s Language Policy

Abstract

We have devoted the previous pages to illustrate our point that the theory and practice of China’s language policy in the past half-century must be viewed in the context of changing perceptions of tradition, modernization, state-building, and nation-building. We can conclude that China’s tradition, modernization, and state-building all tend to empower one single standard language politically, legally, socioeconomically, and even aesthetically. China’s early multi-nation-building efforts enthusiastically supported the maintenance and development of minority languages, whereas its recent mono-nation-building drive has significantly decreased such support, if not withholding it, and adopted a (social) Darwinist attitude - allowing nature to run its own course because there are too many languages in China as Jiang Zemin, the CCP’s past general secretary, suggests (Tiemuer & Liu, 2002, p. 57). Coupled with globalization and the forces of market economy, China’s modernization drive appears to favor only two dominant languages, Chinese as the national commonly-used language and English as the world language (cf. Ross, 1993; Spolsky & Shohamy, 1999, pp. 156–186).