Language matters in China. It is about power, identity, opportunities, and, above all, passion and nationalism. During the past five decades China’s language engineering projects transformed its linguistic landscape, affecting over one billion people’s lives, including both the majority and minority populations. The Han majority have been juggling between their home vernaculars and the official speech, Putonghua – a speech of no native speakers – and reading their way through a labyrinth of the traditional, simplified, and Pinyin (Roman) scripts. Moreover, the various minority groups have been struggling between their native languages and Chinese, maintaining the former for their heritages and identities and learning the latter for quality education and socioeconomic advancement. The contributors of this volume provide the first comprehensive scrutiny of this sweeping linguistic revolution from three unique perspectives. First, outside scholars critically question the parities between constitutional rights and actual practices and between policies and outcomes. Second, inside policy practitioners review their own project involvements and inside politics, pondering over missteps, undergoing soul-searching, and theorizing their personal experiences. Third, scholars of minority origin give inside views of policy implementations and challenges in their home communities. The volume sheds light on the complexity of language policy making and implementing as well as on the politics and ideology of language in contemporary China.

This must-have handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the field. It reviews the language education policies of Asia, encompassing 30 countries sub-divided by regions, namely East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, and considers the extent to which these are being implemented and with what effect. The most recent iteration of language education policies of each of the countries is described and the impact and potential consequence of any change is critically considered. Each country chapter provides a historical overview of the languages in use and language education policies, examines the ideologies underpinning the language choices, and includes an account of the debates and controversies surrounding language and language education policies, before concluding with some predictions for the future.

This book offers insight into the spread and impact of English language education in China within China’s broader educational, social, economic and political changes. The author's critical perspective informs readers on the connections between language education and political ideologies in the context of globalizing China. The discussion of the implications concerning language education is of interest for current and future language policy makers, language educators and learners. Including both diachronic and synchronic accounts or China’s language education policy, this volume highlights how China as a modern nation-state has been seeking a more central position globally, and the role that English education and the promotion of such education played in that effort in recent decades.

China has been ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse. This volume recasts the pedagogical and policy challenges of minority education in China in the light of the state's efforts to balance unity and diversity. It brings together leading experts including both critical voices writing from outside China and those working inside China's educational system. The essays explore different aspects of ethnic minority education in China: the challenges associated with bilingual and trilingual education in Xinjiang and Tibet; Han Chinese reactions to preferential minority education; the ro.

This volume offers comprehensive 'state-of-the-art' overviews of educational policies concerning the teaching of English in a large number of Asian countries. Each contribution is written by a leading expert and gives a clear assessment of current policies and future trends. Starting with a description of the English education policies in the respective countries, the contributors then delve into the 'nuts and bolts' of the English education policies and how they play out in practice in the education system, in schools, in the curriculum, and in teaching. Topics covered include the balance between the acquisition of English and the national language, political, cultural, economic and technical factors that strengthen or weaken the learning of English.

China has had constitutional minority language rights for decades, but what do they mean today? Answering with nuance and empirical detail, this book examines the rights through a sociolinguistic study of Zhuang, the language of China’s largest minority group. The analysis traces language policy from the Constitution to local government practices, investigating how Zhuang language rights are experienced as opening or restricting socioeconomic opportunity. The study finds that language rights do not challenge ascendant marketised and mobility-focused language ideologies which ascribe low value to Zhuang. However, people still value a Zhuang identity validated by government policy and practice. Rooted in a Bourdieusian approach to language, power and legal discourse, this is the first major publication to integrate contemporary debates in linguistics about mobility, capitalism and globalization into a study of China’s language policy. The book refines Grey’s award-winning doctoral dissertation, which received the Joshua A. Fishman Award in 2018. The judges said the study “decenter[s] all types of sociolinguistic assumptions." It is a thought-provoking work on minority rights and language politics, relevant beyond China.

Language matters in China. It is about power, identity, opportunities, and, above all, passion and nationalism. During the past five decades China’s language engineering projects transformed its linguistic landscape, affecting over one billion people’s lives, including both the majority and minority populations. The Han majority have been juggling between their home vernaculars and the official speech, Putonghua - a speech of no native speakers - and reading their way through a labyrinth of the traditional, simplified, and Pinyin (Roman) scripts. Moreover, the various minority groups have been struggling between their native languages and Chinese, maintaining the former for their heritages and identities and learning the latter for quality education and socioeconomic advancement. The contributors of this volume provide the first comprehensive scrutiny of this sweeping linguistic revolution from three unique perspectives. First, outside scholars critically question the parities between constitutional rights and actual practices and between policies and outcomes. Second, inside policy practitioners review their own project involvements and inside politics, pondering over missteps, undergoing soul-searching, and theorizing their personal experiences. Third, scholars of minority origin give inside views of policy implementations and challenges in their home communities. The volume sheds light on the complexity of language policy making and implementing as well as on the politics and ideology of language in contemporary China.