Along with the economic rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRICs) and the rest of the developing world, the ecology of world languages in the new millennium is undergoing a major restructuring. Apart from Mandarin, Spanish and French, it is hard to imagine any other language likely to gain the global status of English, the first acclaimed world language. Crystal (Reference Crystal1997:7) observes that: ‘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.’ Nor does it reflect the number of people who speak it natively. To become 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, classical Chinese, French and Spanish spread far beyond their original boundaries at various times in history: Greek spread around the Mediterranean, Latin throughout Romance Europe, classical Chinese to Vietnam, Japan, Korea and Central Asia, and Spanish to the Philippines and South and Central America. They spread 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.
Since its re-emergence as an economic powerhouse at the turn of the new millennium, China has been exerting immense influence politically and economically in the international arena. Mandarin, recognised as a standard in the People's Republic of China (henceforth China) and the Republic of China (henceforth Taiwan), and as a lingua franca among the Chinese diaspora, is widely believed to be a potential candidate to attain the status of a global language alongside English.
This chapter deals with some of the issues that relate to the status of Mandarin as a global language. We begin by defining what makes a language global, and then consider the impact of China's resurgence on its language and culture. This is followed by a discussion of the spread of Mandarin over the past two decades, its current status and some of the problems and issues that have emerged. We then consider the challenges and opportunities faced by teachers of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) as they attempt to come to terms with the proliferating numbers and demands of students of CFL. Finally, the last section summarises the future prospects of global Mandarin.
1.1 Defining the Global Status of a Language
To attain a global status, a language needs to fulfil two requirements. According to Crystal (Reference Crystal1997:2), a language achieves global status, firstly, 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.
Secondly, a global language needs an expanding number of non-native users. As mentioned earlier, a language does not achieve global status through the sheer number of its native speakers. A purely numerical definition would mean that Latin could not have been considered an international language for the simple reason that the Romans were outnumbered by the peoples they conquered. The same is true with English. English was a minority language within the British Empire. Mandarin, on the other hand, may have had more native speakers than any other language during the period of the Cultural Revolution (roughly 1966–76), but at that time it lacked any sort of global presence.
The global status of a language is determined more by the number of its non-native speakers or learners. It is only when non-native speakers seek to learn it that the language has a legitimate claim to global status. They learn it because it provides them with more opportunities, better jobs, brighter prospects and higher status. So it is the number of non-native speakers that indicates the global status of a language – a point that will be taken up shortly with respect to Mandarin. As noted by Graddol for global English, ‘Native speakers may feel the language “belongs” to them, but it will be those who speak English as a second or foreign language who will determine its world future’ (2000:10).
1.2 The Impact of China's Resurgence
In the 1980s, after the social instability and economic stagnation of the Cultural Revolution had ended, the Chinese government – in an attempt to revive its economy – made major adjustments to its policies. In the twenty years that followed, under the effect of sound economic policies in a rapidly globalising world, China emerged, rather miraculously, as an economic powerhouse by the turn of the new millennium. In 2007, China's GDP exceeded US$3 trillion, ranking it behind the USA, Japan and Germany as the world's fourth largest economy. By 2013, that figure had grown to US$9 trillion, surpassing Japan (US$5.1 trillion) and Germany (US$3.6 trillion), making China the world's second largest economy (http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/world_economies_gdp/, 3 April 2014). A report by economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Straits Times, 10 July 2008) predicted that China's economy, backed by strong domestic demand, would overtake that of the United States by 2035 and that its GDP would reach an impressive US$82 trillion in 2050, compared to US$44 trillion for the United States. Clearly, the speed and scope of China's economic development over the past two decades have 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 started to expand and the global marketplace was being formed, China adopted an open-door policy, inviting foreign manufacturers to set up mega-scale factories within its confines. Over a span of twenty years, China moved dramatically from the paradigm of qianlong-wuyong ‘a hidden dragon’ (closed-door policy) to that of feilong-zaitian ‘a flying dragon’ (open-door policy) to become an important driving force in the world economy. Lured by low operation and labour costs, foreign investment streamed in, and before long China had become the ‘factory of the world’, benefiting from the influx of foreign funds, technologies and expertise.
As its economy grew and its people became wealthier, China, with its population of 1.3 billion, gradually changed from being the factory of the world to being a major consumer in the world. Over time, backed by a booming economy, local manufacturing has made tremendous progress and China has shifted from importing technology to exporting products, increasing its economic impact worldwide. In recent years, fuelled by a large-scale expansion of foreign investments overseas, China's 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 (1997:8), ‘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.
1.3 The Global Spread of Mandarin
1.3.1 A Paradigmatic World View: The Three Concentric Circles of Mandarin Users
As China and its people venture out into the world, the Chinese diaspora grows, bringing the Chinese language to different parts of the globe. As its economy expands and its currency strengthens, the incentives to learn the language increase. The complex situation arising from the spread of global Mandarin can be represented using Kachru's model (originally applied to English) of three concentric circles (Kachru Reference Kachru, Quirk and Widdowson1989), namely, the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle. This model represents the ecology of a language (which is a reflection of its history) in the various locales in which it is used.
1.3.2 The Inner Circle of Native Users
The Inner Circle in Figure 1.1 represents the traditional core regions of Mandarin use, the ‘Zhongyuan’ (Central Plains). The core regions now include mainland China and Taiwan, where Mandarin 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 the common language – or lingua franca – across an otherwise linguistically heterogeneous country. Out of a total population of roughly 1.3 billion in the core regions (of the Inner Zone), Ethnologue estimates the number who can be regarded as native (L1) Mandarin speakers (standard or otherwise) as 840 million. Another 178 million are L2 users (www.ethnologue.com/country/CN/languages).
Figure 1.1 The three concentric circles of Mandarin users
Despite its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong cannot be placed within the Inner Circle. Instead, it is placed in the next level outwards, the Outer Circle, indicating a rather different sociolinguistic situation that has arisen from its long history of British colonial rule. The current linguistic landscape of Hong Kong is quite complex. English still enjoys a prestige status and continues to function as the dominant administrative language of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Cantonese, rather than Mandarin, is the de-facto official dialect and remains the preferred tongue for daily communication for the vast majority of its people. Written Cantonese also has a significant role in Hong Kong society, not only in the courts where the verbatim record of Cantonese speech is required, but also in the popular press, in local magazines, and in advertisements and other media where commercial incentives favour the representation of Cantonese rather than Mandarin. Even though Mandarin is high status and gaining some ground, speech in Hong Kong remains primarily Cantonese.
1.3.3 The Steadily Expanding Outer Circle of Second Language Users
The Outer Circle represents overseas Chinese communities around the world that have formed over certain periods of time as a result of migration, and 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 Encyclopedia (www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Overseas_Chinese, 7 April 2014), the population of the Chinese diaspora is estimated to be close to forty million. Martin Jacques, a visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Centre, 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 Africa to Europe, East Asia to the Americas’. He gave the following estimates of 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.
Jacques also points 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.’
Differences in the historical development of overseas Chinese communities, particularly in the provision of Chinese education but also in the degree of contact maintained with the Inner Circle, means the role of Mandarin shows considerable variation and the level of mastery may vary accordingly.
In overseas Chinese communities in North America 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 to interaction within the Chinese community itself. In such countries, Chinese language classes are not included in the mainstream education system. They are conducted mainly on a voluntary basis in ‘Chinese schools’ (usually with limited hours and a focus on cultural activities as well as language) set up by non-official organisations outside curriculum time. Teaching materials are usually provided by overseas Chinese organisations and the contents are either inclined towards Taiwan or towards mainland China.
In states such as Singapore and Malaysia, where Mandarin is a common language within the Chinese community, the teaching of Chinese is either fully administered by a government ministry (e.g. the Singapore Ministry of Education) or sponsored 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 on the mastery of linguistic skills.
Within the Outer 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 a compulsory academic subject for ethnic Chinese students from primary up to secondary or pre-university level, a span of ten to twelve years.
1.3.4 The Proliferation of the Expanding Circle of Non-Native Users
The Expanding Circle encloses regions where Mandarin is not spoken natively and has no official role, but where it is recognised for its importance as a language of commerce, trade or culture. The Expanding Circle 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 teaching of Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) has been flourishing within and outside the borders of China. The growing popularity of the subject is evident in the numbers of students wanting to learn it. In 1997, the number of foreign students enrolled in CFL courses in mainland China was estimated to be 43,000. By 2005, the figure had grown to 140,000, marking a threefold increase. More recent surveys note that ‘there are more than 330 colleges offering TCFL programs in China, attracting about 40,000 foreign students every year’ (www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s3917/201007/91583.html, accessed 7 April 2014).
The prospects for the TCFL overseas are promising. The economic and linguistic expansion of China has led governmental and non-governmental organisations around the world to view Mandarin as a language of opportunity. The US government, for example, has instituted a number of programmes to support the teaching and learning of the language, including the ‘National Flagship Language Initiative’, which classifies Chinese as a ‘critical need language’. In 2006, the College Board officially established an Advanced Placement (AP) Chinese Language and Culture course, recognising the importance of CFL at high-school level in the United States. 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 CFL in higher institutions across the globe and undertaking the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi ‘Chinese Language Proficiency Test’ (administered by The Office of Chinese Language Council International in Beijing, known as the Hanban for short), has multiplied over the past decade, underscoring the growing international status of Mandarin. The Language Situation in China Report: 2005 estimated that in 2005, the number of foreigners learning CFL was close to thirty million. Extrapolating from current trends, the Hanban projected that the number of CFL learners would exceed 100 million by 2010.
The development of Mandarin in the Outer and Expanding Circles is further enhanced by China's adoption of a new ‘peaceful development’ strategy, which includes the setting up of Confucius Institutes (CI) and Confucius Classrooms (CC), modelled on the British Council, the German Goethe Institute and the French Alliance Française (but unlike their European counterparts, CI are usually housed in educational institutions – schools and universities). These were instituted by the Hanban in 2004 with the stated mission of providing ‘scope for people all over the world to learn about Chinese language and culture’ and to ‘become a platform for cultural exchanges between China and the world as well as a bridge reinforcing friendship and cooperation between China and the rest of the world’ (http://english.hanban.org/node_10971.htm, 7 April 2014). According to figures provided by the Hanban on its official website, by December 2013 a total of 440 CIs and 646 CCs had been set up in 120 countries and regions. Student enrolment has been rising steeply. Official figures indicate that ‘In 2009, Confucius Institutes /Classrooms around the world offered 9,000 Chinese courses of various types, with a total enrolment of 260,000, a 130,000 strong enrolment increase from the previous year’ (http://english.hanban.org/node_10971.htm, 7 April 2014).
The sudden sharp rise in the population of CFL learners worldwide in conjunction with China's growing economic power supports Crystal's argument that economic and political factors determine the popularity of a language and, ultimately, the number who speak it as a second 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 Crystal's words, ‘can motivate someone to learn a language, but none of them alone, or in combination, can ensure a language's world spread’ (Crystal Reference Crystal1997:7).
The Expanding Circle may be a good measure of the global status of a language but it is often factors in the Inner Circle that account for the rise of that language. The degree of global status of a language is determined by the degree to which native speakers in the Inner Circle can draw people into the Outer and Extending Circles. The recent global interest in Mandarin is clearly a result of economic attraction. Now, the Outer Circle (represented by places like Singapore and Hong Kong) is recognised as an economic force in its own right. However, the Outer Circle per se does not have the global clout to raise the international status of Mandarin. It is the economic rise of the Inner Circle that has conditioned the ascent of global Mandarin.
1.3.5 Advances in Chinese-Operated Information Technology
A number of recent developments outside the realm of TCFL also reflect the growing global significance of Mandarin. The field of information technology (IT) – traditionally dominated by English – has seen the development of Chinese language computer tools, including the Chinese Internet, Chinese search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, Sohu and Yam search to name only a few) and the Chinese version of major American software programs such as the Windows operating system and Microsoft word-processors.
The IT industry's exploration and development of software and IT-related technologies with Chinese capabilities has two important implications. Firstly, it indicates that the drawing power of the vast Chinese market is strong enough to convince the English-dominated IT industry that it needs to cater to the Chinese market and to Mandarin users. Mandarin is no longer just a means of communication. It has become a commodity in its own right, a commodity whose existence is increasingly valued in the world. Secondly, the close linkage that once existed between computers and English has been severed. Technological developments that make Chinese language computing possible have in effect broken geographical barriers and speeded up the dissemination of Chinese – as well as other regional languages – across the globe.
The effect is twofold. For the fast-expanding overseas Chinese diasporic communities, advancement in Chinese 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 virtual ‘language zones’ (Dor Reference Dor2004:111) that expand and reinforce the use of Chinese. For non-native communities, as the Internet becomes more accessible and more widely used, those looking for business opportunities in China or with Chinese companies can now gather relevant first-hand information and communicate directly in Chinese with their Chinese counterparts via the World Wide Web. As Hancock (Reference Hancock1999) points out, proficiency in the language of the business partner will put one in an advantageous position in the increasingly globalised, 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 familiar with each other's 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.
There is an emergent literature documenting the spread of Mandarin use 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, an online marketing firm, Dor (Reference Dor2004:99) predicts that the Internet will soon be predominantly non-English language, as virtual communities, particularly those of global businesses, gradually recognise 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 (www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm, 7 April 2014) strongly support Dor's observation and clearly signal a speedy expansion in the number of non-English Internet users over the past decade. Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish are the five fastest growing Internet languages in the list of the top ten. These have registered strong growth of between 807 per cent and 2,501 per cent between 2000 and 2011. Chinese, which is ranked second on the list in terms of number of users, records a total of 510 million users, as compared to 565 million English users, and registers a remarkable percentage growth of 1,478.7 per cent over the same time period.
1.3.6 Mass Media
1.3.6.1 Mandarin 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 Africa and beyond, China has been making its presence felt through the infiltration of soft power, a term coined by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s. On the basis of Nye's discussion, Joshua Kurlantzick (Reference Kurlantzick2006) examined the growth of China's soft power in a broader context, and defined it as ‘China's ability to influence by persuasion rather than coercion’ (Kurlantzick Reference Kurlantzick2006:1). According to Kurlantzick, China crafted a ‘more nuanced strategy reinforcing the concept of peaceful development’ (Kurlantzick Reference Kurlantzick2006:3) through efforts like the establishment of Confucius Institutes, expanding CCTV's international broadcasting and increasing the provision of Chinese language teachers (www.carnegieendowment.org/files/PB_47_FINAL.pdf, 10 January 2009).
The global spread of Chinese language and culture is also reflected in the development of television media. 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 China's CCTV4, Taiwan's TVBS and CTN, and Hong Kong's Phoenix TV. These Mandarin TV channels offer a broad mix of programming via satellites, ranging from information (e.g. news reports, current affairs and documentaries) to entertainment (e.g. movies, variety shows and MTV) for a world audience. 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 diversity and a Chinese perspective. But the political role of this programming is to permeate 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, such as the USA's SinoVision Inc., China Star TV and The Chinese Channel/World Today Television, Australia's Channel 31, Thailand's TCTV and Japan's CCTV DAIFU. These are all aimed at servicing the steadily expanding Chinese diasporic communities throughout the world. The development of these global and regional Mandarin TV channels reflects and, indeed, strengthens the growing needs not only of diasporic Chinese communities worldwide, but also of overseas non-native second language communities. The growth of Chinese global television is a major factor in the retention and spread of Mandarin around the world.
1.3.6.2 Print Media
The history of overseas Chinese print media can be traced back to the 1900s. To date, about 500 newspapers and 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 in Chinese print media is the emergence of online websites capable of publishing and releasing news and information to a worldwide audience as it happens, overcoming the time and geographical limitations of hard-copy counterparts. Some examples are www.people.com.cn (Renminwang), www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/southnews/ (Nanfangzhoumo), www.zaobao.com (Lianhezaobaowang), www.yzzk.com (Yazhouzhoukan) and www.chinatimes.com (Zhongguoshibao). An important trend is the emergence of online Chinese versions of traditionally non-Chinese publications, the most prominent being BBC Chinese.com, which offer a Western perspective on the news to the massive Chinese audience both within and outside China's borders. These online sites not only serve a worldwide market for online Chinese print media, they have also led to cross-border, cross-cultural Chinese information platforms, which have an important part to play in elevating Mandarin's global status.
1.4 The Current Status of Mandarin
The 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 that highlight future trends, emphasising the growing importance of learning Chinese. In its cover story, ‘China's Century’, Newsweek examined various aspects of China's rise and the ways 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’. In response to this, more and more American students are learning the language, a trend that is evident from 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 see Mandarin as ‘a key skill for people hitching their futures to China's 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 world's other lingua franca.
In a similar vein in A Bull in China (Reference Rogers2007:4), American investor and financial commentator Jim Rogers told 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 China's influence in international economics and politics continues along current lines, it would be reasonable to predict that in the not too distant future, Mandarin will attain a global status. It may not attain the position of English, for there are historical and geographical factors involved in the dominance of English in the modern world. For example, if India is included, it is the national language of countries spread over four continents. But we can expect to see a proliferation of Chinese speakers outside China and a rising global presence.
Global Mandarin is a recent phenomenon, the reflection of only a few decades of Chinese economic development. Many teething problems remain, and it is to these that we now turn our attention.
1.5 Defining Mandarin: Problems of Nomenclature
The nomenclature of language used in different Chinese communities is a complex issue. Not only are different varieties called by different names in different regions, but to complicate matters further, different terms are used to distinguish spoken and written versions of the language.
Mandarin, the language that derives from the northern branch of the seven language groupings of Chinese language (Yuan et al. Reference Yuan1960), is internationally recognised as a standard language. It is officially defined as ‘the common language of China based on the northern dialects, with the Beijing phonological system as its norm of pronunciation’ (Norman Reference Norman1988:182). In China, this standard spoken language is referred to as Putonghua (‘the common language’) or Hanyu (literally ‘the language of the Han’, a term that is also applied to its written form). In Taiwan, it is called Guoyu (the ‘national language’). In Singapore and many other overseas communities, it is referred to as Huayu (‘the language of the Hua’ – Hua being an ancient word for the Chinese people) or Zhongguo Yuwen (literally ‘the language of China’, which covers the written language as well as the spoken). In Taiwan, the written language is also termed Guowen; in overseas communities, it is also called Huawen.
The proliferation of names for the Chinese language is a result of a particular set of historical factors, as a result of which the different terms contain certain connotations and sociolinguistic overtones which will not be the focus of our discussion here. However, it should be noted that the lack of a common term for the Chinese language, especially within the realm of Chinese linguistics and sociolinguistics, leads to misunderstandings which impede understanding of practical issues. For the purposes of this discussion, ‘Mandarin’ will refer to the spoken standard as it exists in different regions. ‘Chinese language’, on the other hand, will refer to both spoken and written forms and will be used when discussing issues pertaining to the teaching and learning of CFL or to language used on the Internet or in the mass media.
1.6 Barriers to the Spread of Mandarin
Despite conditions favourable to the spread of Mandarin resulting from economic growth and increasing interdependence, differences of opinion between Taiwan and the mainland and a number of other external factors are impeding the language's global spread.
Firstly, 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. The most obvious is the different character sets used by the two sides. Mainland China uses Jiantizi ‘simplified characters’ (written horizontally and left to right) while Taiwan and Hong Kong continue to use the traditional fantizi ‘complex characters’ (written vertically and right to left). Moreover, the two sides employ different phonetic transcriptions, Hanyu Pinyin (based on roman symbols) in mainland China versus Zhuyin Fuhao (originally modelled on Japanese kana) in Taiwan. Books, magazines, newspapers, dictionaries and teaching materials from the two regions come in different versions reflecting these orthographical differences. From the perspective of language education, such artificial differences might not have much impact on first language learning – though they do cause cross-border difficulties – but they certainly cause confusion and unnecessary difficulty for second language learners.
The differences in orthographical standards described above also have consequences for computer encoding systems. The first simplified character encoding system, known as ‘GB2313’, was launched by China in 1980. Its complex character counterpart, known as ‘Big 5’, was developed around the same time in Taiwan. The two systems are incompatible, so that when Internet users from the two sides of the Taiwan Straits use different operating systems to access one another's websites and email systems, they are greatly inconvenienced by encoding incompatibilities. In recent years, China has upgraded the old system so that the two character sets are no longer incompatible. But Taiwan has yet to formally accept the new system (now known as ‘GB18030’). The persistence of different orthographies can only handicap the spread of Mandarin as an international medium of communication. Ultimately, the benefits that will accrue from the use of a single orthographical system will require a political solution and compromise by both sides.
Secondly, issues concerning the acceptance and standardisation of the regional varieties of Mandarin in the Outer Circle have also placed obstacles in the path of progress towards a globally appropriate Mandarin. The formation of regional varieties is the inevitable result of a language's spread to non-native environments, which leads to varieties of forms that reflect the geographical and sociolinguistic context of language use. Take the naming of traditional Chinese music in different territories as an example: in China, traditional music is minyue ‘ethnic music’, in Taiwan it is called guoyue ‘national music’, in Hong Kong it is referred to as Zhongyue ‘Chinese music’, and in Singapore it is known as Huayue ‘Chinese music’. Another often-quoted example involves the regional names for ‘taxi’. In Taiwan, taxis are known as jichengche ‘meter-vehicle’. Hong Kong coined a term based ultimately on the English word ‘taxi’, i.e. Cantonese tiksi, which then spread to Mandarin as di (da ge di qu ‘go by taxi’). Singapore took the same path, incorporating ‘taxi’ in Hokkien as tekshi, then turning it into Mandarin (based on the characters used) deshi. Other terms used in China are chuzuche ‘out-rent-vehicle’ (a term which means ‘rental car’ in Singapore) and mianbaoche ‘bread-vehicle’ – used for SUV taxis.
Such variation, if left unchecked, can cause communication difficulties across regions – though in most cases, context is probably enough to clear them up. However, language is known to be closely tied to cultural identity, so the standardisation of regional varieties has long been a contentious issue that is not susceptible to simple fiat. As was true for English, attempts to fix and ‘ascertain’ the English language began as early as the eighteenth century but were never entirely successful (Graddol Reference Graddol2000). In fact, one solution to the problem of regional variation is just to accept the fact of synonymy and learn to match multiple sounds to single meanings (just as we match multiple meanings to a single sound in homophony). Many learners do just that, switching between boluo, fengli or huangli for ‘pineapple’ depending on whether they are in China, Taiwan or Singapore respectively.
When dealing with the standardisation of regional varieties of Mandarin, issues of loyalty need to be tactfully balanced against the requirements of intelligibility. However, one trend worth noting is that the forces of globalisation 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 Mandarin will slowly go through a process of self-adjustment and eventually coalesce to become a hybrid language that supersedes all regional varieties and is commonly accepted and widely used in the global community.
The third barrier that needs to be overcome relates to a set of teething problems currently faced by the global Mandarin language service industry. That is, there is insufficient control over the quality of CFL courses and over the quality of Chinese language instructors. Nor is there a set of guidelines and international standards for the administration of Chinese language proficiency tests. The CFL teaching guild, 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 CFL instructors. Because there is no independent professional body to monitor the teaching of Chinese, the quality of courses varies greatly – along with the learning outcomes. If left unchecked, this will discourage students, slow down their progress and, ultimately, impede the progress of Mandarin towards its global aspirations.
Apart from conducting Chinese language courses, service providers around the world are also competing in the field of testing, particularly in the creation and administering of Chinese language proficiency tests. Such tests aim to assess only the spoken ability of non-native Chinese speakers. Often, they form part of the requirements for credit, for admission to certain programmes or for employment. Testing is a lucrative business, and already a considerable number of universities and other organisations have designed and are administering their own versions of Chinese language proficiency test. The best known are listed in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1 Types of Chinese language proficiency test
| Name of test | Acronym | Organisation/Country |
|---|---|---|
| Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi | HSK | Beijing Language and Culture University, China |
| Test of Proficiency – Huayu | TOP | Steering Committee for TOP-Huayu, Taiwan |
| Scholastic Assessment Test II | SAT II | College Board, USA |
| Advanced Placement Test – Chinese | AP Chinese | College Board, USA |
| International Baccalaureate Chinese | IB Chinese | International schools worldwide |
| Chinese Proficiency Test – Japan | CPT-J | Japanese Association of Chinese Language Certification, Japan |
| Test of Communicative Chinese | TECC | Japanese Association for Chinese Language Exchange, Japan |
Without a set of internationally recognised standards to fall back on, the assessment criteria and grading systems adopted by the various organisations vary considerably. As a result, the tests are somewhat ‘localised’ in nature and their results are usually recognised only in the country or region where they are administered. From the perspective of CFL learners, the lack of a widely accepted proficiency test – comparable to the TOEFL test – for the Chinese language is a drawback, especially in a world where movement across different lands in search of better education or job opportunities is quickly becoming the norm. In order to clear the path for Mandarin's spread, common guidelines and internationally accepted standards need to be set.
1.7 Teaching Chinese as an International Language
Though TCFL dates from the early years of the founding of the People's Republic, it did not take off until the after the Cultural Revolution, when China adopted the open-door policy. In the 1980s, universities such as 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 established for the first time CFL courses and began recruiting foreign students on a large scale. After a decade or so of fairly rapid development, a comprehensive programme structure, a curriculum and pedagogical resources were put into place, and the foundation for the Qingjinlai ‘come on in’ era of TCFL began.
The ‘come on in’ era saw a surge of foreign students arriving in China, mainly adults from the Outer and Expanding Circles, all wanting to learn more about the country and its language. These learners were highly motivated and their goals were clear-cut: they were either learning Mandarin to facilitate communication with Chinese business counterparts; or they were studying to attain a level of proficiency that would allow them to live, study or earn a living in China. This first wave of learners was immersed in a social environment that provided ample support for the learning of language, with plenty of opportunities to speak outside the classroom. Blessed with such favourable conditions, the learning outcome was, more often than not, very good.
As the demand for Mandarin instruction continues to rise in the twenty-first century, TCFL has shifted from the Qingjinlai ‘come on in’ era to the Zouchuqu ‘venture out’ era. The international market for the teaching and learning of CFL, as discussed earlier, is massive. However, it should not be forgotten that the make-up of learners and the learning environments and opportunities in the various circles are quite different. Successful teaching and learning of CFL in the Inner Circle requires quite different skills and methods from that in 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 education and language policies, Singapore, despite being the only multi-ethnic nation with a Chinese-majority population in the Outer Circle, has undergone a radical shift in language ecology over the past four 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 Kuan-Yew Lee's speech on 17 March 2009, www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/mica/speech/S-20090317-1). Under Singapore's bilingual education system, all ethnic Chinese pupils – regardless of their home language backgrounds – are required to study Chinese for a minimum of ten years, right from the day they enter Primary One. Since about 61 per cent of today's Primary One school cohort comes from English-speaking homes (Heng Reference Heng2011), teachers of Chinese have to deal with issues of language interference and negative transference from English, just as they would if they were teaching CFL in Europe or the United States. In addition, as Chinese is the only major academic subject that is taught using Chinese as the medium of instruction, students' exposure to the language is not geared to their level; nor is it presented in the sort of incremental doses that are needed for learning it as a foreign language. Informal surveys of Chinese teachers in Singapore reveal concerns about the declining proficiency levels of their students. Teachers are also facing new challenges in the classrooms from children from English-speaking homes who see little relevance in learning Chinese and are often unmotivated.
Singapore's experience underscores the fact that Chinese teaching and learning in foreign lands is dependent on a range of factors which may differ from place to place. Simply applying the methods of Inner Circle CFL to the Outer and Expanding Circles will not produce the same results. Pedagogical design can be based on a common core of Mandarin usage, but also needs to recognise regional, social and communicative differences.
1.8 Future Prospects: Challenges and Opportunities
Mandarin is challenging the monopolistic position of English as a global language. However, though the speed of its spread is remarkable, it is unlikely that Mandarin will ever displace English to become the sole global language, since ‘the position of English has arisen from a particular history which no other language can, in the changed world of the 21st century, repeat’ (Graddol Reference Graddol2000:58). As pointed out by Graddol (ibid:4), there is a growing belief among language professionals that the future will be a bilingual, if not a multilingual one, in which an increasing proportion of the world population will be proficient in at least one second language in addition to their mother tongues. Economic changes, such as the financial crisis that affected much of the globe – including China – in 2008 could slow the spread of Mandarin, but it would take a massive upheaval to stop it altogether. Certainly, if it continues to advance at the pace of the past few decades, the demand for Mandarin instruction will continue to increase, and that in turn will increase its presence on the world stage.
The rise of global Mandarin represents a tremendous challenge to specialists and educators in TCIL everywhere. It behoves them to understand the local features of the respective circles of Mandarin users and to take these into account as they prepare courses and teaching materials. In this way, they can facilitate the learning of Mandarin, make it more relevant to their students and ease the way for it to join English as a truly global language.
