[lg policy] bibitem: Language Policies and Minority Resistance in China

[Harold Schiffman]

Language Policies and Minority Resistance in China
Keely Nelson

Master of International Affairs Candidate
International Educational Development
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Introduction

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses language policies in education
to foster a national identity among the 56 official ethnic groups in China. The
official language of China is Mandarin Chinese, but minorities speak over 80
languages, 30 of which have written forms. Minority language policies in China
have worked best to reduce illiteracy in communities without a formal writing
system. In communities with a well-established formal writing system, however,
minority education and language policies have been far less effective (Zhou,
2000).
When minority groups strongly identify with their language, policies that
restrict minority language use in school are often met with resistance. The
Chinese central government has responded to such situations by allowing
minorities a limited degree of autonomy in order to address issues of alienation
and social instability. Chinese minority education policy struggles to
balance the
goal of a national "One China" identity, while allowing a degree of autonomy in
minority regions to quell potential rebellion.

In this paper, I apply two theories towards understanding the impact of
minority language policies in China. The first is Benedict Anderson's (1983)
theory of imagined communities. Second, I use the ideas of the Mongolian
academic Urudyn Bulag (2002) on forms of resistance within hegemonic state
policies to examine minority groups' illiteracy as resistance to
current language
policies.

More at http://www.tc.columbia.edu/sie/journal/volume_3/nelson.pdf
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