Between the National and the International: Ethnography of Language Ideologies in a Middle-Class Community in China
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Between the National and the International: Ethnography of Language Ideologies in a Middle-Class Community in China Hua Yu1
Published online: 21 September 2016 De La Salle University 2016
Abstract This paper explores a key dilemma of the Chinese middle class as it appears in their apparent adherence to official language policy despite their lack of direct knowledge of that policy. Using fieldwork data from Hangzhou, I show that a group of middle-class parents worked together to build an ‘‘Ancient Way Academy’’ for their children to chant the ancient Chinese classics. In this, although they were unaware of the official policy of ‘‘Chanting the Chinese Classics’’ (CCC), they effectively reproduced it in their actions. Some parents, however, soon drifted away from the traditionalism of CCC and toward a much stronger emphasis on the learning of English as the gateway to modernization. In facing the dilemma of choice between these two educational pathways, the parents thus unwittingly reenacted the state’s ceaseless oscillation between nationalistic and international visions of the country’s needs. Keywords Middle class Language ideology Common sense Dilemma Chanting the Chinese Classics Ethnography
Introduction More than a piece of text in the hands of authorities, language policy involves a series of social practices of making, interpreting, implementing, and appropriating policy (Johnson 2010, 2013). As the processes entangled with social actions, language policy can be approached as a & Hua Yu [email protected] 1
Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai 200083, China
chain of policy that are overt and covert, top-down and bottom-up, de jure and de facto, official and vernacular (Shohamy 2006; McCarty 2011). The ethnography of language policy ideally seeks to link the chain of policy practices across differentiated contexts at the national and community levels to show how invisible power flows from the state’s language policy to the individual agents’ language education experience. In particular, the de facto language policies tend to be affected by the individuals’ attitudes and beliefs in the language ideology that represent ‘‘an accretion of national experiences, influenced by certain intellectual traditions, which together create underlying, usually unstated or hegemonic frameworks within which policies evolve and are evaluated’’ (Ricento 1998, p. 89). Thus, it is important to understand the interactions between the individuals’ language ideologies and the national needs embedded in the state’s language policy. In language education, parents’ language ideologies act as the driving force of family language policy, deciding what languages they will persuade their children to speak or learn (Curdt-Christiansen 2009). Language ideologies will influence language practices and lead to language management (Spolsky 2004; Chatzidaki and Maligkoudi 2013). Various factors help structure language ideologies, such as national language policy, the dominant soci
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