While the state does not require Chinese learners to be trilingual by law, given the importance of Putonghua and English in education and career advance-ment, on a day-to-day basis, both the Han Chinese and the minorities are not at complete liberty to ignore the significant roles these two languages play, even though they may invest their learning energies into acquiring competence in other dialects or languages as well. These other Chinese dialects and minority languages still have cultural and/or instrumental value for learners, with regional Chinese dialects usually being better maintained than most minority languages, especially those minority languages which do not have writing scripts or which are spoken by very small populations (such as 100,000 people or fewer). This section first presents the circumstances of Han Chinese learners and then those of minority learners. Only pseudonyms are used and the age specified was that of the interviewee in the year 2000.
The Han Chinese learners
Among the Han Chinese, the use of Putonghua is now fairly prevalent in higher education and the workplace. At home and in other informal situations though, other Chinese dialects may still be used to some degree, particularly in the south (Lam 2005: 49). English is also the main foreign language learnt by most Han Chinese learners (Lam 2005: 85). These general trends are sup-ported by the learning stories of three Han Chinese learners (Table 9.1).
Lian (Southern Coastal Chinese Interviewee 34, female, aged 50, a library administrator) (Lam 2005: 19–21).
Background. Lian was born in the city in the Wuyi county in Zhejiang in 1950.
In 1958, when she was 7 or 8, she entered primary school. In 1964, she entered junior secondary school, also in the same county. After that, she enrolled in a technical college but when the Cultural Revolution began, classes were can-celled. So in 1968, she started working in a textile factory. Then from 1973, she worked in a company producing salted eggs and century eggs. In 1984, she went to Guangxi. She first worked in the Nationalities Research Institute as an information officer. In 1985, she studied political education at a university in the southern interior of China and graduated in 1988. At the time of the interview, she was working in the library of that university.
Native dialect. Her first dialect was the Wuyi dialect and she appeared well aware of its value to mark in-group solidarity. She reported, “There are 11 dia-lects” in Zhejiang. Every county has a different dialect. Most people can under-stand five or six of them . . . The dialects in that county are very special. That county was like a “dialect island”. People who could speak that dialect were all in that county. There were very few speakers. Outside that county, people could not understand that dialect. My husband can also speak my dialect because he Table 9.1 Languages/dialects learnt by three Han Chinese learners
Pseudonym of learner (Age)
Birthplace location Chinese dialect(s) Foreign language(s) Minority language(s)
Lian (50) Southern coastal The Wuyi dialect H Putonghua
Wei (31) Northern interior The Tongwei dialect H The Dingxi dialect Putonghua
English Russian
None
Shan (26) Northern interior The Shanxi dialect Putonghua H
grew up in Zhejiang. My child, born in Wuyi, also learnt this dialect. Now my child is working in Wuhan. When we talk on the telephone or go out together, we speak this dialect and we can keep our conversations secret because people around us cannot understand it. When I visit my maiden home, I also speak the Wuyi dialect.’
Putonghua. Lian learnt Putonghua when she was growing up in the county because everyone spoke Putonghua in the city then. She recognized explicitly the value of Putonghua as a means of interdialectal communication in her account: ‘The teachers at the school also used Putonghua because they were from different parts of China. It was like that in primary school and also in secondary school. In the technical college that I attended, Putonghua was also used as the medium of instruction because the college was for the whole province. Students came from all over the province; so they could only com-municate in Putonghua.’ When she started working, Putonghua was regularly used for professional communication but its value as an inter-dialectal code was retained. She reported, ‘Among colleagues at my present workplace, Putonghua is spoken. Sometimes they speak Baihua [the dialect spoken in her present location in Guangxi] with each other but when there are visitors from another place coming here to discuss something, they will use Putonghua.’
Likewise, Putonghua could help her communicate with her husband’s family;
she explained, ‘My husband’s family is in Wuhan. When we visit them, I speak Putonghua. They can understand me. When they speak the Wuhan dialect, I can understand them too though I cannot speak it well.’
Other Chinese dialects. Lian could speak other Chinese dialects but mostly for instrumental reasons. She admitted, ‘I can understand Baihua because when the locals chat with each other, they speak Baihua. I cannot speak Baihua well and do not enjoy speaking it. . . . I also understand the Sichuan dialect and the Guiliu dialect a little because I often go to villages to do research. In the villages, if you do not understand their dialects, it is very hard to collect information.’
English. She learnt English from junior secondary school. After that, she learnt on her own through the correspondence course supported by television broadcasts. She studied at a television university for two years from 1989 to 1990. She mentioned that learning English was just to meet an educational or occupational requirement. ‘My English was good for examinations. . . . We are assessed very often, for example, for promotion at our workplace. If you do not study, it will not do. I was already assessed twice for promotion, five years between each assessment. If you want to be promoted again, then you need to
be assessed again. If you do not want promotion, then you will not be assessed.
On the mainland, a lot of us study for the purpose of assessment.’
Using English in Hong Kong and France. Although Lian learnt English mainly for assessment, she did eventually use it for communication in some way.
‘I was in Hong Kong once. I was on an exchange programme at the Chinese University in April 2000. When I met students, they all spoke Cantonese or English. Since I could not speak Cantonese well, when I had to ask them ques-tions about certain matters, I could only use English. My English was rather rusty but under those circumstances, I was forced to use it. After a period of time, I was better and felt there was much improvement. When I meet a for-eigner, we must speak English. So even if I cannot speak English well, I must still speak it. . . . In September 2000, I was also in France to do research on the Yao and Miao ethnic groups [ethnic minorities from China] living in France.
The first generation of these groups there could still speak some Chinese but their second generation could only speak French and some of them could speak a little English. Since I could not speak French, we could only communi-cate in English. I could also buy things and ask for directions in English. The environment forced me to improve. I was very happy about it. Language could help me solve problems. If you are travelling and do not speak English at all, you will not dare to go and buy things. You are like a dumb person. Some of the people who went with me were older and could not speak English. They did not even dare to buy anything. So I could only be brave and went to shop for them. They were very grateful to me.’ Because Lian could use English for communication, though mostly to ‘solve problems’, or instrumentally, she still derived pleasure in the interaction involved.
Wei (Northern Interior Chinese Interviewee 31, male, aged 38, a mathematics and philosophy teacher) (Lam 2005: 21–23)
Background. Wei was born in Tongwei in Gansu in 1962. He grew up in a rural area and completed his primary and secondary education there. In 1979, he enrolled in a teacher training university in the provincial capital and gradu-ated in 1983. Upon graduation, he taught mathematics in a teachers’ training college in Dingxi, a small city, for 5 years. In 1988, he went to a university in the north-western region to do his Masters, graduating in 1991. At the time of the interview, he was teaching mathematics and philosophy at that university.
The Tongwei dialect. Wei was less articulate about the value he attached to his native dialect, the Tongwei dialect. He mentioned that he learnt it well from his
parents because it was spoken all around him. (Dingxi was near his home so he could speak the Dingxi dialect too, which was similar to the Tongwei dialect.)
Putonghua. His learning of Putonghua was less easy because he did not use it for interaction until he went to university when Putonghua became useful as an interdialectal means of communication. He reported, ‘I did not learn Putonghua very well. I also learnt it from my parents but all along, I could not speak it well. The teachers in my primary and secondary schools did not use Putonghua to teach, not even in Chinese lessons. My classmates and I did not use Putonghua for interaction. Only when I went to university at the provin-cial capital in 1988 did I learn Putonghua. That was because the students came from all over the country and they could not understand my dialect.’ But even then, he did not achieve perfect competence in Putonghua because he did not feel he needed to do so. ‘Because I teach mathematics and philosophy . . ., the teaching involves the disciplinary knowledge more. So even if my Putong-hua is not so good, the effect is not so great.’
English. In contrast to his learning of Putonghua which appeared quite instru-mentally motivated, Wei’s learning of English seemed to have a mixture of instrumental as well as intrinsic motivation. He recounted, ‘A few days ago, some visitors from overseas came to visit our department and basically we could communicate about academic matters, not very well, but we could inter-act. My father at first did not know any English. He was a farmer. But my grand-father was a ju3ren2 [a person who passed the local qualifying examination in the civil service examinations in imperial China] in the Qing dynasty. So my father studied a lot under my grandfather. Later, my father studied English by himself. He could read English books but could not pronounce the words. So from a young age, I liked English because I was influenced by my father. At uni-versity, I liked English particularly. Perhaps that was why I spent more time on it. I relied on self-study because, in those days, the standard of English teaching was rather low. At university, we were using a series of books produced by Nankai University but those were more suitable for developing professional English. At that time, I wanted to learn English more widely. So I studied the set of books by Xu Guozhang by myself. In my third year at university, I became interested in English literature and read a series on English literature. I also read a poetry anthology including the poetry of Byron. That was the first book I read in English by myself. Now I have basically no problem in reading English but writing is very difficult, very difficult. I am still continuing to learn. I hope I can
write academic papers in English and publish internationally. That would be best.’ To Wei, English carried a host of values: communicative, intrinsic and literary.
Russian. Although Wei also studied Russian, he reported that he had forgotten almost all of it but if he used a dictionary, he could still use it to read some Russian books. To him, Russian was therefore merely a tool, and not a very useful one, because of his limited competence in it.
Shan (Northern Interior Chinese Interviewee 11, female, aged 26, a Chinese language teacher) (Lam 2005: 26–28)
Background. From the time Shan was born in 1974 till she entered university, she was living in Huhehaote [or Hohhot], the capital of Inner Mongolia. In 1980, she entered primary school. In 1986, she went to junior secondary school and in 1989, senior secondary school. In 1992, when she was 18, she went to Beijing for her university education. She did a double degree in biomedical engineering and scientific editing for five years. At the time of the interview, she was studying for her Master’s programme in economics part-time and teaching Chinese part-time at a university in Beijing.
The Shanxi dialect. Although Shan was born in Inner Mongolia, her parents were originally from Shanxi. So they spoke the Shanxi dialect at home. Usually, they spoke the Shanxi dialect and Shan spoke Putonghua at home. Like Lian, Shan recognized the value of her native dialect for dialectal cohesion and reported, ‘if we have a visitor from Shanxi, then I will try to speak the Shanxi dialect because the visitor will then recognize that we are very close.’
Putonghua. Since she spoke Putonghua even at home and her teachers at school used Putonghua as a medium of instruction, her best language was Putonghua. But she expressed an intrinsic interest in learning dialects. ‘I have a strong wish to learn dialects. I am very surprised I have this interest. I just feel China is so vast and the southern dialects are so different from the northern dialects. I am very curious about other people’s dialects.’ She ended up learn-ing Tianjinhua, Dongbeihua and some other northern dialects and enjoyed being able to communicate with her friends in those dialects.
English. She started learning English in Junior Secondary 1. Her reading and writing in English were good. She confessed, ‘This might . . . be related to the fact that in the university entrance examination in 1992 only reading and writing were assessed. For people like us coming from a small and faraway place, the only route to leave that place and have any advancement is to enter university. It seemed as if we only had one thought in our brains – to learn the answers to all the questions that might appear in the examination.’ So for Shan,
the instrumental value of English was undeniable. Yet later, she went beyond trying to pass examinations and ‘paid attention to listening and speaking English from [her] university days for the purpose of interacting with other people. Before that, it was only to study it as an examination subject. In many
“small places [i.e. not big cities]” in the northern part of China, it is like this, probably all like this.’ Her observation that most Chinese learners outside the big cities were only motivated by the examinations could well be true because of the lack of opportunity to use English for genuine interaction.
Japanese. Shan also learnt Japanese at university for about a month but there was a time clash with something else she had to do. So she gave it up. She mentioned, “It was also because there were too many people in the class – about 40-odd students. So it was rather tiring. We learnt from zero level but it was very repetitive. I already knew something, and we had to say it over and over again. The course was free of charge. You had to pay a deposit but, if you passed the examination, it would be refunded to you. I lost my refund. It was not a requirement and you could choose to learn Japanese, French, German or even Russian.’ Unlike English, Japanese was understandably less valued because it was not a requirement.
The minority ethnic groups
While Han Chinese learners may learn more Chinese dialects, they tend not to learn minority languages. In contrast, minority learners almost inevitably learn one or more Chinese dialects, usually as a precursor to learning Putong-hua (Table 9.2). The repertoires of minority learners tend therefore to be greater, as a comparison of Table 9.1 and Table 9.2 reveals. (For more examples of minority learners’ repertoires, see Lam 2005: 170.)
Table 9.2 Languages/dialects learnt by three minority learners Pseudonym of
learner (Age)
Ethnic group Minority language(s) Chinese dialect(s) Foreign language(s)
Mei (37) Yao The Yao languageH
The Zhuang language
He (29) Hui Arabic A local northern dialectH
Putonghua
English
Ma (25) Dong The Dong languageH
The Zhuang language
H Home language as a child.
Source:Adapted from Lam 2005: 170.
Mei (Yao Interviewee 4, female, aged 37, a minority language teacher) (Lam 2005: 160–61)
Background. Mei was born in Lingui in Guangxi in 1963. She went there [a city in the southern interior] in 1989. After graduation, she left to teach in a secondary school for four years. Then she was transferred back there to establish Yao studies. At the time of the interview, she was teaching nationali-ties studies, linguistic theory and the Yao language at that university [in the southern interior].
The Yao language. She started learning the Yao language at home from the time she was born. Everyone in her home spoke the Yao language. She grew up in the Yao region and went to a primary school in a village where some Han Chinese lived. She did not have any Yao language classes in primary school, secondary school or university. She only learnt the written form of the Yao language when she started working. In primary school, some of the lessons for other subjects were taught in the Yao language. During primary school, she often used the Yao language to speak with her classmates; in secondary school, she still did so sometimes. But at university, she did not use the Yao language with her classmates because her classmates came from several different regions.
So it was easier for all of them to communicate in Chinese.
Ethnic pride. Although she used mostly Chinese for the instrumental purposes of education and communication, she still felt ethnic pride in her Yao language. She reported, ‘Ever since I was young, I have felt very proud that I can speak my own language. Though I have been outside [my village] studying or working for 20 or 30 years by now, I still feel the same. If I meet my friends from my ethnic group, or my relatives, there is no occasion when I have the opportunity to use the Yao language that I do not. I am not like some people who have this attitude – if they speak the Yao language, they are afraid other people will laugh at them. I do not have this feeling. I feel very proud I know my language. After I started working, I found that there are also Yao people residing in countries outside China. I can communicate with them using our language. I often do interpretation. So I feel my language can cross national boundaries. I feel very proud. I do not feel any pressure.’ The pride she felt in her Yao language could also be partly attributed to the fact that the Yao minority has a large population of 2.6 million (Lam 2005: 155) and there are also Yaos in other parts of the world outside China. Hence, in Mei’s case, the
Ethnic pride. Although she used mostly Chinese for the instrumental purposes of education and communication, she still felt ethnic pride in her Yao language. She reported, ‘Ever since I was young, I have felt very proud that I can speak my own language. Though I have been outside [my village] studying or working for 20 or 30 years by now, I still feel the same. If I meet my friends from my ethnic group, or my relatives, there is no occasion when I have the opportunity to use the Yao language that I do not. I am not like some people who have this attitude – if they speak the Yao language, they are afraid other people will laugh at them. I do not have this feeling. I feel very proud I know my language. After I started working, I found that there are also Yao people residing in countries outside China. I can communicate with them using our language. I often do interpretation. So I feel my language can cross national boundaries. I feel very proud. I do not feel any pressure.’ The pride she felt in her Yao language could also be partly attributed to the fact that the Yao minority has a large population of 2.6 million (Lam 2005: 155) and there are also Yaos in other parts of the world outside China. Hence, in Mei’s case, the