Language policy and its underlying ideologies for ethnic minorities in China: a case study on its educational implementation in a Yi-Han bilingual school in Liangshan

Abstract

China is a multiethnic country which contains 55 ethnic minority groups. With its highly multilingual and ethnically diverse population, China’s minorities have had much direct experience with the push and pull of China’s homogenizing forces and its indigenous cultures. Whilst the Chinese government claims that the minority groups have been granted equal rights to preserve their own cultures and languages, the sad fact is that nearly 20% of China’s minority languages are on the edge of vanishing and the another 40% are showing some signs of being endangered (Daily Newspaper, 2012). However, to get a true picture of “the real language policy” for the minorities in China, we should not only observe and analyze the language policy through its stated policy documents, but also through a variety of devices that we can use to determine the actual language practices. As Spolsky (2004) points out, a language policy is made manifest by its language management, language beliefs, and language practices. At the micro level, this study aims to analyze how the explicit language policy for the Yi has been implemented in a particular Yi-Han bilingual school; and how the language practices in the school influence teacher’s and parent’s beliefs about the Yi language. It is hoped that an accurate picture of the de facto language policy implemented in the XCEMS (Xichang Ethnic Middle School) will emerge. At the macro level, this study tries to disclose the underlying language ideologies behind the present language policies for the minorities, such as the Yi, in China. What we can see through these language policies is the major concern of this study. Adopted an ecological approach, the research was carried out in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, which is inhabited by the largest sub-group of the Yi in China. The Xichang Ethnic Middle School (XCEMS), a typical Yi-Han bilingual school, was chosen as the main site for this research. Questionnaire surveys were conducted across different grades of Yi students, followed by observations and in-depth interviews with teachers and parents. Discussions were carried out which focused on the language education at the XCEMS, the linguistic landscape in and around the school, and the language attitudes of the Yi people. The findings suggest that a large gap exists between the top-down explicit policy and the bottom-up implicit policy. The Chinese language dominates nearly every aspect of education in the XCEMS, contrast to the inclusive rhetoric of official bilingual policy, whereas the status of the Yi language at the school is quite low. Moreover, the linguistic landscape further helps confirm the central position of the Chinese language in the surrounding Yi area. A firm belief has thus been built and established among the Yi people of today that Chinese is the right language for their education, work and other domains associated with modern formal life, whilst the Yi language is only a language for use among family and friends. The higher status of Chinese has been firmly entrenched in the Yi people’s minds. I thus argue that the present day language policies for the minorities like the Yi are a kind of assimilation policy, carried out by propagating the ideology of a single standard language. Although this doesn’t necessarily make the extinguishing of minority languages its goal, it does aim to exert the absolute domination of Chinese over the minority languages. It should, though, really be described as covert assimilation, since the minority languages still have equal rights via Chinese law, and are formally encouraged. The policy ensures that Chinese is always promoted and occupies the predominant position in nearly all formal situations (including all governmental institutions, education, modern technology, and economic growth), whilst the minority languages and cultures are forced to recede to a subordinate place and limited to a few informal domains. This trend inevitably leads to a language shift among the younger generation. To grant minorities the capacity to protect their own languages and cultures, we need more than the so-called bilingual education system. More efforts should be made to create economic and political expansion for the minority languages so as to help them gain functional utility. Only once people’s language beliefs about their minority language have been positively changed, can we expect more minority peoples to willingly want to be educated in their own language. A real and effective multilingual language policy for minorities should always be much more than the empty articles and words that are found in the official documents.