'Bilingual' education and discontent in Xinjiang

Central Asian Survey

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 251-277

  Schluessel, Eric T ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EDUCATION POLICY; EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; ETHNIC MINORITY; LANGUAGE; PLANNING PROCESS;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; XINJIANG UYGUR;

EID: 34548805831     PISSN: 02634937     EISSN: 14653354     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02634930701517482     Document Type: Article

References (168)

1. In an effort to provide the most balanced possible picture of language attitudes in Xinjiang, I have drawn on work from both inside and outside of the Chinese academy. Chinese research includes, but is not limited to: Teng Xing, 'An inspection and report on Uyghur-Chinese bilingual education among Uyghurs in Khotan, Xinjiang, China', in Teng Xing and Hu An'gang, eds, Doctoral Forum on the Development of the West and Educational Development (Beijing: Minzu Publishing House, 2001), pp 271-291
2. and Xi Lin and Cai Hao, 'A contrastive study of the bilingual attitudes of Uyghur and Mongol university students', Journal of Xinjiang University (Social Science Edition), Vol 32, No 1, 2004, pp 139-142. Several outside scholars have conducted fieldwork on ethnic relations, paying special attention to language attitudes.
3. These include: Arienne Dwyer, 'The texture of tongues: Languages and power in China' in William Safran, ed, Nationalism and Ethno-Regional Identities in China (London: Frank Cass, 1998)
4. Arienne Dwyer, The Xinjiang Conflict: Uyghur Identity, Language Policy, and Political Discourse [Policy Studies 15] (Washington: The East-West Center, 2005)
5. Joanne N. Smith, "'Making culture matter": Symbolic, spatial and social boundaries between Uyghurs and Han Chinese', Asian Ethnicity Vol 3, No 2, 2002, pp 153-174
6. Herbert S. Yee, 'Ethnic consciousness and identity: A research report on Uygur-Han relations in Xinjiang', Asian Ethnicity, Vol 6, No 1, 2005, pp 35-50. I also benefited from conversations with a narrow sample of Uyghurs resident in the USA on the topic of language and language planning and policy.
7. Chen Zhangtai, 'Modern Chinese language planning', Applied Linguistics, No 1, 2005, p 3.
8. Meng Wanchun, 'The historical development of Chinese language planning', Journal of the Qinghai Nationalities Institute (Social Sciences), Vol 31, No 2, 2005, pp 126-127
9. Zhang Zhanshan, 'The relationship between language planning, language policy, and social background', Journal of Yantai College of Education, Vol 11, No 2, 2005, p 124.
10. Dayle Barnes, 'The implementation of language planning in China', in Juan Cobarrubias and Joshua Fishman, eds, Progress in Language Planning: International Perspectives (New York: Mouton, 1983), pp 293-294.
11. Ibid, p 294.
12. Meng, op cit, Ref 3, p 128.
13. Ildikó Bellér-Hann, The Written and the Spoken: Literary and Oral Transmission Among the Uyghur (Berling: Das Arabische Buch, 2000), p 60
14. Andrew W. D. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
15. Ibid, p 15.
16. Ibid, pp 18-19; Bellér-Hann, op cit, Ref 7, p 60.
17. Stanley Toops, 'The demography of Xinjiang', in S. Frederick Starr, ed, Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), p 245.
18. Bellér-Hann, op cit, Ref 7, pp 61-63.
19. Ibid, p 64.
20. Han Da, ed, A History of Chinese Minzu Education (Guangzhou, Guangdong Educational Press, 1998), p 256
21. Bellér-Hann, op cit, Ref 7, p 63.
22. Ibid, p 272.
23. Ibid, pp 292-293.
24. Ibid, pp 300-303.
25. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, pp 7-10, 35-37.
26. Kang Jian, 'If Xinjiang will develop, Chinese-language education must be distributed', Language and Translation (Chinese), No 2, 2006, pp 63-66.
27. Meng, op cit, Ref 3, p 126.
28. Tan Liwei and Tan Lizhong, 'On bilingual education', Journal of Western Chongqing (Natural Sciences Edition), Vol 2, No 2, 2003, p 89.
29. Robin Iredale et al., Contemporary Minority Migration, Education, and Ethnicity in China (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001), p 54.
30. Quoted in Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 37.
31. Barnes, op cit, Ref 4, p 295.
32. Stalin, Marxism and the Problems of Language, quoted in Winfred P. Lehmann, ed, Language and Linguistics in the People's Republic of China (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1975), p 130.
33. Linda Benson, 'Education and social mobility among minority populations in Xinjiang', in S. Frederick Starr, ed, Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), p 190
34. Robert Leon Cooper, Language Planning and Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp 22-23
35. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 6
36. Joshua A. Fishman, 'The 'First Congress' phenomenon: Arriving at some general conclusions', in Joshua A. Fishman, ed, The Earliest Stage of Language Planning: The 'First Congress' Phenomenon (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993), pp 335, 337
37. Zhang, op cit, Ref 3, p 23.
38. Meng, op cit, Ref 3, p 126.
39. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 8.
40. Wang Zhenben, Liang Wei, Abula Aimaite and Zhang Yong, eds, Xinjiang Minority Minzu Bilingual Education and Research (Beijing: Minzu Publishing House, 2001), pp 5-6.
41. Ibid, pp 15-16
42. Iredale et al., op cit, Ref 21, pp 69, 73.
43. Ibid, pp 26-29.
44. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, p 8
45. Justin Jon Rudelson, Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism Along China's Silk Road (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp 57-59.
46. Benson, op cit, Ref 28, pp 191, 197-198
47. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, pp 11-13
48. Barry Sautman, 'Expanding access to higher education for China's minorities: Policies of preferential admissions', in Gerard A. Postiglione, ed, China's National Minority Education: Culture, Schooling and Development (New York: Falmer Press, 1999), pp 183-193.
49. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 36
50. Iredale et al., op cit, Ref 21, p 68.
51. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 12.
52. Regie Stites, 'Writing cultural boundaries: National minority language policy, literacy planning, and bilingual education', in Postiglione, op cit, Ref 33, p 100.
53. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, p 9.
54. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, pp 36-37
55. Wang Weidong, 'The situation and experience of Chinese-language education in Xinjiang's elementary schools, middle schools, and universities', in Wang Chunde and Xuan Dewu, eds, Problems of the Use and Development of Orthographies of the Minority Minzu (Beijing: Chinese Tibetology Publishing House, 1993), p 246.
56. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, p 12.
57. Ibid, p 13.
58. Ibid, p 16.
59. Dwyer, 1998, op cit, Ref 1, p 78.
60. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, 'Language blow for China's Muslims', BBC News 1 June 2002.
61. PRC Khotan County Committee and Khotan People's Government 2004, 'Concerning the decision to vigorously promote "bilingual" education work', retrieved 12 December 2006 from Khotan County Education Web http://www.htxedu.com/Article.asp?ArticleId1321.
62. District Bureau of Education, 'Concerning seeking suggestions for implementing the Autonomous Region Party Committee and People's Government's "Concerning the decision to vigorously promote 'bilingual' education work"', 2004, retrieved 12 December 2006 from Khotan Education Web, http://www.htedu.-gov.cn/Article/ ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID1237.
63. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 37.
64. District Bureau of Education, op cit, Ref 45.
65. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 39.
66. Personal communication, 2005.
67. Elaine Wu, 'Putonghua push in Uygur nursery schools', South China Morning Post, 2 February 2006.
68. PRC Khotan County Committee, op cit, Ref 44.
69. Xinjiang Daily, 23 January 2007, 7 February 2007, 13 February 2007.
70. Stanley Lieberson, Guy Dalto and Mary Ellen Johnston, 'The course of mother tongue diversity in nations', American Journal of Sociology Vol 81, No. 1, 1975, p 53.
71. Xinjiang Daily, 31 January 2007.
72. Dongyan Ru Blachford, 'Language spread versus language maintenance: policy making and implementation process', in Zhou Minglang, ed, Language Policy in the People's Republic of China: Theory and Practice in 1949 (New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004), p 120
73. Iredale et al., op cit, Ref 21, pp 70-71.
74. The Ethnic Languages and Script Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People's Government 2004, 'Concerning suggestions for vigorously promoting 'bilingual education' in order to further strengthen the language and script work', retrieved 10 December 2007 from The Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, http://www.xinjiang.gov.cn/1$001/1$001$018/ 69.jsp?articleid12004-11-16-0009.
75. Jeff Siegel, 'Social context', in Catharine J. Doughty and Michael H. Long, eds, The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p 193.
76. Michael Dillon, Xinjiang: China's Muslim Far Northwest (London: Routledge Curzon, 2004), p 26.
77. Teng, op cit, Ref 1, pp 271-291
78. Xi and Cai, op cit, Ref 1, pp 139-142. Teng Xing's study, conducted over the course of two years, accounts for the language attitudes of a broad sector of the Uyghur population of Khotan, with a special focus on educators and others involved in bilingual education. Xi Lin and Cai Hao's survey considers only the language attitudes of 139 Uyghur and 136 Mongol students at two universities in Ürümchi. The results are broadly identical.
79. The interview sample, unfortunately, was quite narrow, consisting only of two Uyghur women of roughly the same age, both with advanced degrees and academic careers, currently living in the USA. Their responses, however, showed little variation.
80. Smith, op cit, Ref 1, pp 159, 165-166.
81. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, pp 37-38.
82. Rudelson, op cit, Ref 32, pp 127-129.
83. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 38.
84. Kang, op cit, Ref 18.
85. Teng, op cit, Ref 1
86. Xi and Cai, op cit, Ref 1.
87. Smith, op cit, Ref 1, pp 155, 157-161.
88. Sun Hongkai, 'The new situation and new problems of minority language planning', Applied Linguistics, No 1, February 2005, p 15.
89. Blachford, op cit, Ref 55, pp 120-121; William W. Bostock, 'Language grief: A "raw material" of ethnic conflict', Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol 3, No 4, 1997, pp 94-112.
90. Stites, op cit, Ref 36, pp 106-110.
91. Yang Bingyi, ed, Forty Years of Minzu Language and Orthography Work in Xinjiang (Ürümchi: Xinjiang Minzu Publishing House, 1991), pp 100-104
92. Zhu Xuejia, 'A study of the variations and norms in the use of Chinese by Uyghur people in Xinjiang', Journal of Xinjiang University (Philosophy and Social Science), Vol 33, No 3, 2005, pp 141-145.
93. Siegel, op cit, Ref 57, pp 193-195.
94. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, pp 57-59.
95. Ibid, p 60.
96. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, pp 35-36.
97. Toops, op cit, Ref 10, pp 255-260.
98. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 9.
99. Nicolas Becquelin, 'Staged development in Xinjiang', The China Quarterly, No 178, 2004, pp 358-78.
100. Siegel, op cit, Ref 57, p 193.
101. Wu, op cit, Ref 50.
102. Dwyer, 1998, op cit, Ref 1, p 78.
103. Wang, op cit, Ref 38, pp 246-247.
104. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, p 54.
105. Ibid, p 67.
106. Wang, op cit, Ref 38, pp 248-249.
107. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, pp 57-59. This methodology bears a striking resemblance to the rote-learning methods used in teaching English to Han students, even at the university level.
108. 'Chart of the Distribution of "Bilingual" Minority Teachers-in-Training in the Autonomous Region Between 2005 and 2007', retrieved 5 January 2007 from Xinjiang Education Web, http://www.xjedu.gov.cn/.
109. Wang, op cit, Ref 38, p 248.
110. Ibid, p 246.
111. Kang, op cit, Ref 18, p 63.
112. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, p 58.
113. Zhou Shengwu, 'Representatives from the world of primary education reflect a shortage of high-quality 'bilingual' teachers', Xinjiang Daily, 18 January 2007.
114. Kang, op cit, Ref 18, pp 64-66.
115. 'Rural education on the Pamir Plateau is like "a horse with no saddle"', Xinjiang Daily, 21 January 2007.
116. Office of the State Council 2004, 'The country's western regions' "Two Basics" attack plan (2004-2007)', retrieved 12 December 2006 from People's Daily, http://www.people.com.cn/GB/jiaoyu/8216/ 42366/42375/3099489.html.
117. Xinjiang Daily, 30 January 2007.
118. Xinjiang Daily, 22 January 2007.
119. Xinjiang Economy Newspaper, 29 August 2006.
120. Ibid, p 63.
121. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 12.
122. Dillon, op cit, Ref 58, p 26
123. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 36.
124. Stephen May, 'Rearticulating the case for minority language rights', Current Issues in Language Planning, Vol 4, No 2, 2003, p 117.
125. Dwyer, 1998, op cit, Ref 1, p 78.
126. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 40.
127. Quoted in Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 37.
128. Iredale et al., op cit, Ref 21, pp 26-29. One Uyghur word for 'university', for example, is dašö, from Mandarin daxue.
129. Lehmann, op cit, Ref 24, p 21.
130. For an example of this, see Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), p 126.
131. May, op cit, Ref 102, pp 102-103.
132. Dwyer, 1998, op cit, Ref 1.
133. Meng, op cit, Ref 3, p 129.
134. May, op cit, Ref 102, pp 101-102.
135. Dillon (op cit, Ref 58, p 74), cites the example of the 1993 replacement of all non-Han police officers in Kashgar with Han officers. The non-Han police were transferred to Han-majority Ürümchi.
136. David Laitin and Rob Reich, 'A liberal democratic approach to language justice' in Will Kymlicka and Alan Patten, eds., Political Theory and Language Justice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003), pp 80-104. p 92, cited in May, op cit, Ref 102, p 103.
137. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, pp 42-44.
138. Dwyer, 1998, op cit, Ref 1, p 68.
139. Dillon, op cit, Ref 58, p 26.
140. Teng, op cit, Ref 1
141. Xi and Cai, op cit, Ref 1.
142. There is evidence to suggest that more liberal language policies, particularly those with a de facto, rather than de jure, national language, such as that of Lithuania after the breakup of the Soviet Union, are more effective in spreading the majority language than those which attempt to legislatively impose a national language.
143. Lehmann, op cit, Ref 24, p 114.
144. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, pp 60-61.
145. Smith, op cit, Ref 1, pp 158, 160.
146. Xinjiang Daily, 23 January 2007, 7 February 2007, 13 February 2007.
147. Yee, op cit, Ref 1, pp 37-39.
148. Bostock, op cit, Ref 69, p 94.
149. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 40
150. Wingfield-Hayes, op cit, Ref 43.
151. Smith, op cit, Ref 1, pp 159-161.
152. Teng, op cit, Ref 1
153. Xi and Cai, op cit, Ref 1.
154. William Fierman, Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Experience (New York: Mouton de Gruyter), p 12.
155. Smith, op cit, Ref 1, p 159.
156. Justin Rudelson and William Jankowiak, 'Acculturation and resistance: Xinjiang identities in flux', in Starr, op cit, Ref 25, p 304.
157. Janina Brutt-Griffler, World English: A Study of Its Development (Tonawanda: Multilingual Matters, 2002), p 101, cited in May, op cit, Ref 102, p 101.
158. Ferdinand de Varennes, 'Language rights as an integral part of human rights', International Journal on Multicultural Studies, Vol 3, No 1, 2001, pp 15-25
159. Sue Wright, 'Language and power: Background to the debate on linguistic rights', International Journal on Multicultural Studies, Vol 3, No 1, 2001, pp 47-57.
160. Dwyer, 1998, op cit, Ref 1, p 78
161. Kang, op cit, Ref 18
162. Siegel, op cit, Ref 57, p 193.
163. Benson, op cit, Ref 28, p 214.
164. Wang et al., op cit, Ref 28, pp 10, 57, 91.
165. Idil Boran, 'Autonomy as a remedy for language conflict: Negotiating territoriality and identity', Language Problems and Language Planning Vol 25, No 3, 2001, pp 237-257.
166. Gardner Bovingdon, Autonomy in Xinjiang: Han Nationalist Imperatives and Uyghur Discontent [Policy Studies 11] (Washington: The East-West Center, 2004).
167. Dwyer, 2005, op cit, Ref 1, p 38.
168. Blachford, op cit, Ref 55, p 120.