Chinese Language Education from the Perspective of Language Integration and Internationalization
摘要
The Chinese language belongs not only to China, but also to all ethnic Chinese people around the world, and by extension, humanity at large. With the growing influences of the Chinese communities in global affairs, Chinese language education is assuming an increasingly greater role in the internationalization of the Chinese language and the integration of its varieties. Against such a backdrop, attention and respect have to be paid to the linguistic and cultural variations of the ethnic Chinese communities living in different parts of the world. In terms of Chinese language education, we have to keep in the mind the needs of different Chinese communities. In addition to dealing with the core language features, we have to consider the issues of integrating the language features of the different varieties of the Chinese language. From the perspective of the internationalization and integration of global Chinese, this chapter focuses on the following issues concerning Chinese language education: (1) The integration of the different varieties of the Chinese language for the development of Chinese language education. First, we must respect the linguistic differences of different regions. Second, editing language textbooks and reading materials requires attention to localization as different Chinese-speaking regions have different historical backgrounds and different social needs. Third, in terms of language assessment, there can be different assessment requirements for written and spoken languages. Fourth, in terms of language application in society, the mass media and language teaching should be as “strict” as possible and move closer to Putonghua, while general language application and language assessment in language teaching should be “lenient” and accept and accommodate some regional phonetic, lexical and grammatical features. (2) The curriculum design of Chinese language and cultural programmes and Chinese language teacher education. Language teaching materials should be made regionalized and localized; language teaching staff must also be localized. This will create a polycentric language promotion situation. Language teaching should blur the relationship between language, culture, and ethnicity in order to help Chinese become an international language. Training of Chinese language teaching staff should make use of different Chinese-speaking regions as training venues and involve teaching and research staff from Chinese-speaking regions that are in a position to do so in training activities. (3) Principles in dealing with the lexical variations among global Chinese. It is important to respect the language standards, communication habits, and special terms of different Chinese-speaking regions. The compilation of language textbooks must involve teaching staff from different Chinese-speaking regions. (4) The integration of the ancient and modern Chinese languages. In the teaching of ancient Chinese, the integration of ancient and modern Chinese is advocated. It is also necessary for the curriculum of Chinese as a foreign language. From the perspective of cultural and linguistic heritage, we propose to rearrange the teaching materials by taking the content as the outline and combining the materials from the ancient and modern times.