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English in Chinese higher education has shifted from being taught as a foreign language alongside other disciplinary-focussed courses to becoming an important medium of instruction used for learning and teaching non-language related academic subjects. While using English medium instruction (EMI) seems a natural and neutral academic exercise, the switch has muddied the water of EMI implementation and caused a number of social and academic issues for both students and lecturers. These problems include unfair promotion opportunities, unequal access to EMI classes, inadequate learning outcomes, and poor teaching quality. This special issue builds on past and current EMI work that explores issues related to EMI implementation in Chinese higher education institutions and in classrooms. Through the selection of several empirical papers, the special issue shines light on current knowledge, policies and practices of EMI in China to pave the way for research-informed recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systemic functional translation studies (SFTS) has been a research area sustained by scholars from both Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and translation studies over the past decades. In China, there have been an increasing number of studies in SFTS after the 2000s, with Professor Guowen Huang being one of the pioneering and influential scholars contributing to this emerging research area. This paper is a transcript of an interview conducted with Guowen Huang and it serves to provide a general introduction to his research. In the interview, he discusses his motivation for exploring SFTS, the advantages of applying SFL to translation studies, and the Ph.D. students he has supervised over the past decades. He also introduces his own work on the translations of ancient Chinese poems, the translations of the Analects (Lunyu 论语) of Confucius, and his investigation of applying ecolinguistics to translation studies. Finally, he suggests some future studies needed in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's digital age, the online public domain, particularly social networking websites, is the new frontier for the battle between censors and dissidents. This paper examines linguistic trends in the ways in which Chinese web users exploit Chinese phonology, morphology, and orthography to avoid notice by online censors through the lenses of pragmatics and critical discourse analysis. The linguistic transformations can be divided into 1) phonologically derived transformations, e.g. the well known "river crab" (héxiè, ...) in place of the word "harmony" (héxié, ...); 2a) character suggestion (phono-orthographical) e.g. referring to former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (WenJ iabao, ...) as "Teletubby" (tianxiàn baobao, ...) because of the two names' shared character ... (bao); and 2b) character suggestion (morpho-orthographical) e.g. the made-up word ... (mù tián, "eye field") being substituted for ... (zìyóu, "freedom"). Consequently, introducing multiple linguistic transformations, in particular introducing elements of foreign languages and ideograms, drastically increases the level of encoding. This paper presents examples of combination methods, including Chinese-English compound words that connote disparate yet interdependent meanings in multiple languages meanings, as well as the youth culture phenomenon of Martian language, or ... (..., huoxing wén). In characterizing the ways in which web users manipulate Chinese language, this paper aims to demonstrate that these transformation techniques are inherent to the Chinese language as well as a byproduct of the relationship between web users and censors, reflected in the encoded subversive messages heavy reliance on political and cultural references. Thus, interpreting the output strings of subversive messages requires both linguistic knowledge and social context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic positions vary greatly as regards attitudes towards and expectations of global English around the world. In this paper, I focus on the English language learning context in China and use data collected during the period when Beijing was preparing for and hosting the 2008 Olympic Games (2006-2008) to examine how English and the study of English are perceived and accessed by learners engaged in teaching and learning English outside formal educational institutions, namely, Olympic community English classes and English corners. In particular, I will explore, via interviews and group discussions, the reasons underlying learners' voluntary choice of English learning; their perceptions of the status of English relative to Chinese in a globalizing context, the potential influence English imposes on Chinese language and culture, and the significance of English to Chinese society. My research findings show that my informants associate English (learning) with multiple benefits to life and career; they express a strong confidence that English will not be a threat to the Chinese language and culture and they claim that English is useful to the development of China both now and in the long run. In this paper, I posit that my informants' opinions reflect a view of the social world from a particular historical, economic or political perspective or several perspectives combined and I relate their positions on the global spread of English in China to issues of language ideologies. I believe that the nonlinguistic socio-economic, social-historical and socio-political factors exert a crucial role in the emergence of dominant ideologies. Hence, besides presenting and interpreting the prevailing English language ideologies as captured in the discourse of my research respondents, in the last part of the paper, I will explore the possible social, cultural and political factors which caused the ideologies of language to emerge and the implications borne out by these ideologies in the context of China's ongoing globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

在阅读教学中，依据教学目的和教学对象等的不同，教学内容有所选择与侧重，是很自然、也是可以接受的；但是，无论如何选择或侧重，最终都应该、也必须围绕着并且服务于对阅读内容的理解。但由于这一阅读教学根本理念的缺失，在当下的对外汉语阅读教学中，存在着程度不一的多种教学偏差。本文分析了以下七种偏差现象：（一）偏重语言要素教学；（二）偏重扩大词汇量；（三）偏重孤立的阅读技巧教学；（四）片面追求阅读速度；（五）片面讲求不同的阅读方式；（六）以理解检测替代阅读教学；（七）以离散的、低认知层次的练习引导阅读理解。 Reading is a complex process. To promote effective language learning via reading, the design of reading materials and programs in TCSOL (Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages) should tailor to not only students' learning preferences but also diverse settings in which the materials are delivered. All too often either the student or the setting is prioritized over the other. Further, the design of reading materials and programs should always aim to facilitate content comprehension, the fundamental goal of reading. If any other purposes overshadow the content comprehension, deviations in reading instruction emerge, which can prevent students from processing the materials and ultimately learn. A better understanding of these deviations can instigate design of reading materials and programs that prioritize comprehension without compromising appropriateness for diverse learning styles and settings. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to identify and discuss various deviations in TCSOL reading instruction in China, as highlighted below. 1. The study of linguistic forms is overemphasized. The two well-accepted objectives of reading instruction are to promote Chinese language learning and comprehension skills. To this end, linguistic learning becomes easily overstated in textbooks and reading programs. For example, a multitude of activities may be devoted to explanations and exercises of vocabulary and grammar well beyond necessity, even taking up one third of the total course time. Detailed discussion and practice of linguistic forms serve for intensive reading, not for extensive reading. 2. The expansion of vocabulary is overemphasized. Vocabulary is always regarded as one of the most striking obstacles for reading and is thus treated as one of the main goals of reading instruction. But having too many new words in a text prohibits students from understanding and subsequently learning the reading materials. There are usually more than 10% new words in an extensive reading text. The author argues that new words must be below 5% to provide scaffolding of students' development of reading skills and command of linguistic forms. 3. Reading strategies alone without context are overly promoted. Reading strategies play a major role in reading abilities. But it is more effective to teach reading strategies with opportunities to directly apply them to a reading process rather than teach them independently. The widely adopted approach now is unfortunately the latter. 4. Reading speed is overly applauded. The increase of reading speed is actually a result of reading practices, albeit frequently being misconstrued as a means for developing reading ability. Many textbooks nowadays establish a challenging reading speed and urge the students to skim through a difficult text to understand the gist. However, reading speed can only be enhanced by long-term careful reading practices in large amounts and some well-designed fast-reading exercises, both of which are based upon comprehension of the content. 5. Different ways of reading are overemphasized. Skimming, scanning and similar reading ways have attracted much attention these years and almost every textbook assigns students to read in one of these ways or another, but no attention has been paid to the learning objectives and benefits of doing so. When instructed this way, students often have little motivation to immerse themselves in the materials, especially under tremendous time pressure. Skimming and scanning, as reading strategies, are too often over-simplified into fast reading, without proper instruction. 6. Reading instruction is replaced by comprehension check. The prevailing procedure of reading instruction is that teacher assigns reading materials to students, checks students' responses to questions on comprehension, and provides brief comments on common mistakes. But what the teacher should do most is to give students scaffolding, helping and instructing while they are reading. Think-aloud and other similar or simplified approaches can be introduced for this purpose. 7. The reading process is guided by discrete, low cognitive level comprehension questions. Comprehension questions are important to guide and determine the quality of reading process and outputs. Dominating questioning forms now are discrete and low cognitive level objective questions that fixate on a narrow aspect of the text and lack holistic viewpoints. Instead, comprehension questions should engage students in advanced cognitive processing that deepens and broadens their understanding of the text through analyzing, applying, evaluating and creating information obtained from the text. In final remarks, it is essential to ensure that reading is always the central activity and comprehension is always the primary objective in the design of textbooks and reading programs. In the pursuit of promoting all-dimensional comprehension in strategic readers, we urge the design of reading materials and programs in TCSOL to refrain from the aforementioned seven types of deviations and adopt a content comprehension-centered approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China internationalizes its own banks more and more, and the Chinese are an expanding market in Western banks, the linguistic specificities of communication strategies may be understood and applied in the professional environments of banks. The present comparison is based on the key features of metadiscourse markers in the Chinese English-version CEO letters and the Western English-version CEO letters in banking annual reports. Metadiscourse in business genres is an under-represented topic, particularly across cultures; this study invites further inquiry. This paper applies corpus-based contrastive analysis to CEO letters in English from Chinese and Western banks. Comparing distribution patterns of metadiscourse markers, we found that both interactive and interactional metadiscourse was more frequently used in the Western letters. This suggests that Western CEO letters tend to use more credibility and affective appeals, while Chinese CEO letters are based more on rational appeals. Variation in use of metadiscourse is discussed with a focus on the interplay of linguistic and cultural features. This study contributes to the fields of Chinese English professional written communication, and cross-cultural writing in workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the direct and indirect contributions of morphological awareness to vocabulary knowledge among a group of Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) students in a university in China. Using multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling analysis, the study found that morphological awareness made significant contributions to vocabulary knowledge after lexical inferencing was controlled for. To be more specific, the prediction of morphological awareness on vocabulary depth was stronger than its prediction on vocabulary breadth. The direct effects of morphological awareness were stronger than its indirect effects on vocabulary. More importantly, the study revealed that the relationships between morphological awareness (morpheme recognition and morpheme discrimination) and vocabulary knowledge were mediated by discourse clues rather than grammar clues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong ceased to be a colony of Britain on June 30th, 1997, thus entering a new stage of its development and evolution as a uniquely-constituted city state and urban metropolis. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China (HKSAR) inherited a linguistic ecology that owed much to its previous existence as a British colony, where the Chinese language had had no de jure status until 1974. From 1995, the stated policy of government has been to promote a "biliterate" (Chinese and English) and "trilingual" (Cantonese, Putonghua and English) society, and various measures have also been taken to promote the use of Chinese as a medium of instruction in schools. Immediately after the change in sovereignty, Putonghua became a compulsory school subject for the first time. This paper will examine the issue of language planning and policies partly from an historical perspective, but also through a consideration of current policies and practices across a range of domains, including government, law and education. One major conclusion that emerges from this discussion is that, from a language policy perspective, the relationship between Chinese and English in the Hong Kong context is potentially far less contentious than that between Cantonese and Putonghua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publications from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, though in essentially the same language, nevertheless display certain significant differences in choice of vocabulary. Especially striking are differences in the way non-Chinese proper nouns are rendered into Chinese in the three regions. This phenomenon has created difficulty for readers, and generated confused communication in the overseas Chinese mass media. In addition, it has created one more source of difficulty for non-Chinese learners of the Chinese language. This paper is a comparative study of this phenomenon. It analyses the existing practices for the transliteration of non-Chinese proper nouns into Chinese, identifies points of commonality and difference among the three regions, and seeks to establish both the nature of the problem and possible ways of dealing with it. Its findings, apart from their purely linguistic interest, have practical relevance both for translators and for learners of Chinese.

This article traces the meteoric genesis and demise of the Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (SCCSS) published in December 1977 by the Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language, as well as its relationship to the revised draft scheme which appeared in August 1981. The history of the first Chinese character simplification scheme, which was compiled, discussed, and revised between 1954 and its official promulgation in 1956, is well known. By 1964, a master list of 2238 simplified characters in standard type font for use in printing had been published. The first part of this paper traces the evolution of the draft of the SCCSS. The publication of the SCCSS was in fact delayed by several years. On October 24, 1974, during a temporary lull in the Cultural Revolution, members of a U.S. linguistics delegation had met in Beijing, China with four representatives of the Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language. It was not until December 20, 1977, that the second draft scheme, greatly enlarged in scope, was published in its entirety as front-page news throughout the People's Republic. The New China News Agency specifically attributed the delay to unreasonable suppression during the Cultural Revolution.

Protecting the environment is an important topic. In this study, college Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) students engaged in an agentive process of informally learning the Chinese language and culture by watching The Mermaid, a movie produced in China in 2016, which focuses on sustainability. Informal learning is recognized as one of the most powerful factors in Foreign Language (FL) development (Furlong and Davies 2012). Limited research on informal CFL learning from watching online videos is available (Huang and Lammers 2018). By using key ideas of agency, mediation, and internalization in SocioCultural Theory (SCT), this qualitative case study found that informal video learning from watching The Mermaid was helpful for learning vocabulary, grammar, and cultural values in sustainability topics. By means of semi-structured interviews, observations, recalls, and documents as data, the findings suggest that using real-world movies such as The Mermaid as an environmental sustainability topic had a positive impact on FL education. Demonstrating their agencies, learners engaged in vocabulary, grammar, and cultural value learning. This study offers pedagogical implications for language learning in Higher Education. Language Centers can therefore play a role in engaging campuses in social topics such as environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section provides an overview of the articles concerning the use of China's minority languages in speech and writing under the actual conditions obtaining in the country, published in the September 1, 1992 issue. Although these articles cannot provide a comprehensive account of the complexities of the socio-linguistic situation of the minorities, they do highlight some of the more important aspects. As a scientific discipline, sociolinguistics was developed relatively late in China, and more so in the field of minority studies, although we can now look back on a considerable number of research publications. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government gave high priority to the investigation of minority languages, the development of education for minorities, and the advance of economic development in minority regions. A set of policy regulations was drafted in order to ensure the adaptation and improvement of the minority languages in speech and writing. It was stipulated that all nationalities have the right to use and develop their languages. Minorities hitherto unwritten languages were assisted in selecting or creating appropriate writing systems, and in other cases writing systems were reformed. Further, various minorities were encouraged, according to their needs, to learn other languages in addition to their own. The minorities were helped in developing education in their own languages in order to improve the quality and efficiency of teaching. Efforts were also made to widen the range of use of minority languages in the media. Furthermore, the standardization of pronunciation, lexicon, and grammar of minority languages was begun and continue to be promoted.

China has emerged from its isolation and has entered into the world of scientific and economic networks. China has, in the course of this development, awakened to the importance of using resources available in the larger world for its own interests. With its massive modernization program, the country has sought to lift itself up to scientific and economic levels equal to those of the developed nations. As part of the effort, attention has been given both to the role of the Chinese language, and to the role of the English language. Both languages have been recognized as essential factors in China's development. Both languages represent resources to be used for modernization purposes. With respect to both languages, however, the specific roles they should play in modernization efforts have not yet been clearly articulated. This article will be primarily concerned with two purposes. First, is to define the relation between scientific information and language. Second, is to examine what the science/language relation implies for aspects of Human Resources Development Planning, which is an integral part of any modernization effort. These two issues together serve to define the roles of both English and Chinese in modernization efforts, and to argue for the position that their use as resources requires planning.

This article discusses IT terms and terminology management in Hong Kong from the perspective of Language Management Theory (Jernudd and Neustupný 1987, 1991; Jernudd and Nekvapil 2012; Nekvapil 2012). The noting, evaluating, adjusting and implementing of IT terms are examined in the context of lexical innovation (through translation) in the contact situation that Hong Kong represents. It describes the management of Chinese IT terms by agencies in Hong Kong and also discusses the efficacy of standardization of terminology as an agency goal in view of the potential of noting inadequacies of terminology in actual discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending Lee's (Pragmatics 15: 395--422, 2005) work, the researcher further investigates the requestive behaviour of a group of Cantonese learners of English (CLEs) in Hong Kong in terms of their strategy and linguistic preference. The data were collected from a discourse completion test (DCT). Their requestive behaviour is studied in three social and power hierarchical situations (low--high, equal--equal and high--low) in the university context and is compared with a group of native Cantonese speakers' (NCSs) and native English speakers' (NESs) requestive behaviour, respectively. The dual comparison results in three important findings. First, the evidence shows some L1 influence on the syntactic structure of the CLEs' query preparatory strategy. The equivalent interrogative form of (Nei1/Ngo5) ho2 ji5/h2 m ho2 ji5: (you/I) can/can-not-can in Cantonese and Can/Could/May you/I ......? in English contributes to the frequent use of the CLEs' indirect requestive behaviour in English. Nevertheless, the difference in direct and indirect strategies between the two groups is significant ( p < 0.005). Second, there is cross-cultural agreement on indirect requestive behaviour in the three situations between the CLEs and the NESs. Both groups use the politeness marker of cing2 or please to mitigate imposition and increase politeness. However, the CLEs demonstrate limited pragmalinguistic resources to enhance the force and politeness of the speech act compared to the NESs. The strengths and weaknesses of CLEs' requestive behaviour, their limited pragmalinguistic resources and the limitations of the study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Surpass (or Exceed) comparative is a widespread feature of Sinitic languages found in almost all ‘dialect’ groups. This article investigates the nature of Surpass constructions in Southern Chinese varieties with a focus on Cantonese, and in unrelated languages of Southeast Asia, where Surpass comparatives are also found (Thai, Lao and Vietnamese). I offer possible grammaticalization paths for the Surpass comparative in the history of Chinese grammar, and argue that Surpass constructions are typical of Southern Sinitic but not of Mandarin Chinese (contra Stassen, Comparison and universal grammar, Basil Blackwell, 1985, Stassen, Comparative constructions, Oxford University Press, 2005). I also propose that the Surpass comparative should be added to the shared features of a broadly defined Mainland Southeast Asian region which illustrates the affinity of languages such as Cantonese to their non-Sinitic Southeast Asian neighbors. Finally, in arguing that comparatives in Mandarin Chinese are not Surpass construction, I suggest that it is not Sinitic languages in general that go against robust typological correlations between basic word order and standard-adjective order; rather, it is only Mandarin that provides a counterexample and is, in that respect, typologically rare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Introduction China possesses rich linguistic resources which remain relatively untapped: the ten main Sinitic languages or dialect groups account for roughly 93% of the population (Mandarin, Jin, Xiang, Gan, Hui, Wu, Min, Kejia, Yue, and Pinghua); the remaining 7% comprise the many different “minority” languages in long term contact with Sinitic such as Tibeto-Burman, Mongolian, Hmong, and Tai. In an almost unprecedented state of affairs, written records for Chinese extend without a break 3,000 years into the past, furnishing a rich documentation for any kind of historical study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to investigate the shift of language practice in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, People's Republic of China. As Hong Kong's sovereignty has been returned to China, Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) has made its way to Hong Kong, a Cantonese-speaking region with English as its official language in colonial times. In Guangzhou, also a Cantonese-speaking region, Putonghua, the national standard language, is being used in more domains due to the economic development in the region. This study aims to show (1) how social changes such as economic reform and political change are reflected in the choice of language in Guangzhou and Hong Kong; (2) how the shift to language practice is indicated in code-switching between Putonghua and Cantonese in these two regions. The data for the study came from audio-recorded verbal interactions in service encounters. I argue that code-switching between the two languages is an indicator of the changing political and economic situations in these two regions, which have brought about changes in ideology and business practice in current China. Implications for the use of Putonghua in these two regions will also be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study measures directly and indirectly language attitude of Korean-Chinese and Tibetan college students in China, where language planning has promoted Putonghua (PTH) over ethnic languages and local dialects for over forty years. The direct measurement shows that the Koreans score much higher than the Tibetans on variables regarding PTH learning/using, and that integrative and instrumental orientations, financial status, and family bilingual status are associated with PTH achievement. The indirect measurement demonstrates that the Koreans adhere to the linguistic norm wherein PTH is considered the valued form and ethnic languages the nonvalued form, while the Tibetans do not adhere to this norm. In a cross-measurement comparison, the Koreans demonstrate consistent overt and covert attitudes toward PTH and PTH speakers, whereas the Tibetans display positive overt but negative covert attitudes. These attitudes mirror the cultural, political, and socioeconomic disparities between the Koreans and Tibetans in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a bibliography comprising of some 400 titles published between 1890-1990 both in China and abroad. The titles were selected from among those Chinese and Western publications dealing with ethno- and socio-linguistic issues in China. Chinese titles are given in Roman letters and provided with an English translation.

This article discusses contradictions in Chinese language reform and attempts to propose an approach for evaluating language planning in the Chinese context. It is well known that languages change as they are used, but they also remain quite stable. Change and stability are conflicting forces, but they interact to keep language alive and at the same time maintain an equilibrium so that communication is not rendered impossible. Due to the same interaction of these forces, the Chinese writing system continually changes as new characters are introduced for semantic distinction and complex ones simplified for ease of use. In China, script simplification became a much stronger force because of a political focus on the education of the populace as a democratization process. In handwriting, the script continued to evolve in the direction of simplification. The Committee on Language Reform collected more simplified characters in circulation during the 1960s and the early 1970s. In order to give due recognition to these created characters, it announced the Draft of the Second Simplification Scheme for comments in December 1977. But since 1979, one hardly finds any news items about the Draft. This silence goes against the tradition of Chinese intellectuals and linguistic scholars who had always written about and contributed to the work of language reform.