English in China

Language, Identity and Culture

Emily Tsz Yan Fong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000370911
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume explores Chinese identity through the lens of both the Chinese and English languages.

Until the twentieth century, English was a language associated with capitalists and "military aggressors" in China. However, the massive progression of globalisation in China following the 1980s has transformed the language into an important tool for China's modernisation. Regardless of the role English plays in China, there has always been a fear there that the spread of culture(s) associated with English would lead to weakening of the Chinese identity. This fear resulted in the development of the ti-yong principle: "Chinese learning for essence ( ti ), Western learning for utility ( yong )."

Fong's book aims to enhance understanding of the ti-yong dichotomy in relation to people's sense of being Chinese in China, the penetration of English into non-English speaking societies, the resultant tensions in people's sense of personal and national identity, and their place in the world. Using Q methodology, the book presents observations based on data collected from four participant groups, namely high school and university students, teachers and parents in China, to investigate their perspectives on the status and roles of English, as well as those of Chinese.

Considering the growing international interest in China, this volume will appeal to readers interested in China's contemporary society in general, its language, culture and identity. It will be a useful resource for academics, researchers and students in the field of applied linguistics, language education and Chinese cultural studies and can also be adopted as a reference book for undergraduate courses relating to language, identity and culture.

1China and “being Chinese”

It is necessary to understand historical experiences of China to make sense of the country’s international relations and current development, of which the popularisation and domestication of English alongside the national language, Mandarin (also known as Putonghua), is a part.

China once regarded itself as the “middle kingdom”, meaning the centre of the world. Before contact with Western nations, it perceived of them as backward and “barbarians” (Gelber 2007:33). It is generally agreed that during the past two hundred years, there have been two periods of intensive confrontation and self-isolation, in terms of China’s relations with the West.¹ One was the period around and after the Opium Wars (and also the Boxer Rebellion of 1900), and the other was the first 30 years of Communist rule, before the reform and opening up (改革开放) in the late 1970s. From 1860 on, following the end of the Opium Wars, which first exposed the military weaknesses of China, Western powers, such as Britain and France, coveted the rich resources China could provide in the era of the Industrial Revolution (Gelber 2007). During the nineteenth century, China underwent a series of wars with the West, which resulted in a long period of hostility between them. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the military, economic and political strength of the United Kingdom and United States grew tremendously. China began to follow in their footsteps.

Since the reform and opening up commenced in the late 1970s and intensified in the late 1980s, China has been opening up to the world, and modernisation has become the direction for national development. While for some Chinese people, the English language has had a long history of humiliating and unpleasant associations because of the positioning of the West as an enemy of China, English provides the major medium for the information and knowledge indispensable to modernisation. With China’s economic growth and increasing involvement in international affairs, English language learning has become unprecedentedly widespread and welcome, especially since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 and hosting of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. While modernising the country in order to renegotiate its place in the world (Rofel 2007), China also strives to preserve and promote to the world its own characteristics. To achieve this, the Chinese people need to look back and reflect on themselves, in search of their identifiable and distinctive national characteristics. Research and discussions in the field of China studies are addressing what constitutes these characteristics of being Chinese. In the current economic, political and cultural atmosphere, China studies scholars (for example, Barmé, 2010a, b; Mitter 2017; Zheng 2014) have shown that China relies on both the past and the modern era to establish its world status and identity.

Throughout Chinese history, contact with foreign countries has played an important role in China’s transformation into its current being. The spread of English, and the question of what Chinese identity means in today’s China, cannot be considered independently of these contacts. China’s relations with foreign countries and its search for a national image thus underlie the mindset that guides the present research, as examined further in this chapter.

1.1 “Being Chinese”: Chinese perspectives on relations with the “world”

Based on Gelber (2007), Table 1.1 highlights China’s foreign contacts in different periods of Chinese history.

Table 1.1China’s foreign contacts in different periods

Dynasty/Year	China’s contacts and cultural exchanges with the outside world
Isolationist period 1100–206 BC	Creation of “middle kingdom”: “developed from an aggregation of tribes into a single people” (Gelber 2007:21)
Qin, Han, Jin and Sui dynasties 206 BC–581 AD	Trade and cultural contacts with Greece, Rome and Indian Buddhism through the Silk Road
Tang and Song dynasties 581–1276 AD	Contacts with the Eastern Roman Empire, Venetians, Near East and Central Asia (for example, Arabia and Persia) Contacts with India, Korea and Japan
Song and Yuan dynasties 1210–1368 AD	Continued cultural contacts with India, Korea and Japan
Ming dynasty 1368–1644 AD	Zheng He’s expeditions Cultural contacts with Christianity Importation of Western knowledge, such as science and mathematics, and exportation of Confucianism by Western missionaries
Qing dynasty 1644–1727 AD	Conflicts with the Russian Empire
Qing dynasty 1719–1816 AD	European missionaries and trade
Qing dynasty 1816–1860 AD	Trade conflicts with European powers Opium Wars Beginning of unequal status between China and the West

China has a diverse history of links with the world, especially with the West. This history has been characterised by self-imposed isolation, mutual learning and foreign interference. All along, China has relied on the categorisations of “self” and “other” to create its ideal self-image. The old Chinese saying: “非我族类 其心必异” (literal translation: “those who are not our kin surely have a different heart”), which first appeared in the Chinese narrative history <<左传>> (Zuo Zhuan) around mid-400 BC, has applied not only to issues regarding the internal stability of China, but also to comparisons between China and the outside world (Zhang 2001). This ideal image was formed by comparing the “psychologically salient” differences between itself and the world (Tajfel 1978:66), including cultural beliefs and values.

Before the mid-nineteenth century, the world outside of its borders was perceived by China as barbaric. The Silk Road, extending from China to Rome, played a significant role in early economic and cultural communications between imperial China and other states. Indirect contacts with Rome and Greece during the Qin and Han periods might have been China’s first interchanges with Europe (Gelber 2007). The Silk Road and sea travel enabled the exchange of goods, including Chinese silks, ceramics, weapons and furs, and Roman glass, textiles, iron goods and gold (Zhang 2012). Around 300 BC, China also traded with Greek merchant groups in Bactria (now Afghanistan) (Gelber 2007). Along with cultural artifacts, Chinese envoys to Rome brought back new information and knowledge. Through the Silk Road, the four inventions of ancient China – paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing – spread to Western Asia and Europe.

During the Tang dynasty, the Eastern Roman Empire dispatched Christian missionaries and monks to China. Despite a prohibition on Western religion, Christianity wielded some influence in western China. As Gelber (2007) states, most of the Tang and Song emperors were open to foreigners. Some people from Japan, Korea and the Middle East, and communities such as Nestorians, Arabs and Persians, were allowed to do business in China. Under the Mongol rulers in the Yuan period, Italian and Islamic merchants, such as the Polo family from Venice, lived in China. As a favourite of Mongol emperor Khan, Marco Polo was made a governor in China. On his return to Europe, the book he wrote about his travels provided Europeans with information about China² (Gelber 2007).

During the Tang and Song dynasties, China had more cultural contacts with Asian countries. Chinese monks journeyed to India to bring back Buddhist texts. There were also exchanges of Indian medicine, music and dance, and Chinese paper and printing (Xu, Zhao & Wen 1981). Many Korean students travelled to China. The capital of Korea also replicated the Tang capital, Changan, and adopted its bureaucratic systems. During the Song period, Korea and China traded goods such as ginseng and herbal medicines. Japanese students and monks who went to China took Chinese government systems, and the land and tax policies of the Tang dynasty, back to Japan (Gelber 2007).

During the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He made seven ocean voyages to Southeast Asia, taking with him articles from the official Ming dynasty and thus expanding Chinese contacts with other countries. The sixteenth-century Ming dynasty saw early contacts with Western priests and missionaries. The founder of the first Jesuit mission in China, Matteo Ricci, was the most prominent figure. He and other Jesuits preached to the Chinese people and emperor and promoted mutual learning (Li 2001; Gelber 2007). They transmitted Western knowledge of science, mathematics, technology and most significantly, knowledge of the other side of “the world”. Ricci amazed the Chinese by presenting a world map, declaring that “the world was round” and inhabited by men on its opposite side (Ricci 1953:325). In turn, foreign visitors to China learned from Confucian philosophy and set up oriental studies in Europe, with a subsequent impact on the European Renaissance (Li 2001). Therefore, it is said that Jesuits and other foreign missionaries led to the revival of Confucianism during the Ming-Qing period (Li 2001). Scholars such as Liang Qichao³ have claimed that Chinese translations and borrowings of the Western work brought in by Western Christians also greatly influenced the development of Chinese culture, contributing to what he called a “Chinese Renaissance” (Li 2001:117). During this long period of deep cultural contact, Latin was the main Western language studied in China. Through their early intercultural encounters, the Jesuits helped raise China’s awareness of the outside world and redefine what it meant to be Chinese. These unprecedented mutual learning relationships and cultural exchanges produced a general sense in China that there were sources of wisdom outside the country (Sen 2005). At the collective level, the encounter with otherness helped forge a Chinese sense of self.

Following the overthrow of the Ming dynasty, the Manchus founded the Qing dynasty. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of internal conflicts among officials as well as external conflicts with Russia over land and resources. The Qing period marked a turning point in China’s contacts with the outside world. In the mid-nineteenth century, trade conflicts between China and the United Kingdom led to the First Opium War. Then in 1900, the killings of foreigners by the Boxers resulted in a conflict between China and the Eight-Nation Alliance, made up of the United Kingdom, the United States, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia. A defeated China was forced to sign an unequal treaty. This was one of the significant humiliations by foreign pow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: China and “being Chinese”
• Chapter 2: English in China
• Chapter 3: “English learning with Chinese characteristics” or “ti-yong dilemma”?
• Chapter 4: Q methodology
• Chapter 5: Q sort results
• Chapter 6: Grounded theory, keywords approach and critical discourse analysis
• Chapter 7: “When we see a foreigner in the streets, we are no longer too surprised as if we see a monster. It’s all commonplace now, they are like us as people”
• Chapter 8: “There used to be a thinking that all countries in the world were very hostile towards China, but after you understand more, it turns out that they are not that hostile”
• Chapter 9: Mandarin and the plurality of “being Chinese”
• Chapter 10: “Being Chinese” in the global world
• Epilogue
• References
• Index