Free Download Minglang Zhou, Hongkai Sun, "Language Policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and Practice Since 1949"
English | 2004 | pages: 344 | ISBN: 1402080387 | PDF | 5,4 mb
Language matters in China. It is about power, identity, opportunities, and, above all, passion and nationalism. During the past five decades China’s language engineering projects transformed its linguistic landscape, affecting over one billion people’s lives, including both the majority and minority populations. The Han majority have been juggling between their home vernaculars and the official speech, Putonghua – a speech of no native speakers – and reading their way through a labyrinth of the traditional, simplified, and Pinyin (Roman) scripts. Moreover, the various minority groups have been struggling between their native languages and Chinese, maintaining the former for their heritages and identities and learning the latter for quality education and socioeconomic advancement.
(more…)