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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Dixon Groupie Canada Joined 6055 days ago 54 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 98 of 249 03 November 2009 at 1:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I think something valuable to keep in mind when comparing the economic power of Chinese
to the English language, is that China and the US should not be compared. More likely, China should be compared with the combined GDP of The US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, NZ, South Africa, and other countries. Also, if you look at the Index of Economic Freedom, you will notice that all of the freest countries speak English. I believe Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Australia, the UK, US, and Canada are the countries that round out the top. Also, the main English speaking countries tend to have journalistic freedom and cultures strongly against censorship, which China does not have. China will have to end censorship if the language is ever going to be a tool of free thought. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5990 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 99 of 249 03 November 2009 at 6:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I must disagree with you there. I don't see any evidence for your claims, in fact I see evidence against them.
Firstly daily life in China continues on as it would elsewhere. There are no roving bands of thought-police or something. People go to work, buy food, spend time with their families, etc. The official censorship in the newspapers doesn't affect this. Next, the countries you list as "censorship free" are only free from official government censorship policies, but not free of censorship. When the media is run by powerful corporations, they do their own censorship so that the information matches a view of the world that helps increase the power and profit of those corporations. A great example is the journalists from Fox news that got fired for trying to do a certain story (I think it was about hormones used on cows or something, I'd have to go look it up...it's mentioned prominently in the documentary "The Corporation"). Anyway, when they sued to try to get their jobs back, they were turned down because the News is not obligated to tell the truth. There is no law saying that outright lies on the news are illegal. anyway, I'm going on too long here, but the point is that censorship is alive and well in the English speaking countries, it just takes a different form. An Iranian friend of mine once told me that the biggest difference between Iran and Canada was that in Iran, everyone knows the news is biased, but in Canada they just keep insisting that their biased news is totally neutral. In this sense, I think the culture in Canada has limited many people's "free thought" because we are taught from a young age that China is bad and Canada is good, and that China has censorship, but Canada doesn't. We are more similar than you think. For more information, I suggest starting with Herman & Chomsky's classic "Manufacuring Consent". Chinese and English can obviously both be used for "free thought". The language is not what determines the GDP. It's a historical accident that English is spoken in the imperialist countries, but it is not the cause of imperialism. These are political and economic questions, not linguistic questions. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| knadolny Diglot Newbie United States capturingchinese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5518 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese | Message 100 of 249 03 November 2009 at 6:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Doviende:
I appreciate the post. Very well put. We in the West have been hoping for a more open China for quite some time now. China is going on 30 years of breakneck growth but the country is not that much more free than before. I will argue that the country will continue to grow regardless of whether it becomes a more open country or not. That said, people will continue to learn Chinese for economic reasons. China is out to prove that you can grow your country without adhering to the American model of growth. So far they are doing well on that end. Edited by knadolny on 03 November 2009 at 7:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YoshiYoshi Senior Member China Joined 5535 days ago 143 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 101 of 249 03 November 2009 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Frankly, as a Chinese, sometimes I would rather someday the reasons why foreigners feel like learning Chinese are due largely to any other attraction (such as ancient culture, national quality, natural environment, advanced products, significant contribution towards the whole world, and so on) rather than China's economic factors only.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| knadolny Diglot Newbie United States capturingchinese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5518 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese | Message 102 of 249 03 November 2009 at 7:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry for coming across like then YoshiYoshi. I originally studied Chinese for the culture. After a few years, I fell in love with the country. This was 8 years ago before China's economy was talked about so much. Looking back though it made a lot of practical sense.
Right now I'm learning Japanese, again not for economic sense, but just for my love of one girl (and now starting to really enjoy the culture). Maybe since I studied Chinese for these more passionate reasons I've been successful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| w1n73rmu7e Newbie United States Joined 5944 days ago 31 posts - 46 votes | Message 103 of 249 04 November 2009 at 6:30am | IP Logged | ||
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@doviende:
I think a big point that you're missing is that English orthography is highly error tolerant. Even if you can't spell a word correctly, as long as you can approximate it according to the pronunciation, you will be understood. Similarly, even if you completely mangle English intonation, you can be understood. Both of these advantages don't exist in Mandarin, and are vital for a language that is to be used as a lingua franca, because it will have an enormous number of second language speakers who will mangle both the spoken and written versions of the language. Here's a paper on this topic, if you're interested. From the paper:
Edited by w1n73rmu7e on 04 November 2009 at 6:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6772 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 104 of 249 04 November 2009 at 8:50am | IP Logged | ||
That sort of anecdote is largely irrelevant. The rate and order in which a Chinese boy becomes literate in his own language will naturally differ from the rate at which he is taught artificial collections of foreign-language vocabulary in school. In the end, though, he will not only be fully literate in his own language, he will be able to effortly use 膝 盖 or 鸟巢 not just as words but as components of idioms, expressions, and so on while the word "knee" becomes forgotten because he lacks the cultural-linguistic background and depth of knowledge to even know how it's used in natural English. Learning a language takes time, dedication, and for all but the most brilliant autodidacts, immersion. Edited by Captain Haddock on 04 November 2009 at 8:51am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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