So just what does it mean to teach English words to Chinese students in the age of globalization? What IS English in a world of Englishes?
I was mulling over these things as I trudged along through campus shadows to an evening performance sponsored by the School of Foreign Languages. It's nearing the end of the semester, and I'm doing my mental end of term post mortem--wondering just what am I doing here--what larger forces am I wittingly and unwittingly contributing to, and what do words have to do with them? These big thoughts were on my mind as I wove past students still milling round outside the auditorium. I sat down, having been ushered to a seat near the front, where I shortly witnessed the Party Secretary belt out "The Sound of Music" with as much force as Julie Andrews. It was a stunning performance. It didn't matter that it was in English, not German, because a crew of Chinese students shortly put on a German skit, which happened to feature I-phones and some of the most amazing American hip-hop dancing I've ever seen. I don't think there's a French department, but there must be a French class, for along came twenty black headed Chinese students, who sang a lovely French tune. Russian, Japanese, and, most of all, English words filled the evening air. But throughout the evening were dances--stunningly well done, for Chinese students know how to practice and practice and practice--and most of them were hot and sexy and Western. But the students outdid the West: they wore costumes that might make New York street walkers look prudish. Their dance moves were subtle and bold, edgy and amazing. I wondered how different tonight's performances were from what might have been put on a decade ago. And I wondered how much English words and English movies and English youtubes and English ads and the English-heavy-internet and, yes, English classes have to do with it. It's not just dictionary definitions that are absorbed when people are exposed over and over to English words.
So, as I walked home with my down jacket under my coat--the jacket I sometimes sleep in, too--I was still thinking about these things. It's not so simple to wonder what English is. A thousand years ago, it was basically German, and it eventually got Frenchified a bit and it kept on changing. The Great Vowel Shift came along, and we eventually got something that we might recognize as "modern," and that became increasingly codified and normalized with dictionaries and books of usage. But meanwhile, English was absorbing vocabulary from all sorts of other languages--and was being spoken by people in far flung countries. So, today what is English?
Well, with millions of Chinese speakers and more non-native speakers of English than native speakers, it's a fair question. Chinglish might not be English--as the Broadway musical suggests. But what about China English? Just as English is no longer JUST what's spoken in the UK--it's what's spoken in New Zealand and Australia and Canada and the US, too--maybe it's no longer JUST what's spoken in what Braj Kachru calls "inner circle" countries, but is also what's spoken in "outer circle" and "expanding circle countries." But other linguists have other ways of categorizing emerging world Englishes, and many of those maps re-orient what is the "center" or the "norm." Maybe China English isn't an inferior variety, but is a variety that holds its own ground, with its own cultural weight thrown on the backs of words. China English, different from a nonstandard Chinglish, might be considered as legitimate a variety as North American English. (Curiously, although many of my quite nationalistic students believe in the legitimacy of China English, they generally privilege British over North American English. Interesting.)
My head hurts, and I'm reminded of Darwin mulling over mockingbirds--were they separate species or different varieties?
I haven't personally witnessed Chinese students talking about the "hegemony" of English, and yet I have witnessed lots of opinions and attitudes that suggest students know in effect what "hegemony" is and resent it. When people talk about the hegemony of English it's a tricky thing. I wouldn't be thrilled to be called a colonizer or master, and, yet, as an English teacher, what am I doing? I'm not apologizing for what I'm doing, and yet I'm becoming more aware of how thoughtful I need to be about the texts I choose. You can thank the setters of the Chinese national examination standards for the fact that most of my students have already read more canonical British and American novels than some M.A. candidates in U.S. graduate departments. Now, my Chinese students happen to be in an English department, but even biology students and food science students and textile students must pass some English examinations in order to get their degrees. Not all of them are happy about that, as you can imagine. Should their science books be in English? Should those brilliant mathematicians who detest languages of any kind really have to pass English examinations? That's a complicated issue.
The internet, the language of business, and the language of science are all dominated by English--and all of the baggage carried by every little English word. So where will all this go?
Will we get an ever-more centralized English-related language? Will the sheer number of Chinese speakers of English reverse the forces of hegemony in decades to come? Or will English eventually morph into several other new languages, maybe new species, so to speak?
It's colder in my apartment than it is outside--that is, I'M colder in my apartment than I was outside because I'm not moving and generating heat--and it may be time to don my hooded down jacket over my other jacket and try sleeping on these questions. Maybe I'll dream about dragons, which are very special in China.
Later: Friend Ann responds with this:
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