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CAN YOU SPEAK MANDARIN?
One of the consequences of the Chinese being so numerous is that there are twice as many people in the world who speak Mandarin as their first or second language as English, with the great majority of them living in China. With the rise of China, however, growing numbers of people around the world are begi
In contrast Mandarin is little taught in the West, but even here there has been an outbreak of Mandarin-fever, albeit in a much milder form. In a survey of US high schools in 2006, 2,400 said they would consider teaching Mandarin if the resources were available. Chicago, which has set itself the aim of becoming a hub of Chinese learning, had about twenty public schools teaching Mandarin to 3,500 pupils in 2006. [1300] A survey in 2004, however, revealed that only 203 US high schools and about 160 elementary schools were teaching Mandarin. In total, there are thought to be about 50,000 American school children studying Mandarin at public schools and a similar number in private and specialist schools, with the major constraint being the lack of trained teachers. The UK reveals a similar picture, with just 2,233 entries for GCSE in 2000, and 3,726 in 2004. More private schools are begi
In the era of globalization, and an increasingly globalized media, language is an important component of soft power. The emergence of English as the global lingua franca — the interlocutor language of choice — carries considerable benefits for the United States in a myriad of different ways. It is far too early yet to say what the reach of Mandarin might one day be, but it will in time probably join English as a global lingua franca and perhaps eventually surpass it. The example of the internet is interesting in this context. Bret Fausett, who runs the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) blog, has argued: ‘We’re at the peak of the English language on the internet. As internationalized domain names are introduced over the next few years, allowing users to conduct their entire online experience in their native language, English will decline as the central language of the internet.’ [1302]
Predicting the future of a language is fraught with difficulty. As the linguistic authority David Crystal writes: ‘If, in the Middle Ages, you had dared to predict the death of Latin as the language of education, people would have laughed in your face — as they would, in the eighteenth century, if you had suggested that any language other than French could be a future norm of polite society.’ [1303] The rise of English has coincided with, and been a product of, the global dominance of the United States. By the same token, the decline of the United States will adversely affect the position of English: the global use of a language does not exist in some kind of vacuum but is closely aligned with the power of a nation-state. [1304] The nascent competition between English and Mandarin for the status of global lingua franca, a contest which is likely to endure for this century and perhaps the next as well, is fascinating not least because, as languages and cultural forms, they could hardly be more different: one alphabetic, the other pictographic; one the vehicle for a single spoken language, the other (in its written form) embracing many different ones; English having grown by overseas expansion and conquest, Mandarin by a gradual process of territorial enlargement.
THE RISE OF CHINESE UNIVERSITIES
An important way in which the United States has left its mark on the world has been through its universities. It possesses what are generally regarded as the world’s best universities, which attract some of the finest academics and students from around the globe. At the top US universities, researchers can enjoy facilities and resources second to none, while a degree from a university like Harvard, Berkeley or MIT carries more kudos than a degree from anywhere else, with the possible exception of Oxbridge. Great universities, of course, require huge national wealth and resources, be they public or private institutions. It is not surprising, therefore, that hitherto the West has dominated the league tables for the top universities. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2007, US universities accounted for six of the top ten and the UK four. In the top twenty there were two Asian universities, with Tokyo University 17th and Hong Kong University 18th. There were six Chinese universities in the top 200, with Beijing University 36th, Tsinghua University 40th, Fudan University 85th, Nanjing University 125th, University of Science and Technology of China 155th, and Shanghai Jiaotong University 163rd. [1305] There were five Chinese universities in the top 200 in 2004. The Shanghai Jiaotong University ’s Academic Ranking of World Universities [1306] and a similar one published by the China Scientific Review Research Centre confirm that the top Chinese universities are making progress up the global rankings. China is also emerging as a main centre of top-flight business education, according to a Financial Times ranking of Executive MBAs, which shows four of the top twenty programmes are based there (including Hong Kong). [1307]
[1297] ‘Foreign and Chinese Delegates Flock to First Confucius Institute Conference’, 6 July 2006, posted on http://english.peopledaily.com.cn.
[1298] ‘Chinese Language Fever Brings Opportunities and Harmony to the World’, 13 July 2006, posted on http://english.people.com.cn; Michael Vatikiotis, ‘The Soft Power of “Happy Chinese”’, International Herald Tribune, 18 January 2006.
[1299] Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 68-9.
[1300] ‘ Chicago Hub of Chinese Learning in US’, China Daily, 17 May 2006.
[1301] Julian Borger, ‘America in “Critical Need” of Mandarin’, Guardian Weekly, 10–16 March 2006; ‘Demand for Chinese Language Courses in US Soars’, China Daily, 23 November 2005; ‘Mandarin Lessons for All — in UK School’, Strait Times, 21 January 2006; ‘The Future is… Mandarin’, Guardian, 6 April 2004; ‘Mandarin Learning Sours Outside China’, 29 July 2007, posted on www.bloc.co.uk/news.
[1302] ‘English Today, Mandarin by 2020?’, September 2006, posted on www.pbs. org; ‘Beijing Sets Up Its Own Internet Domains’, International Herald Tribune, 21 March 2006.
[1303] David Crystal, English as a Global Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 113.
[1304] Ibid., Chapter 1; p. 117.
[1305] Posted on www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007.
[1306] http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm.
[1307] Della Bradshaw, ‘Chinese Business Schools Move Up Rankings’, Financial Times, 31 October 2004.