Language and power: Korean–Chinese students' language attitude and practice

Abstract

Language is not only a method of communication, but also a mechanism of power. The ethnographic research reported in this article documents how a group of Korean students, who are participating in a bilingual Korean school in Northeast China, construct their language attitude and practice. Research findings indicate that the Korean students value both Korean and Chinese language acquisition, and adopt the two languages for self-empowerment in the academic hierarchy of the Korean school. The positive attitude and practice of Korean students towards Korean and Chinese language studies highlight the politically and economically functional power of Korean and Chinese languages as a means of acquiring a larger benefit from China's economic marketisation, especially increasing business contacts with South Korea. This article argues that the increasing significance of transnationalism for ethnic minorities within globalisation emphasises bilingual proficiency, or even trilingualism in China's reform period which implies the necessity of relevant policy initiations for the increasing needs of language acquisition.

Keywords:

• language and power
• Korean language
• Chinese language
• language
• attitude and practice
• bilingualism
• transnationalism

Notes

1. The Constitution adopted in 1982 defines the People's Republic of China as a ‘unitary multi-national state’ (tongyide duominzu guojia) composed of the people of all its 56 nationalities (minzu) with a total population of 1.30,628 billion (NBSC 2005). The majority of China's population belongs to the Han Chinese (90.56%), whereas the 55 officially recognised minority nationalities account for about 9.44% of the total population (NBSC 2005). There are also 1,072,642 people belonging to unspecified and unclassified minorities, 0.8% of the total population, according to the fifth national census in 2000.

2. According to China's ethnic statistical yearbook (2005), while the percentage of college completion is 3.73% among total population, and 0.0009% among total minority, the percentage among Korean nationality is 8.38%. The illiteracy rate is 9.08% among total population, and 14.54% among total minority, whereas the rate is 2.86% among ethnic Koreans.