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ABSTRACT
We focus on the learning of English in a Chinese university in Jiangsu and the university’s preferential language policy, which allowed Uyghur minority students from Xinjiang to be enrolled despite their lower scores in the entrance examination. Guided by the constructs of language ideologies [Kroskrity, P. V. (2000). Regimes of language: Ideologies, politics, identities. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press] and language regimes [Sonntag, S. K., & Cardinal, L. (2015). Introduction. In L. Cardinal & S. K. Sonntag (Eds.), State traditions and language regimes (pp. 3–26). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press], we adopted an ethnographic approach [McCarty, T. L. (2015). Ethnography in language planning and policy research. In F. M. Hult & D. C. Johnson (Eds.), Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide (pp. 81–93). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell] to investigate how Uyghur students viewed their English learning and how the university responded to macro-level national language planning decisions to foster social harmony. Our findings revealed that the minority students were marginalized in their study of English and disadvantaged compared to Han students. Consequently, we argue for a consideration of the impact of power inequalities in relation to English language learning. Such a critical perspective entails (1) acknowledging the disadvantaged position from which these minority students began their formal education because English was a third language for them [Yang, J. (2005). English as a third language among China’s ethnic minorities. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(6), 552–567] and (2) recognizing that access to English education is not equitable because students who attend schools in economically developed provinces such as Jiangsu are more likely to get a better education in English than those from a less developed province such as Xinjiang.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Yawen Han is an associate professor in the School of Foreign Languages & Literature at Nanjing Tech University. He is part of the core faculty within the Second Language Studies MA Program at Nanjing Tech University. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at Nanjing University. His primary area of research is the role of cognitive factors in second language acquisition, and his research interests include language policy as well as identity and ideology in language learning. Much of his current work focuses on working memory in language acquisition, and language policy for minority students studying in China mainland universities.
Peter I. De Costa is an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics, Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University. He is the author of The power of identity and ideology in language learning: Designer immigrants learning English in Singapore (Springer, 2016). He also recently edited Ethics in applied linguistics: Language researcher narratives (Routledge, 2016), and guest edited (with Suresh Canagarajah) a special issue of Linguistics and education that focused on scalar approaches to language learning and teaching. His work has appeared in Applied Linguistics Review, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Journal of Asia Pacific Communication, Language Learning, Language Policy, Language Teaching, Linguistics and Education, Research in the Teaching of English, System, TESOL Journal, and TESOL Quarterly.
Yaqiong Cui is a doctoral candidate in the Second Language Studies program at Michigan State University. She received her BA in teaching Chinese as a second language at East China Normal University (China) and an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she also taught Chinese at various levels. Since joining the Ph.D. program, she has worked as a research assistant and language facilitator at the Center for Language Teaching Advancement. Her research interests involve language policy and planning, psycholinguistic approaches to second language acquisition and processing, and language variation.
Notes
1. LU is a pseudonym. All other names of places and people in this article are pseudonyms.
2. This test is administered by the National College English Testing Committee twice a year, and is regarded as an impartial and accurate measure of the English proficiency of college and university students in China. LU takes the view that a qualified university graduate should reach a certain English competence level. The interim provisions for bachelor’s degree conferral (2015) at LU state that a minimum CET-4 score of 425 is the English proficiency requirement for degree conferral. However, for minority students whose mother tongue is not Mandarin Chinese, the CET-4 grades can be exempt if they can pass Level 2 of the national test of Putonghua (i.e. Mandarin Chinese) with at least a grade B. CET-4 and CET-6, which are criterion-related norm-referenced tests, are based on the teaching syllabus. The Ministry Education states that only students with a score of 425 for CET-4 or above can take CET-6. So it is universally accepted that 425 is the passing score for CET-4. More often than not, the CET is seen as a passport to better-paid employment in business trading firms or joint ventures in China’s increasingly competitive job market.
3. Min kao min students had to take CET-4, too, but their scores were not applicable, however (see ).
4. The score inflation – an internal and local practice – only applied to LU courses. No inflation, however, occurred with CET-4 scores, given that CET-4 is a national examination.