The language situation in Macao

Abstract

In postcolonial societies, forces associated with globalization operate along with local geopolitical changes. The complex and multifaceted interactions between local, national, and global forces may take different sociolinguistic shapes in postcolonial societies. This study provides an overview of the language situation in Macao. The Portuguese established their colonial rule in Macao in the mid-nineteenth century. On 20 December 1999, Macao was reintegrated with the People's Republic of China and reinvented as the Macao Special Administrative Region (the Macao SAR) under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems”. The overview shows that in postcolonial Macao the dynamic interplay of local, national, and global forces prevails across all sectors from politics to economy to education. At the same time, the push and pull between the local, national, and global forces are also discernible in Macao's sociolinguistic landscape as well as the Macao SAR Government's language policy and planning.

Keywords:

• Macao
• language situation
• language policy and planning
• multilingualism

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Doctor Kerry Taylor-Leech, Professor Nkonko Kamwangamalu, and anonymous reviewers for their detailed and constructive comments. I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to Professor Andrew Moody, Professor Joseph Sung-Yul Park, Professor Kinsley Bolton, Professor Peter Garrett, Professor Xu Daming and Mr Kong Io Chun (Eric) for their support of various kinds. Any remaining mistakes are my sole responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Yan Xi obtained his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Macau and is currently Associate Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Huaqiao University. His research interests include language attitudes, language ideologies, language planning and language policy in Mainland China and Macao. His recent publications include: English ants are digging holes in the Chinese levee: Language ideological debates in the Chinese media (Language Problems and Language Planning, 2013, 37/1), A meta-discursive analysis of online comments of Chinese netizens on Huang Xiaoming's appropriation of English (Language, Culture and Curriculum, 2014, 27/2), “Macao has died, traditional Chinese characters have died”: A study of netizens’ comments on the choice of Chinese scripts in Macao (Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, forthcoming), etc.

Notes

1. There are some differences between legal documents such as lei, decreto-lei, decreto, portaria, and so on. Simply put, lei is a law issued by Legislative Assembly of Macao, decreto-lei a regulatory document from Macao governors, and decreto and portaria administrative and executive orders from Macao governors. Readers who are interested could refer to Mi et al. (1994, pp. 9–13) for more details.

2. Luso-Chinese schools are a special kind of schools in Macao where Chinese is the medium of instruction and Portuguese a compulsory course.

3. The Cantonese Romanization System developed by the Macao Government is different from Hong Kong system and Hanyu Pinyin. For example, one common family name, which is spelled Hoi in Macao, is spelled Hui in Hong Kong and Xu in Mainland China.

4. In the Macao system of civil service, civil servants refer to those staff under permanent appointment and public employees those under contractual appointment.

5. Written Cantonese is a kind of written script following spoken Cantonese rather than the norms of standard written Chinese. Readers interested in written Cantonese may refer to Snow (2004) which provides an in-depth study of the origin and development of written Cantonese.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by The Social Science Fund of Fujian Province [grant number FJ2015B247]; The Scientific Research Fund of Huaqiao University [grant number 15SKBS103].