Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Sino-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3 1, 199 1)
PO- AND D NEEATIDN OF THEIR PURPOSES
Why is it that certain sociolinguistic or language changes are identified as desirable and
need to be promoted, while other changes are branded as undesirable and therefore need to be
prevented or discouraged? More specifically, why should Mandarin be learned and used, while
the native language of the overwhelming majority of the population be discouraged? It is
interesting to note how differently these questions are answered by the three governments. he
Beijing government emphasizes unity, solidarity, and patriotism. The Taibei government
rationalizes by saying that Taiwan is part of China and Mandarin is the national language of
China. The Singapore government stresses that Singapore is too small and has to learn Mandariq .
for international trade. Beneath these proclaimed justifications are complicated motivations that
authorities have rarely admitted.
At this point, the question of who participates in language policy formation and its
implementation becomes very important. People usually
think of their own interests first; it is the hidden, ulterior motives that more clearly explain the
drive to promote Mandarin by the respective governments. Critics have pointed out that in
Taiwan, the Nationalists had used Mandarin to keep the Taiwanese out of important positions in
government. An all-out promotion of Mandarin was to the advantage of the mainlanders at the
expense of the Taiwanese. In Singapore, Mandarin seems to have been a second choice. No
dialect group was particularly happy that their own language was not selected, but neither was
any group especially unhappy because there was no other group that managed to benefit at their
expense. When Mandarin was selected as a . official language, every dialect group in Singapore
was placed at an equal disadvantage. The only people that anticipated some advantage and hence
supported the selection of Mandarin were those who were associated with Chinese schools.
During the colonial period, Chinese in Southeast Asia were greatly inspired by the
establishment of the Republic of China and the idea of China becoming a world power.
Overseas, Chinese schools were modelled after schools in China imd became centers for
cultivating Chinese nationalism. The Nationalists supplied teachers and textbooks that taught
things such as "We are Chinese; we were born in Southeast Asia, but we all love China." It was
during this period that many Chinese schools switched their media of instruction from Hokkien
to Mandarin. Because Singapore is today an independent country, the promotion of Mandarin
has to be justified on grounds other than Chinese nationalism or even ties with China.
To understand these unexpressed justifications it is important to note that there was a
group of educated people who had been deeply influenced by Chinese education. This elite had
learned how to read and write in Mandarin, but had no knowledge of how to do so in their
mother tongue. Because Mandarin was an official language, they had an advantage over others
who did not havc this spccial skill. Howevcr, with their native Holrkien, thc actual lingua fianca,
they had no advantage over others, and had to learn written Hokkien, which had not yet been
standardized.
Those political elite, who were educated in English, also saw Hokkien as unattractive,
because they had attended English schools and had little formal training in expressing
complicated ideas in Hokkien. Since it was not necessary in school, some barely acquired the
lingua franca; they could not compete with the masses in Hokkien, but might do so in Mandarin.