Alexandra Grey's book Language Rights in a Changing China is based on her doctoral dissertation, for which she was awarded the 2018 Joshua Fishman award for a dissertation in the sociology of language. It is an outstanding work that deserves to be widely read and highly cited. Before turning to the book's content, it is worth zooming out to look at the broader context, which some readers of this journal might be unfamiliar with.
Globally, around half of the world's languages are currently being forced into dormancy, meaning that the number of people who use those languages is declining, typically because they are coerced by legal, economic and social mechanisms into using and transmitting dominant languages. If such coercion continues unchecked, a language becomes “dormant” when nobody continues actively using it (though it can be revived in the future if appropriate conditions emerge). While settler colonies such as Australia, Canada and the US are the historical centre of this global crisis, the centre of gravity is now shifting to countries like China. Linguists in and outside the country estimate that about half of China's languages are presently being forced into dormancy. Language protests in defence of Mongolian, Tibetan and Cantonese are highly visible manifestations of this crisis. However, for the most part, the destruction of China's linguistic diversity is much less visible, and has thus tended to attract less analysis in academia and the media.
The framing just presented is mine rather than Grey's, but hopefully it nonetheless provides a useful context: an important and under-researched global problem with a specific manifestation in China. Whereas some facets of the “minority” language situation in China, such as the situation in Tibet or Xinjiang, are well known (though not necessarily well understood), Grey's study focuses on one group that has received much less scholarly and media attention, despite being the largest “minority” group in the country: the Zhuang. The author's overall aim is to explore how language rights are exercised in China in regard to, and by, the Zhuang in the relatively recent era (i.e., post Reform and Opening).
Language Rights in a Changing China is divided into four parts. Part one presents the introductory material, with the first chapter situating the study in terms of the book's critical sociolinguistic approach, and the second providing background on the Zhuang context. Part two, with three chapters, focuses on the legal framework for managing languages in China, including an overview and critical analysis of law and policy (chapter three), an examination of the ideologies about language that inform these laws (chapter four), and a discussion of how laws are implemented territorially and through various organs of government, with reference to the Zhuang case (chapter five). Part three turns to an extended discussion of the Zhuang situation, focusing in particular on the “linguistic landscape” – how language is displayed in public space. Three of the four chapters in this part examine various aspects of Zhuang language use in different public contexts, while the fourth chapter brings the legal dimension back in, focusing on laws related to the public use of language. Finally, in part four of the book, two chapters summarize and conclude the work relating the Zhuang case and the legal regulation of languages in China more broadly, while the final chapter makes generalizable observations about linguistic justice and the public use and display of minority languages.
These materials are based on a sophisticated methodology that combines legal and ethnographic approaches, including the collection and analysis of legal documents as well as ethnographic fieldwork. The fieldwork was carried out in “itinerant” fashion in various sites in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Beijing and Yunnan Province, and included participant observation, mostly at universities, as well as individual and focus group interviews with students and “language leaders.” Grey's fieldwork was also multimodal, including photography of linguistic landscapes and the collection of physical and digital texts.
The ethnographic details of the book paint a rich picture of life and language in China, full of poignant and striking moments, such as when two Zhuang students misrecognize the romanized Zhuang script on public signage as English. The analysis of this data provides many valuable insights about the relationship between law, language and lived experience for “minorities” in China, and presents an overall picture of how language rights are undermined through a patchwork of competing interests, indifference and neglect.
This book, in addition to making useful contributions to our understanding of language policy in China, will also be a helpful teaching resource for both graduate and undergraduate students. The book is written in a crisp, clear, accessible style, and most chapters can be used as stand-alone readings. The materials in part two, particularly chapter three (“The foundational language rights: legal provisions about minority languages and minority peoples”), would be helpful for a survey class on China and its governance. Chapter two (“What is Zhuang? A critical sociolinguistic profile”), and any of the chapters in part three would be useful for a course on ethnic minorities in China. Grey's book will also make a welcome addition to reading lists for postgraduate students working on language and cultural policy in China, “minority” issues, or on general issues related to law and policy.
