China's rapid development and growing engagement with the rest of the world have prompted much discussion and debate about the Chinese language, especially its prospects for becoming a global language. A report in China Daily (2004), for example, suggests that:
there may even come a day when learning Chinese, like present day English, becomes compulsory for business, politics and cultural exchanges – a trend that has become increasingly plausible as more foreign students enrol in Chinese courses and China as a nation takes a more prominent role on the international stage.
Graddol (Reference Graddol1997), an applied linguist who has written much about the present and possible future position of English, predicts that by the year 2050 Chinese will be one of a small group of languages, including English, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish and Arabic, at the very top of the world language hierarchy. Similarly, in discussing China's increasing economic and political importance, Lo Bianco (Reference Lo Bianco2007: 6) describes Chinese as ‘potentially a “new English”', while Svartvik & Leech (Reference Svartvik and Leech2006: 246), based on the premise that ‘the twenty-first century is shaping up to be China's century’, argue that ‘[i]t seems certain that Chinese, now with more than twice the number of native speakers of any other language, will gain a more and more powerful role in the world of the coming decades, along with the increasing power of the Chinese economy’.
This paper aims to examine the current global standing of Chinese by comparing and contrasting it to that of English and, on the basis of this analysis, determine whether there are any indications that it may become a global language in the future. It argues that Chinese possesses the characteristics of a global language only to a limited extent but has potential to expand further through being an important language in foreign language teaching. Any study of such issues must first however define what is meant by ‘Chinese’ and ‘global language’, and for this reason the paper begins with a discussion of how these terms are used here.
What is Chinese?
It is well known that Chinese is very diverse and has a number of varieties. These are generally divided into seven dialect groups, namely Mandarin, Wu, Xiang, Yue, Kejia, Gan and Min (Goddard, Reference Goddard2005; Li & Lee, Reference Li, Lee, Bhatia and Ritchie2004; Lyovin, Reference Lyovin1997; Norman, Reference Norman1988).Footnote 1 Each of these groups can be divided into sub-groups or sub-dialects, which in turn can be further divided into vernaculars and accents. The Mandarin group for example has four subgroups – Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern and Jiang-Huai – and each of these contains a number of vernaculars and accents (Chen, Reference Chen1999; Lyovin, Reference Lyovin1997; Norman, Reference Norman1988).
Given such a complex linguistic situation, a key issue in discussing the current global status and future prospects of Chinese is whether it should be treated as a single language or many different languages. Differences do indeed exist both within and between the dialect groups, sometimes to the extent that they cause mutual unintelligibility, and as such some linguists argue they should be regarded as different languages (Li & Lee, Reference Li, Lee, Bhatia and Ritchie2004; Lin, Reference Lin2001; Ostler, Reference Ostler2005). However, there is also an argument for treating Chinese as a single language. All varieties of Chinese use the same set of characters for example, and the differences between the varieties are largely found in the area of phonology, with far fewer in vocabulary and grammar. Perhaps more significantly, there is a strong sense among the Chinese of a shared, common culture which unites speakers of all varieties as a single ethnic group (Li, Reference Li2006; Lin, Reference Lin2001; Norman, Reference Norman1988). In light of these issues, this paper treats Chinese as a single language with several varieties and makes clear where necessary which variety is being discussed.
What is a global language?
No language has ever been in the same position as English is in today's world. It is, in other words, the first global language (Crystal, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006; Romaine, Reference Romaine, van Kemenade and Los2006; Svartvik & Leech, Reference Svartvik and Leech2006). This is highlighted in McArthur's (Reference McArthur2005a: 257) definition of global language as ‘a late 20c term for a language used everywhere on earth (and usually linked to English)’. Any study of the global standing and prospects of other languages must therefore out of necessity use English as a guide for its analysis (Crystal, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006; Romaine, Reference Romaine, van Kemenade and Los2006; Svartvik & Leech, Reference Svartvik and Leech2006). However, while McArthur's (Reference McArthur2005a) definition is intuitively appealing, given the ubiquitous presence of English in many parts of the world and its widespread use in economic, political and cultural fields, it is probably too vague and amorphous to use as the basis for such a comparison. Crystal (Reference Crystal1998: 2, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006: 422) defines the term in a more concrete way when he says that in order to be considered a global language, a language must have ‘a special role that is recognised in every country’. This special role consists of three components: it is the native language of the majority of people in some countries; it has been widely adopted as an official language; and it is a priority in foreign language teaching around the world (Crystal, Reference Crystal1998, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006). This paper uses these three components of a global language's special role to judge the current status and possible future prospects of Chinese as a global language through quantitative and qualitative comparisons to English.
A range of sources are used in order to do this, including academic works from the fields of linguistics, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. Newspaper and Internet sources which describe recent events in language learning around the world are also used. A number of limitations should, however, be noted. First and foremost, while every effort has been made to ensure the information in this paper is current, the situation of any language is constantly changing and new developments are always occurring, making it impossible to be completely up-to-date. Similarly, it is not possible to be absolutely comprehensive. Information about the use and status of English and Chinese is not readily available for all countries and, even if it was, space does not permit a thorough discussion of every case. Thirdly, some caution is also required when using figures and statistics about languages. It is always difficult, for example, to determine how many speakers of a language there are because of issues such as how one defines a speaker and how speakers are counted (Mackey, Reference Mackey, Maurais and Morris2003; Romaine, Reference Romaine, van Kemenade and Los2006). These same issues could also be said to apply to figures for language learners. Finally, describing the future global status of a language is even more problematic, and cannot be done with any certainty. The information presented in this paper is therefore at times impressionistic and incomplete, yet, despite these limitations, it is nevertheless possible to give some indication of the dimensions and dynamics of Chinese on a global level.
What is the current global status of Chinese?
Before discussing the possible future of Chinese, it is necessary to first establish its current global standing. This section shows that, at present, Chinese has some of the characteristics of a global language: it has a significant number of native speakers spread around the world; some standing as an official language; and an increasing presence in the world's foreign language teaching. However, these characteristics are somewhat limited in comparison to English.
Chinese as a native language
In terms of native speakers, Chinese, in all its varieties, is the biggest language in the world, spoken by over one billion people (Li & Thompson, Reference Li, Thompson and Comrie1990; Lyovin, Reference Lyovin1997). The vast majority of these speakers are however confined to mainland China (Ostler, Reference Ostler2005), with the only other territories where it is the native language of the majority being Taiwan, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Singapore. When we compare this to the situation of English, we find that English has far fewer native speakers but in a greater number of countries. Crystal (Reference Crystal1998, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006) suggests a total of 400 million first language speakers in the USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and a few other regions such as the Caribbean. This appears to confirm McArthur's (Reference McArthur2002: 414) argument that ‘the Chinese language complex is very much larger than the complex of native users of English, but its members are in the main ethnically and culturally homogeneous, and its worldwide distribution is limited’.
However, the situation is complicated by the overseas Chinese population. There are over 50 million ethnic Chinese living outside of mainland China, including those in Taiwan and Hong Kong (Kornberg & Faust, Reference Kornberg and Faust2005; Lever-Tracy et al., Reference Lever-Tracy, Ip and Tracy1996), and, while not all overseas Chinese speak the language, this nevertheless means that Chinese is used widely beyond China and its immediate surroundings. According to Zou & You (2001), there are between 8.65 million and 13.20 million people outside of China who speak Chinese as their native language (see Table 1)Footnote 2.
Overseas Speakers of Chinese as a Native Language
Source: adapted from Zou & You (Reference Zou and You2001)
Once overseas Chinese whose native language is not Chinese but who speak Chinese are included in these figures, the number of Chinese speakers outside of China becomes even greater. Table 2 shows the varying estimates of the number of speakers of Chinese outside of China range from 19.5 million to 26 million.
Total Overseas Speakers of Chinese (Native language plus other)
Source: adapted from Zou & You (Reference Zou and You2001)
On the basis of these figures, Zou & You (Reference Zou and You2001) identify 164 Chinese-speaking communities covering all parts of the world, including Asia, North and South America, Australia and Africa.Footnote 3
Strictly speaking then Chinese is well behind English in terms of being the native language of the majority of the population in some countries. However, it is well established in many countries as both a first and second language and consequently partially fulfills this component of the special role of a global language.
Chinese as an official language
Chinese has official status outside of mainland China in Taiwan, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Singapore (Chen, Reference Chen1999). Across these territories there are three versions of a national standard Chinese, all based on Mandarin. In the People's Republic of China the standard variety is called putonghua (common speech), in Taiwan guoyu (national language), and in Singapore huayu (Chinese language) (Bradley, Reference Bradley and Clyne1992; Li, Reference Li2006). In all of these areas there have been significant increases in the use of standard Chinese over the past several decades, in part because of government efforts to promote the use of the standard variety (Chen, Reference Chen1999; Li, Reference Li2006; Li & Lee, Reference Li, Lee, Bhatia and Ritchie2004).
However, although Chinese does have some standing as an official language and its standard varieties are gaining ground, it does not compare with English, which has official or co-official status in over 70 countries spread across Africa, Asia and the Pacific (Crystal, Reference Crystal1998, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006), and many more national standard varieties. In their survey of standard varieties of English, Trudgill & Hannah (Reference Trudgill and Hannah2002), for example, cover ten native standard varieties (English, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Welsh, North American, Canadian, Scottish, Irish and West Indian English) and five non-native standard varieties (West African, East African, Indian, Singaporean, Philippine English). Therefore, Chinese has only a limited profile on the second component of the special role of a global language.
Chinese as a foreign language
The learning of Chinese as a foreign language has expanded considerably in recent times. Most of those learning Chinese study Mandarin, while the other dialects, with the exception of Cantonese, a member of the Yue dialect group, are learnt only by scholars or specialists (Bradley, Reference Bradley and Clyne1992). According to statistics from the Office of Chinese Language Council International, a public institution directly under China's Ministry of Education responsible for promoting and supporting Chinese language learning internationally, there were 40 million people learning Mandarin worldwide as of 2009 (People's Daily Online, 2009). Does this make Chinese a priority in foreign language teaching, by which Crystal (Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006: 423) means ‘the foreign language which children are most likely to encounter when they arrive in school, and the one most available to adults in further education’?
There is some evidence to suggest that Chinese is moving towards such a position. According to the Modern Language Association (MLA), for example, the number of students studying Chinese in higher education institutions in the USA rose from 34,153 in 2002 to 51,582 in 2006, an increase of more than 50% (Furman et al., Reference Furman, Goldberg and Lusin2007). In addition, 800 universities – over one quarter of the country's total – now offer Chinese language courses, as do 1200 primary schools (People's Daily Online, 2006a, 2009).
The BBC (2007b) suggests that around 100 schools in Britain teach Chinese and the number of college and university students studying it as their main subject doubled in the period from 2002 to 2005 (BBC, 2007a). Brighton College, a private school in East Sussex, also recently became the first school in Britain to make Mandarin compulsory (BBC, 2006a, 2006b).
In New Zealand, seven of the country's eight universities, as well as Unitec New Zealand, offer degree programs in Chinese. Chinese can also be studied to degree level at the Auckland Institute of Studies and many institutions offer Chinese at diploma and certificate level (New Zealand Asian Studies Society, 2004). In Australia too Chinese language teaching has grown over the last two decades. Chinese was taught at only 13 Australian universities in 1988 but by 2001 it was taught at 29 (Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2002).
The South Korean government meanwhile has recently encouraged all two and four year universities to establish Chinese language majors. There are now around 347 universities offering Chinese language or related majors, of which 212 are four year universities, 118 two year universities and the remaining 17 online universities (Zhang, Reference Zhang2005). The Thai government has similarly decreed that all public schools should endeavour to teach Chinese, and the Office of Chinese Language Council International reports that over 1000 primary and high schools do indeed teach the language to a total of some 300,000 students (Kurlantzick, Reference Kurlantzick2007; People's Daily Online, 2009). In Japan, over 20,000 high school students study Chinese in more than 500 schools, and 40 universities offer Chinese as a degree subject (Li & Lee, Reference Li, Lee, Bhatia and Ritchie2004; People's Daily Online, 2006b).
These examples, though far from exhaustive, suggest that Chinese is rapidly gaining importance in foreign language education around the world. However, this needs to be tempered with comparisons to the current state of English language teaching and learning. According to Crystal (Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006), English is the priority foreign language in more than 100 countries, primarily in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. In addition, there are currently far more Chinese learning English than there are English-speakers learning Chinese, and far more speakers of other languages learning English than Chinese (Bruthiaux, Reference Bruthiaux2002; Fischer, Reference Fischer1999; McArthur, Reference McArthur2005b). Estimates of the number of learners/users of English in China alone vary from 200–300 million (Zhao & Campbell, Reference Zhao and Campbell1995), to 330 million (Bolton, Reference Bolton2008) to well over 400 million (Crystal, Reference Crystal2008).Footnote 4 This by itself dwarfs the 40 million people currently learning Chinese the world over. In terms of the third component of a global language's special role then, Chinese has a strong presence in foreign language education but it is limited in comparison to English.
What are the possible future global prospects for Chinese?
On the one hand, the above comparison of the global status of English and Chinese suggests that Chinese is far from being a global language: it is less common as a country's native language; less entrenched around the world as an official language; and less pervasive as a foreign language. On the other hand, there may also be reason to believe that Chinese could become a global language in the future, as suggested by some of the commentaries cited at the beginning of this paper.
This section suggests that this could happen through two processes, centred on the foreign language role of Chinese. Firstly, China's growing power and influence could drive the adoption of Chinese as a priority foreign language around the world. Secondly, this standing as a priority foreign language could then provide a platform for the expansion of the native language and official language roles, therefore giving Chinese a much enhanced profile on all three components of the special role required of a global language. As with any argument about the future of languages, the one presented here can only be speculative, but, as the case of English again provides some guide for the analysis, it could be said to have some plausibility.
Expansion of Chinese as a foreign language
While Chinese is not yet a priority in foreign language education in the same sense as English, there is clearly substantial interest in learning it. This is important because, as several scholars have argued, if another language is to take over from English as the global language, there would need to be a strong and widespread desire or necessity to learn it (Bruthiaux, Reference Bruthiaux2002; Graddol, Reference Graddol1997; Jenkins, Reference Jenkins2003). Just as English became a priority foreign language through its association with powerful and influential nations and its use in many domains pertinent to life in the present day world, so too may several recent developments encourage the perception that Chinese is an important, even necessary, language to learn for the future: China has increased its membership in international organisations of all kinds and is active on many international issues; its armed forces have expanded, become more modern and technologically advanced; its economy has grown rapidly and it has become a leading exporter, manufacturer and consumer of goods; it adapts and develops a range of technologies; and its international reputation has improved greatly (Kurlantzick, Reference Kurlantzick2007; Lampton, Reference Lampton2008; McDougall, Reference McDougall2007; Sutter, Reference Sutter2008). As described above, schools, universities and private providers around the world already appear to be establishing or expanding Chinese language programmes in response to this perception, and its strengthening could lead to further actions, such as Chinese language teaching starting earlier in education systems and being allocated more resources, in the same way as many countries now begin English language teaching in the very early years of schooling and devote significant resources to it (Bolton, Reference Bolton2008). Chinese would, as a result, increase its scope and presence as a priority foreign language around the world.
The foreign language role as the basis for expansion as a native language
Expansion of the foreign language role will obviously add to the number of speakers of Chinese. Of course this does not in itself produce native speakers – or even speakers with native-like proficiency in most cases – but the expansion of Chinese as a foreign language could indirectly increase the number of native speakers. Crystal (Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006) points out that many people who have learnt English as a foreign language speak it to their children in the home so they can acquire it as a native language. The same could also happen with Chinese as proficiency in the language is perceived as important.Footnote 5
Interestingly, in a similar vein, some parents are hiring Chinese domestic helpers to teach their children Chinese. A report in The Chosun Ilbo (2007), for example, describes this as a growing trend in South Korea:
Parents seek well-educated domestic staff who can teach Chinese to children as well as doing household chores. One babysitter agency says it gets one or two calls a week from people who want college-graduate babysitters capable of teaching Chinese. On job sites for foreigners, ads also seek Chinese graduates who will do household chores, nurse children and teach Chinese.
These two phenomena are unlikely to displace a country's established native language but could, in the longterm, result in countries with a significant portion of their population with native, or at least native-like, fluency in Chinese, thus enhancing the number and spread of countries where Chinese is used as a native language.
The foreign language role as the basis for expansion as an official language
As discussed above, English has official status in a wide range of countries and more are considering granting it such status. In many of these cases, academics, journalists and government officials have argued that granting English official status will improve the nation's ability to interact with the rest of the world and facilitate the population's learning of the language (Bolton, Reference Bolton2008; Tsui & Tollefson, Reference Tsui, Tollefson, Tsui and Tollefson2007). Should Chinese indeed become a priority foreign language due to the important role China plays in economic, political, military and cultural affairs, some countries may decide to make it an official or co-official language for these same reasons. This would obviously increase the number of countries in which Chinese has official status and could also result in Chinese being used in government, law courts, broadcasting and the press, as English is now used in countries which have granted it official status (Crystal, Reference Crystal, Hogg and Denison2006).
While English is unquestionably the global language and will likely maintain this position for some time given the difference between its current global status and that of Chinese, the foreign language role offers a route by which Chinese can expand its global status. Many questions do of course remain to be answered in order to determine whether the prioritisation of Chinese as a foreign language and its flow on effects will be sufficient to qualify it as a global language, including: in which regions of the world do these processes occur? Are these processes temporary or permanent? And what are the obstacles to these processes?
Conclusion
This paper has examined the current global status and possible future prospects of Chinese through comparisons and contrasts to English. It has shown that although Chinese has limited global standing at the present time, it is possible for it to expand its position through the continued growth of Chinese as an important language in foreign language teaching. Determining whether and how this transpires will provide language scholars with a rich and engaging research agenda.
Acknowledgement
Earlier versions of this paper were presented during workshops for postgraduate students in a TESOL course at Flinders University. I would like to thank these students for their insightful comments and stimulating questions, all of which helped me to clarify my thinking on this topic and refine my argument.
JEFFREY GIL (PhD) is a Lecturer in ESOL/TESOL at Flinders University, Australia, where he is involved in the development, teaching and administration of ESOL and TESOL topics. He has also taught at university level in China. His research interests include English as a global language, the global use and status of Chinese and China's minority languages and cultures. Email: jeffrey.gil@flinders.edu.au
