Ethnic composition of countries and language policy issues

ZHOU Qingsheng

Language planning and policy—From the perspective of ecology of language and culture

CAI Yongliang

The evolution and background of Japan’s language policy in the 20thcentury

ZHANG Weijia; CUI Meng

A comparative study of backgrounds for American language education initiative

ZHANG Guiju

Implications of English for Heritage Language Speakers initiative

ZHANG Tianwei

s of Major Articles in This Issue

Ethnic composition of countries and language policy issues

ZHOU Qingsheng

According to the number of ethnic language groups or ethnic composition in a state,countries in the world can be roughly divided into homogeneous society, dichotomy/trichotomy society, as well as mosaic or multiethnic society. Language policy issues of concern for these countries are mainly as follows: 1) selection and use of the official language, 2) standardization of the national language, 3) language spread in the world,4) language teaching in the formal education system, 5) language teaching in the nonformal education system, and 6) language corpus planning. The purpose of this paper is to provide, from the perspective of ethnic composition, an analysis framework of state language policy.

Language planning and policy—From the perspective of ecology of language and culture

CAI Yongliang

Due to the close relationship between language and culture, language ecology is indeed the ecology of culture. Language is intimately related to society, national identity,and human rights. This makes the planning of language also the planning the ecology of both language and culture. Multiculturalism, with multilingualism as its basis, is a precondition for further development of civilization. Therefore, it is legitimate for language planning and culture to strive for a balance between the ecologies of language and culture for an ideal variety of languages to thrive.

The evolution and background of Japan’s language policy in the 20thcentury

ZHANG Weijia; CUI Meng

The Meiji Restoration and the end of the World WarⅡ are two turning points for Japan’s language policies. During the Meiji Restoration, Japan established HyohjyunGo ,the standard language, to identify dialects. After World WarⅡ, KyohtsuGo, the common language that communicates among dialects earned wide-ranged recognition. The paper tries to review the evolution and background of Japan’s language policy from political,economic and cultural perspectives, expecting to provide some implications to China’s language policy.

A comparative study of backgrounds for American language education initiative

ZHANG Guiju

American language education policies were put forth due to various factors including American political backgrounds and social pressure, problems in educational systems, games between multicultural philosophy and ideology of the Melting Pot Theory, the increasing population of language minorities and its high mobility. With the demands of improving the ability of international competitiveness, ensuring national security, and speeding up economic development, American language education policy in the future will gradually tend to respect migrants and local minority languages,reflect mainstream society’s tolerance toward them and respect for their civil rights, and meet the different needs of various social groups. It will eventually promote language learning which can provide service for the interests of America and foster bilingual or multilingual speakers.

Implications of English for Heritage Language Speakers initiative

ZHANG Tianwei

Initiatives are one of the key characteristics and means of US national language capacity development. This paper describes and makes critical comments on the major achievements made by the US government in the “post 9/11 era” by referring to a case study on English for Heritage Language Speakers (EHLS). The paper indicates that three features displayed in EHLS are worthy of attention for the Chinese government in developing its national language capacity.