Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated a... more In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated areas has long been disregarded or marginalised. Drawing on case studies in two Yugur-dominant schools in Gansu Province, China, this qualitative study explored how a schoolbased multicultural curriculum was developed and implemented within the framework of duoyuan yiti geju (a framework of diversity within unity), proposed by Fei Xiaotong and recently metaphorized as pomegranate seeds. Collected data evince the importance of the policy initiation, the local elites' agentic commitment as well as the support of school administrators, practitioners, and minority communities for initiating and enacting the school-based curriculum. The findings also unravel various structural/institutional barriers, such as the dominance of the national curriculum, the lack of bilingual teachers, and the need for the sustainability of the Yugur language and culture to develop school-based multicultural curricula.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2023
In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated a... more In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated areas has long been disregarded or marginalised. Drawing on case studies in two Yugur-dominant schools in Gansu Province, China, this qualitative study explored how a schoolbased multicultural curriculum was developed and implemented within the framework of duoyuan yiti geju (a framework of diversity within unity), proposed by Fei Xiaotong and recently metaphorized as pomegranate seeds. Collected data evince the importance of the policy initiation, the local elites' agentic commitment as well as the support of school administrators, practitioners, and minority communities for initiating and enacting the school-based curriculum. The findings also unravel various structural/institutional barriers, such as the dominance of the national curriculum, the lack of bilingual teachers, and the need for the sustainability of the Yugur language and culture to develop school-based multicultural curricula.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with ... more The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with international declarations and national legislation enacted to protect the right of non-dominant language use and development. As information and communication technology (ICT) has spread, extending ICT to ethnic or indigenous languages has lagged. Nevertheless, their use on social media and other platforms has been growing rapidly, raising the question of their role in supporting non-dominant language vitality. In 2020 in China, non-dominant languages were used on various social media platforms to communicate anti-COVID messages. Drawing on language revitalisation frameworks, the investigators explore how the global pandemic has provided minority nationalities in west China the opportunity to increase recognition of their cultures and languages. We explore how minority communities in Yunnan and Gansu provinces in western China participated in China’s anti-Covid-19 campaign through the creation and dissemination of multilingual materials of different forms, genres, and modes on ICT social media platforms. We argue that using multilingual and multimodal ICT platforms to publicise countermeasures against Covid-19 has the potential to contribute to recognition and use of languages of non-dominant ethnic communities and revitalisation of heritage languages and cultures. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with ... more The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with international declarations and national legislation enacted to protect the right of non-dominant language use and development. As information and communication technology (ICT) has spread, extending ICT to ethnic or indigenous languages has lagged. Nevertheless, their use on social media and other platforms has been growing rapidly, raising the question of their role in supporting non-dominant language vitality. In 2020 in China, nondominant languages were used on various social media platforms to communicate anti-COVID messages. Drawing on language revitalisation frameworks, the investigators explore how the global pandemic has provided minority nationalities in west China the opportunity to increase recognition of their cultures and languages. We explore how minority communities in Yunnan and Gansu provinces in western China participated in China's anti-Covid-19 campaign through the creation and dissemination of multilingual materials of different forms, genres, and modes on ICT social media platforms. We argue that using multilingual and multimodal ICT platforms to publicise countermeasures against Covid-19 has the potential to contribute to recognition and use of languages of non-dominant ethnic communities and revitalisation of heritage languages and cultures.
The rapid rise of China as a global socioeconomic power and its policies in relation to language ... more The rapid rise of China as a global socioeconomic power and its policies in relation to language and ethnicities provide unprecedented opportunities for ethnic minority groups to access higher education and develop overall competencies that are crucial for national and ethnic advancement. However, the top-down educational structures, such as language policies, school curriculum, national politics, medium of instruction, and employment prospect, may influence the learning outcome and their self-perceptions as ethnic minority learners in such a diversified country with 56 ethnic groups. This paper, based on an ethnographic case study of a female Naxi college student in Yunnan, reports and discusses the challenges posed by the trilingual education in China and attempts to shed some light on the curriculum development in a multilingual and multicultural context.
This paper reviews the ethnic multilingual policies and practices in China in general and Yunnan ... more This paper reviews the ethnic multilingual policies and practices in China in general and Yunnan in particular. It first introduces the demographic features and multilingual policies in Yunnan and then discusses the challenges of ethnic minority education in China from a critical perspective in terms of policy and curriculum. It is argued that it is necessary to re-conceptualize ethnic minority learners in an ever dynamic sociocultural discourse in contemporary China. The author proposes to deepen the research in ethnic multilingual education so as to develop a curriculum to meet the needs of ethnic multicultural learners in the 21st century and to contribute to the design of more relevant language policies, teaching practices, and learning resources, and to pave the way for further in-depth research.
Contemporary Chinese Discourse and Social Practice in China, 2015
National identity is an important social bond for the existence and development of nation-states.... more National identity is an important social bond for the existence and development of nation-states. National identity is not an innate or unchangeable awareness; instead, it is continuously produced by historical and realistic contexts. Nowadays, given their far-reaching penetration and influence, the mass media have become the principal platform for building national identity. The Spring Festival Gala (SFG) is a grand TV celebratory gala which is produced by China Central Television (CCTV) and has been aired on every lunar New Year's eve since 1983. Ever since then, for Spring Festival celebrations, watching the live broadcast with the whole family has increasingly become as indispensible as posting spring couplets, setting off firecrackers, and eating dumplings. In other words, watching the CCTV SFG on lunar New Year's Eve has gradually developed into an emerging folk custom and tradition in China since the early 1980s. This thesis investigates the national identity issue from the perspective of media ritual. It is argued that the SFG is in itself an elaborately-orchestrated media ritual, which plays an irreplaceable role in constructing national identity. In terms of its operation mechanism, the thesis argues that the SFG contributes to constructing national identity mainly through two strategies; one is a structural strategy, namely, ritualizing the SFG; the other is a textural strategy, mythologizing the SFG.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated a... more In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated areas has long been disregarded or marginalised. Drawing on case studies in two Yugur-dominant schools in Gansu Province, China, this qualitative study explored how a schoolbased multicultural curriculum was developed and implemented within the framework of duoyuan yiti geju (a framework of diversity within unity), proposed by Fei Xiaotong and recently metaphorized as pomegranate seeds. Collected data evince the importance of the policy initiation, the local elites' agentic commitment as well as the support of school administrators, practitioners, and minority communities for initiating and enacting the school-based curriculum. The findings also unravel various structural/institutional barriers, such as the dominance of the national curriculum, the lack of bilingual teachers, and the need for the sustainability of the Yugur language and culture to develop school-based multicultural curricula.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2023
In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated a... more In China, the school-based multicultural curriculum development in ethnic minority-concentrated areas has long been disregarded or marginalised. Drawing on case studies in two Yugur-dominant schools in Gansu Province, China, this qualitative study explored how a schoolbased multicultural curriculum was developed and implemented within the framework of duoyuan yiti geju (a framework of diversity within unity), proposed by Fei Xiaotong and recently metaphorized as pomegranate seeds. Collected data evince the importance of the policy initiation, the local elites' agentic commitment as well as the support of school administrators, practitioners, and minority communities for initiating and enacting the school-based curriculum. The findings also unravel various structural/institutional barriers, such as the dominance of the national curriculum, the lack of bilingual teachers, and the need for the sustainability of the Yugur language and culture to develop school-based multicultural curricula.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with ... more The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with international declarations and national legislation enacted to protect the right of non-dominant language use and development. As information and communication technology (ICT) has spread, extending ICT to ethnic or indigenous languages has lagged. Nevertheless, their use on social media and other platforms has been growing rapidly, raising the question of their role in supporting non-dominant language vitality. In 2020 in China, non-dominant languages were used on various social media platforms to communicate anti-COVID messages. Drawing on language revitalisation frameworks, the investigators explore how the global pandemic has provided minority nationalities in west China the opportunity to increase recognition of their cultures and languages. We explore how minority communities in Yunnan and Gansu provinces in western China participated in China’s anti-Covid-19 campaign through the creation and dissemination of multilingual materials of different forms, genres, and modes on ICT social media platforms. We argue that using multilingual and multimodal ICT platforms to publicise countermeasures against Covid-19 has the potential to contribute to recognition and use of languages of non-dominant ethnic communities and revitalisation of heritage languages and cultures. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with ... more The language vitality of non-dominant communities has gained increasing attention worldwide with international declarations and national legislation enacted to protect the right of non-dominant language use and development. As information and communication technology (ICT) has spread, extending ICT to ethnic or indigenous languages has lagged. Nevertheless, their use on social media and other platforms has been growing rapidly, raising the question of their role in supporting non-dominant language vitality. In 2020 in China, nondominant languages were used on various social media platforms to communicate anti-COVID messages. Drawing on language revitalisation frameworks, the investigators explore how the global pandemic has provided minority nationalities in west China the opportunity to increase recognition of their cultures and languages. We explore how minority communities in Yunnan and Gansu provinces in western China participated in China's anti-Covid-19 campaign through the creation and dissemination of multilingual materials of different forms, genres, and modes on ICT social media platforms. We argue that using multilingual and multimodal ICT platforms to publicise countermeasures against Covid-19 has the potential to contribute to recognition and use of languages of non-dominant ethnic communities and revitalisation of heritage languages and cultures.
The rapid rise of China as a global socioeconomic power and its policies in relation to language ... more The rapid rise of China as a global socioeconomic power and its policies in relation to language and ethnicities provide unprecedented opportunities for ethnic minority groups to access higher education and develop overall competencies that are crucial for national and ethnic advancement. However, the top-down educational structures, such as language policies, school curriculum, national politics, medium of instruction, and employment prospect, may influence the learning outcome and their self-perceptions as ethnic minority learners in such a diversified country with 56 ethnic groups. This paper, based on an ethnographic case study of a female Naxi college student in Yunnan, reports and discusses the challenges posed by the trilingual education in China and attempts to shed some light on the curriculum development in a multilingual and multicultural context.
This paper reviews the ethnic multilingual policies and practices in China in general and Yunnan ... more This paper reviews the ethnic multilingual policies and practices in China in general and Yunnan in particular. It first introduces the demographic features and multilingual policies in Yunnan and then discusses the challenges of ethnic minority education in China from a critical perspective in terms of policy and curriculum. It is argued that it is necessary to re-conceptualize ethnic minority learners in an ever dynamic sociocultural discourse in contemporary China. The author proposes to deepen the research in ethnic multilingual education so as to develop a curriculum to meet the needs of ethnic multicultural learners in the 21st century and to contribute to the design of more relevant language policies, teaching practices, and learning resources, and to pave the way for further in-depth research.
Contemporary Chinese Discourse and Social Practice in China, 2015
National identity is an important social bond for the existence and development of nation-states.... more National identity is an important social bond for the existence and development of nation-states. National identity is not an innate or unchangeable awareness; instead, it is continuously produced by historical and realistic contexts. Nowadays, given their far-reaching penetration and influence, the mass media have become the principal platform for building national identity. The Spring Festival Gala (SFG) is a grand TV celebratory gala which is produced by China Central Television (CCTV) and has been aired on every lunar New Year's eve since 1983. Ever since then, for Spring Festival celebrations, watching the live broadcast with the whole family has increasingly become as indispensible as posting spring couplets, setting off firecrackers, and eating dumplings. In other words, watching the CCTV SFG on lunar New Year's Eve has gradually developed into an emerging folk custom and tradition in China since the early 1980s. This thesis investigates the national identity issue from the perspective of media ritual. It is argued that the SFG is in itself an elaborately-orchestrated media ritual, which plays an irreplaceable role in constructing national identity. In terms of its operation mechanism, the thesis argues that the SFG contributes to constructing national identity mainly through two strategies; one is a structural strategy, namely, ritualizing the SFG; the other is a textural strategy, mythologizing the SFG.
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