Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: John Edwards (St Francis Xavier University, Canada)
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Volume: 21 Number: 2 Page: 129–148
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Language Policy and Illiteracy in Ethnic Minority Communities in China
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Minglang Zhou
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This study examines statistics on minority illiteracy from the 1990 Chinese national census across age groups in relation to China's changing language policy among three types of minority communities: (1)
those with writing systems of historically broad usage; (2) those with writing systems of historically limited usage, and (3) those without functional writing systems. China's language policy as a whole
has had the strongest negative impacts on illiteracy reduction in type 2 communities, which may have stronger group identity and social resistance to the use of Chinese, but no regular bilingual education.
The change towards a Chinese-monopolistic policy harmed illiteracy reduction, especially in type 1 communities with a smaller Chinese-speaking minority population. The recent change towards pluralism has
thus far shown mixed results in all three types of communities.
© Multilingual Matters 2000
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