Sorry for replying late and thanks for your interesting comments. The above questions are also what I’m interested in and what I will present in the future study. And I’m also looking forward to sharing more valuable research findings one day. Wish you successful fieldwork and great studies.
Best regards.

Sorry for replying late and thanks for your wonderful comments. I understand your concern. What I found in the study—the erasure of human, cultural and linguistic diversity is not to alienate any social groups of language learners or arouse racism. Instead, this result is intended to propose that a multilingual and multicultural world without hierarchies should be included for better Chinese learning among different learners because the ideological aspects of multiculturalism and multilingualism can facilitate learners outputs via CSL textbooks. It is of great possibility and necessity to interrelate the linguistic knowledge with the representations of identities and cultures on an equal basis. The content of language textbooks can be designed in an balanced way and the non-binary view of the world can be avioded during Chinese teaching and learning.

Sorry for replying late and thanks for your great comments. Yes, the mismatches between the representations of identities and cultures in reading materials and in real social contexts exist in different learning cases. It is urgent to pay more attention to textbook designing since textbooks provide knowledge in a purposeful way and implicitly reveal ideology and politics of identity in specific contexts.

Thanks Paul for sharing your experiences. English language has been constructed as a global language due to the political and economic hegemony brought by the UK/USA. And the most desirable English form is ideologically conducted by the English native speakers particularly from the two countries. This indeed creates global inequalities and linguistic hierarchies indicated by Phillipson.

Jeff, thanks for sharing your comments.
In the changing context, although it is kind of hard to match the textbooks with national advocacy, it is of importance to cultivate the awareness of understanding the world without hierarchies for all of us. The inclusion of linguistic and cultural diversity on global scales is not only disappeared in the field of CSL, but also in ESL. “World Englishes” are also erased in the English language learning.
I’ll study hard to conduct more interesting studies in the future.

Thanks Liz. I agree with you. It is a long way for updating textbooks. But it is of significance and necessity to take the official advocacy of cultural confidence into actions. The enhancement of international concepts with a non-binary view of the world should be endorsed by language teachers both inside and outside the classroom.

Thanks Professor Troy. I’m so honored to hear your comments on this blog. This is really encouraging. I’m interested in publishing a paper on this topic. I’ll try my best to revise and submit the paper if it is qualified enough.
Best wishes,
Wei Duan

Thank you so much, my dear Professor, Prof. Li Jia. You have offered me sustainable guidance, encouragement and constructive feedbacks during the past three years. I’m so lucky to be your student in Sociolinguistics.
Deep gratitude to dear Prof. Ingrid. Thank you for giving us chances to share meaningful researches globally. Yesterday was really unforgettable. I received a lot of congrats and praise. This blog would build me confidence in academic writing. I’ll keep on studying hard and conducting more valuable studies in our field.
Wish you all the best!

Thanks Gegentuul for sharing your opinions about this blog.
Nobody wants to read the book of language learning that is over-represented in another language. In the textbooks, Chinese culture is indeed introduced but lack of consideration about the importance of learners of diverse backgrounds. We’re looking forward to constructing a more inclusive approach towards embracing linguistic and cultural diversity and new image of China via CSL textbooks.

Thank you so much, dear Miskat. You are very insightful.
This study is a sincere wish for better promotion of Chinese language. You helped me a lot during the tough days. Without your encouragement and support, I could not make big progress in my lifetime. It is so lucky to get to know you and other Bangladeshi friends. Although learners of non-English backgrounds are erased in the textbooks, you might appreciate the “real” experience living in China especially the great efforts what China have done for the gloal issue on COVID 19 pandemic.
I believe that you will have a bright future as a Chinese language learner. Wish you all the best!

Thanks Laura for sharing the similar findings about language textbooks of your studies. The advocacy of cultural diversity is not only limited within the field of CSL/CFL but also in ESL/EFL, even for other different language learning. It is of significance to cultivate language learners’ intercultural awareness and appreciation of cultural differences on equal basis. As for the statistics, you can find relevant number or percentage in the website of MOE. I’m also looking forward to share more with each other in the future. Thanks again.

Gegentuul: “Also who would like to engage with a book that reminds one of global/colonial domination through yet another unexpected language?”

A new essay composed by Professor Renato Corsetti, who weighs in occasionally at Language on the Move, posits that a post Covid 19 world will present many challenges to the tertiary education centres of all Anglo countries in the same vein as the fall of the Berlin Wall affected the standing of the Russian language in the Baltic states, Eastern Europe, central Asia and beyond.

Corsetti’s exposé of the racism underpinning the spread of various colonial languages is far too long for this post but I do hope that the moderator allows airing of the intro and closing paragraphs. There is no problem re copyright for the author has kindly granted me as his interpreter all rights over “Churchill and Esperanto” in its English variant. Many anglophiles are only peripherally aware that FDR and Churchill cleverly cooperated on the occasion of the latter’s famous 1943 oration at Harvard aimed at ensuring promulgation of Ogden’s Basic English.

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Is Dr. Zamenhof really dead? And what about Churchill?

In the final analysis were the persecutions of Hitler and Stalin [who murdered many Esperantists] more dangerous to the idea of an international, neutral, planned language than Churchill’s promulgating of an alternative project that persecuted no one?

Certainly, they are both deceased, but their ideas continue to bear fruit. Zamenhof’s ideas may be summarised as equality for all peoples. The ideas of Churchill align with the free market economy. This article addresses obstacles faced by Esperanto in free market economies. Not addressed are Hitleresque persecutions of what he depicted as “the dangerous language”. Here I examine obstacles deliberately put in the way of a language and an idea fundamentally at odds with a free marketeer’s world order. Said obstacles constitute in the main a hidden agenda in support of an alternative project. My central thesis posits that obstacles put in Esperanto’s path by France and subsequently by the English-speaking world harmed Esperanto much more than abominable persecutions perpetrated by overly nationalistic governments.

1. The 19th century: Racist ideas and imperialism
The 19th century spawned and witnessed widespread dissemination in continental Europe of the concept of the nation state and gave birth to Esperanto too. The notion of nation building influenced everyone in that era, including people like Zamenhof, who nevertheless favoured its antithesis, that is, a shattering of “stubborn barriers between divided peoples”. Zamenhof was one of those people who did manage to eschew the ideological prevalence of his time! A recent article by an Icelandic researcher even presents Esperanto as one of the movements opposing 19th century nationalism. In that same period in other countries, as with continental Europe and Britain, and to some extent in the United States, the general public’s mindset was developing a completely different world view in which the notion of fraternity gave way to the idea that whites are destined to rule the world. Those racist ideas were presented so openly that it is now difficult to accept that such was the real world, a situation entirely at odds with Esperantism’s verities. It was obviously imperialism, the last stage of capitalism as characterised by Lenin.

In the twentieth century the purely racist considerations of the previous century had been abandoned but not the ideas of the supremacy of English civilisation. These notions of superiority were held by C. K. Ogden. In 1925 he produced Basic English, fully described in a book published in 1930. His plan was to spread the knowledge of the English language to everyone in an easier way. Ogden was convinced that the world needed to gradually eradicate minority languages and use as much as possible only one, English in either a simple or complete form. The issue was widely known in Britain and praised as a vehicle for absorbing English by those unfortunates not in possession of it from birth. A widely known 1933 book on this is a science fiction work on history up to the year 2016 titled ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ by H. G. Wells. In this work Basic English is the inter-language of the future world, a world in which after long struggles a global authoritarian government manages to unite humanity and force everyone to learn it as a second language. George Orwell was one of the supporters of Basic English until 1945, at which time he became critical of all international languages. But what impresses most is that the Basic English project received special attention, even during World War II, from the British government, which obviously saw in it a tool for spreading the English language and culture.

In 1943 Winston Churchill delivered a famous speech at Harvard University on the occasion of receiving there an honorary degree. This speech is often quoted because of the following excerpt: “Let us go forward as with other matters and other measures similar in aim and effect – let us go forward in malice to none and good will to all. Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people’s provinces or lands or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind… Here you have a plan. There are others, but here you have a very carefully wrought plan for an international language….”

In my view that plan sounds like the death knell for the Esperanto movement, without the need to persecute any Esperantists but by simply overpowering them by means of a plan which is directly at odds with theirs and supported by the governmental power of Britain and the United States. My Esperanto friends often voice the view that “we are not enemies of English.” They are right but English is the enemy of Esperanto if it aims to take over Esperanto’s role as a world inter-language. Churchill made that obvious in his speech! In the meantime, the British Council, which is the official body for overseeing English abroad, also entered the fray. In 1934 officials from the British Foreign Office set up the British Committee for Relations with Other Countries. The name was shortened in 1936 to British Council.

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I agree ”It aslo constrains the usefulness of Chinese language education as an instrument of soft power”.
Probably to a certain extent the discrepancy between the textbook and the national ambition/strategy is also due to the publication of this textbook during 11th 5year plan that is before 2010. Obviously the Chinese language education is lagging far behind.