Introduction
Increasingly, leaders across public and private sectors are recognizing the rise of Asia as one of the central facts of the twenty‐first century. Fundamental to this shift is China's tremendous economic growth and emergence as a social and political leader in the region. Responding to these changes, the educational system in the USA is scrambling to increase the number of American students who can demonstrate a functional proficiency in Chinese (Asia Society, 2005). The same task, only a few decades ago, would have been inconceivable. What are the factors that affect the prestige, desirability, and marketability of a language other than English? In order to answer this question, this chapter takes an ecological perspective by examining the Chinese case in the USA.
As a nation of immigrants, the USA has been caught in the ideological struggle about languages between unum (assimilationist) and pluribus (pluralist), which is symbolized in the motto of the nation, E pluribus...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Asia Society.: 2006, Creating a Chinese Language Program in Your School: An Introductory Guide, http://askasiasoc.org/Chinese, Asia Society, New York.
Asia Society.: 2005, Expanding Chinese Language Capacity in the United States: What would it Take to Have 5 percent of High School Students Learning Chinese by 2015?Meeting Report, http://askasiasoc.org/Chinese. Asia Society, New York.
Brecht, R.D., Caemmerer, J., and Walton, A.R.: 1995, Russian in the United States: A Case Study of America's Language Needs and Capacities, National Foreign Language Center Monograph Series, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC.
Brecht, R.D. and Walton, A.R.:1994, ‘National strategic planning in the less commonly taught languages’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 532, 190–212.
Chan, K.S. and Tsang, S.L.:1983, ‘Overview of the educational progress of Chinese Americans’, in D.T. Nakanishi and M. Hirano‐Nakanishi (eds.), The Education of Asian and Pacific Americans: Historical Perspectives and Prescriptions for the Future, Oryx Press, Phoenix, AZ.
Crawford, J.: 2003, ‘Language legislation in the U.S.A’, in J. Crawford (ed.), Language Policy Web Site & Emporium, available online, July 20, 2005, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/langleg.htm.
Evans, B. and Hornberger, N.: 2005, ‘No child left behind: Repealing and unpeeling federal language education policy in the United States’, Language Policy 4(1), 87–106.
Fishman, J.A.: 1968, ‘Sociolinguistic perspectives in the study of bilingualism’, Linguistics 39, 21–48.
Fishman, J.A.: 1991, Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages, Multilingual Matters, Philadelphia, PA.
Hardman, J.C.: 1994, Language and literacy development in a Cambodian community in Philadelphia, PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Hing, B.O.: 1993, Making and Remaking Asian America through Immigration Policy, 1850–1990, Stanford University Press Stanford, CA.
Hornberger, N.H.: 2003, ‘Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach’, in N.H. Hornberger (ed.), Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice in Multilingual Settings, Multilingual Matters Ltd, Clevedon, UK.
Kloss, H.: 1978/1998, The American Bilingual Tradition, Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems Co., Inc. McHenry, IL.
Lantolf, J.P. and Sunderman, G.: 2001, ‘The struggle for a place in the sun: rationalizing foreign language study in the twentieth century’, Modern Language Journal 85(1), 5–25.
Lo Bianco, J.: 2001, ‘What is the problem? A study of official English’, unpublished manuscript, Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics.
Macias, R.F. and Wiley, T.G.: 1978/1998, ‘Introduction to the second edition’, in H. Kloss (ed.), The American Bilingual Tradition, Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems Co., Inc., McHenry, IL.
McCarty, T.L. and Zepeda, O. (eds.).: 1995, Bilingual Research Journal, National Association for Bilingual Education 19(1), entire issue (San Diego, CA).
Moore, S.J., Walton, A.R., and Lambert, R.D.: 1992, Introducing Chinese into High Schools: The Dodge Initiative, National Foreign Language Center Monograph Series.
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Public Law 107–110 (January 8, 2002), United States Congress.
Peyton, J.K., Ranard, D.A., and McGinnis, S. (eds.).: 2001, Heritage Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource, Delta Systems Co., Inc., McHenry, IL.
Portes, A. and Rumbaut, R.G.: 2001, Legacies: The Story of Immigrant Second Generation, Russell Sage Foundation, New York.
Rosenbusch, M.H. and Jensen, J.: 2005, ‘The status of foreign language programs in the NECTFL states’, in Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language Review 56, NECFL Inc., Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, 26–37.
Secondary School Chinese Language Center Newsletter, Special Issue, August 2002, Vol. XIII (No.2–3), Princeton University, New Jersey, http://www.princeton.edu/∼ssclc
Skilton‐Sylvester, E.: 1997, Inside, Outside, and in‐Between: Identities, Literacies, and Educational Policies in the Lives of Cambodian Women and Girls in Philadelphia, Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Takaki, R.: 1989, Strangers from a Different Shore, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, MA.
Tuan, M.: 1998, Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey.
Ruiz, R.: 1984, ‘Orientations in language planning’, NABE Journal 8, 15–34.
Wang, S.C.: 2004, Biliteracy Resource Eco‐System of Intergenerational Transmission of Heritage Language and Culture: An Ethnographic Study of a Chinese Community in the United States, Unpublished Ph D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Wang, X. (ed.): 1996, A View from within: A Case Study of Chinese Heritage Community Language Schools in the United States, The National Foreign Language Center, Monograph Series.
Webb, B.J. and Miller, B.L. (eds.).: 2000, Teaching Heritage Language Learners: Voices from the Classroom, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Yonkers, NY.
Wong, S.C.: 1988, ‘The language situation of Chinese Americans’, in S.L. McKay and S.C. Wong (eds.), Language Diversity, Problem or Resource?, Heinle & Heinle Publishers, Boston, MA,
Zweig, D. and Chen, C.: 1995, China's Brain Drain to The United States: Views of Overseas Chinese Students and Scholars in the 1990s, China Research Monograph, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies.
Useful Websites
Asia Society http://askasia.org/Chinese
Chinese School Association in the United States http://www.csaus.org/
College Board Advance Placement Homepage http://www.apcentral.collegeboard.com
Families with Children from China http://www.fwcc.org
Joint National Committee for Languages http://www.languagepolicy.org
National Council of Associations of Chinese Language Schools http://www.ncacls.org/
National Language Conference http://www.nlconference.org
National Security Language Initiative http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/spotlight/NSLI
The Office of Chinese Language Council International http://www.hanban.edu.cn
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Wang, S.C. (2008). The Ecology of the Chinese Language in the United States. In: Hornberger, N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_229
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_229
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-32875-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-30424-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law