Dear Students
I am writing this letter in English solely because I can type and write much faster in English than Chinese, and with the pressure of work I do not have time to translate this into Chinese. I also feel that writing in English will allow my ideas to reach our non-Chinese reading students and colleagues, thus fostering a more inclusive dialogue. I hope the English will not constitute an intellectual or psychological barrier between us while I try to get my message across.
Recently, I have been reading a lot of comments by students on the issue of language of instruction, including of course the letter written by the Students’ Union. I am not here to defend the policy of the university, and in fact I believe there is much room for improvement regarding the policy formulation of “internationalizing the student mix” and the consultative process. The purpose of this letter is, however, to offer my response to the major arguments advanced in your comments.
The argument against the use of more English as the teaching language has so far been framed in terms of four themes: 1) nationalism and decolonization; 2) the mission of The Chinese University of Hong Kong; 3) effective learning, which requires the need to be educated in one’s mother tongue; 4) cultural rights and identity. I would like to explore whether these four themes should lead us to the conclusion that Cantonese should be used exclusively or predominantly as our language of instruction.
Nationalism and decolonization – Many of you argue that English is simply a language of the former colonizer that was imposed on us. Moreover, a relationship of domination and subordination between the colonizer and the colonized was established through culturally privileging English and belittling Chinese. Decolonization requires us to rediscover our Chinese roots, and thus Chinese should now replace English as the dominant language in all levels of communication. This argument should have led us to reflect on the fact that the dominance of Cantonese in Hong Kong, as much as the dominance of English, is the result of colonialism. British colonialism have led to the negligence of Putunghua education and the raising of several generations of HK Chinese that are poor speakers of Putunghua, thus rendering them unable to communicate with the majority of the Chinese population and their fellow Chinese citizens. The recognition of this historical shame should have obligated us to greatly expand the use Putunghua instead of Cantonese as the medium of instruction in CUHK and all levels of schooling.
At the same time, we should be critically aware of the fact that Cantonese is not even the indigenous language of Hong Kong, and that the dominance of Cantonese is the outcome of a historical process of hegemony and homogenization that is arguably no less violent than British colonialism. Just think of all the new migrants who even today are regarded as less “Hong Kong” and discriminated against by the majority of HK Chinese because they cannot speak accentless Cantonese. The original inhabitants of HK were the Tankas and the Hakkas, who each spoke their own dialect. The majority of the population here are migrants or their offsprings and descendants. Although Cantonese speaking people have constituted the majority of them, there have always been a significant number of migrants from various places in China, whose mother tongues are not Cantonese. In fact, as recently as the 1950s, Hong Kong was a multiethnic society consisting of multiple linguistic communities, such as Shanghaiese, Chiuchauese, Fujianese, Toisanese, Shantungese, Hunanese, Ningpoese, Hakkas, Tankas, and many more. On top of that, there are non-Chinese ethnic groups who have lived in Hong Kong for generations, and whose ancestors came from Britain, Portugal, Russia, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, among other places. If the logic of decolonization means a total rejection of what was culturally imposed on us, we should have
rediscovered either our Chineseness by fully adopting Putunghua as the official spoken language, or our multicultural roots by giving due regard to the rights and heritages of all linguistic communities. Either way, the hegemony of Cantonese should be questioned and de-legitimized.
The mission of CUHK -- It has long been the mission of this university to promote bilingualism (meaning Chinese and English) and biculturalism (especially bridging the Chinese and the Western culture). What the founders of the three colleges (that originally constituted CUHK) had in mind was definitely not promoting a Hong Kong-Cantonese culture (which did not even exist in the 1950s when the colleges were founded), but the national Chinese culture. Ideally, to fulfill the mission of bilingualism and biculturalism, Puotunghua and English should be the major language of instruction of CUHK, and Cantonese should not have a strong presence. Many of you have claimed that CUHK has always upheld teaching in mother tongue. This could be true to the extent that the University has supported the use of mother tongue in foundational education. But I am not aware that CUHK has a policy of teaching in mother tongue, as there has never been a recruitment policy that requires all teaching staff be fluent in Cantonese.
Effective learning -- The third argument contends that mother tongue is always the most effective way of learning, and the use of any other second language will compromise the purpose of education. This argument on the right to be educated in one’s mother tongue is somewhat at odds with the first two arguments which, according to my analysis, would have required that Cantonese not be used as the primary teaching language but be put back to its place as a dialect. Interestingly, given this assertion, the student union in their open letter felt that it was perfectly legitimate to demand Mainland Chinese students to study in Cantonese which is often their second, third or even fourth language (after their own local dialect and English). While upholding the sanctity of learning in one’s mother tongue, they also conceded that they fully understood the importance of English but felt that its use should only be confined to “reading materials”.
If the use of Cantonese were the sole factor constituting “effective learning”, it would require that the teaching staff of our entire university be Cantonese-speaking people only. It would require that CUHK stop admitting students whose mother tongue is not Cantonese. It would require that the university stop running all international exchange programs, especially not to send our students to foreign universities because there is no way they can learn “effectively” in a non-Cantonese environment. It would even mean that we stop inviting distinguished international visitors to come in and give public lectures because, after all, how effectively can students learn from their English (or Puotunghua) presentations anyway?
Obviously, if we turn our university into a Cantonese-only campus, it will seriously impoverish the academic environment and lower the quality of education, and will not be conducive to “effective learning”. Conversely, if we admit that the use of English is important if not inevitable, then “effective learning” must be understood as a multidimensional concept. I believe there are multiple factors that contribute to “effective learning” in the context of our university. For one thing, the teaching staff of CUHK have long been an internationalized group, and this has directly contributed to the quality of education here. There is no evidence to show that Cantonese speaking teachers are always more effective than their non-Cantonese speaking counterparts. Some of the recipients of the best teaching awards have been English speaking teachers. Many non-local teachers have performed extremely well in teaching evaluations. More importantly, the use of English has allowed both the teachers and students of CUHK to have direct linkage with the centers of knowledge production that predominantly reside in the English-speaking world. Taking Political Science as an example, even China Studies today is a heavily English-dominated field of studies. The best centers of China Studies are physically located in the West. The major international journals and writings on Chinese politics are published in English, not Chinese. Major international conferences are conducted in English. In short, the use of English is pertinent to maintaining the quality of education of this university. Time and expertise do not allow me to comment on the situation of all those monolingual countries such as France, Germany and Japan that are teaching exclusively in their own mother tongue. (I do know that at least France and Germany are opening in recent years and some of their universities are offering programs and courses in English in order to attract international students.) In any event, I do not think Hong Kong’s situation is comparable to theirs, and I do not see how our quality of education will not be seriously compromised if we insist on teaching exclusively or predominantly in Cantonese.
Thus none of the three arguments, naming, nationalism and decolonization, the mission of the university, and effective learning, makes a sufficient case for using Cantonese exclusively or predominantly in CUHK. Instead, they all seem to point to the need for students to master multiple languages. Even without the issue of “internationalizing” our student mix, I doubt that we have a strong case to uphold Cantonese as the major medium of learning.
Cultural rights and identity -- In many of your comments, the argument has been advanced that the history of western colonialism and the current trend of globalization have brought about the hegemony of the English-speaking world and their cultures, and have threatened the survival of other languages and cultures. English has certainly become the de facto supranational language, not only in the academic community but also in many areas of social and cultural exchanges. We certainly need to be highly vigilant of any unhealthy trend toward global monolingualism. On the other hand, the way to combat this trend is not to withdraw ourselves from participating in the center of knowledge production or other international exchanges. For one thing, the participation of non-Western people in the academic discourse of the English-speaking world has actually helped subvert the hegemony of western-centered scholarship. The scholarships of cultural studies and postcolonial studies are examples of such “subversive” knowledge brought about by English-speaking intellectuals such as Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak who are of Third World origins. As far as Chinese people are concerned, actively participating in international activities and promoting the development of Chinese culture are not mutually exclusive. In fact, active learning from other cultures will serve as a major source of innovation to our Chinese culture, and active interaction between Chinese and other cultures will augment the impact and contribution of Chinese culture to the rest of the world. In fact, quite many scholars have also pointed out that in the amidst of globalization and the spread of English as a global language, what we are witnessing is convergence not toward global monolingualism but rather multilingualism in which people will be expected to master a few languages. As the Students’ Union has mentioned in its open letter, more and more international students are interested in coming to this part of the world to learn Chinese, and this by itself is already an indication of the multilingual trend. But then why should students of CUHK allow themselves to lag behind this multilingual trend by insisting on learning in Cantonese exclusively?
This brings us to the issue of Hong Kong’s cultural identity and how it can contribute to China’s development. Many of you have insisted that the predominance of Cantonese is crucial to the reservation of our cultural identity. I beg to disagree. Aside from what I have already pointed out as the need to rediscover the multilingual roots of Hong Kong, we should also recognize that English has a central place in our economic, cultural, social and political spheres. I do not wish to deny that such strong presence of English is a legacy of our colonial past. On the other hand, I would question whether it is in the best interest of Hong Kong or China as a whole to dismantle such infrastructural characteristics of Hong Kong. For one thing, our common law system which has significantly contributed to the rule of law and the protection of our way of life is entirely based on English. What we think of as the “indigenous” cultural traits of Hong Kong are mostly “foreign” in origin. They are actually the product of the fusion of the cultures of the migrant population and the foreign cultures that we have actively imported over the course of a hundred and sixty years. In this sense, Hong Kong culture, as many cosmopolitan migrant culture, is a fusion culture. The very possibility of such fusion culture is the openness of this society to international influence -- and this is what makes us unique and distinct from the rest of China. Those who argue for Cantonese as the foundation of our indigenous culture are merely asking Hong Kong to turn inward. Such closing of the Hong Kong mind will only suffocate the continuous rejuvenation of our indigenous culture and sow the seeds of our own demise. In the past century, the characteristic of Hong Kong as an open society situated at the margins of the East and the West have contributed significantly to China’s development. Postcolonial Hong Kong should continue to play such “linkage” role if we wish to contribute to the development of China and the Chinese culture in the 21st century.
I do not claim to have answers to all the questions regarding the debate on the language of instruction, but I do hope that my views on these issues will offer some insights for you to rethink the issues of the mission of CUHK and our own cultural identity. I welcome your feedbacks to my comments.
With Best Regards,
Eliza W.Y. Lee, Associate Professor Department of
Government and Public Administration
[email protected]
Repost the comment: To our youths' teachers
I mainly want to respond to Eliza Lee's opinion but technical problem prevents me from posting a response after hers.
I would like to focus my discussion on social sciences and humanities, as language is crucial in these disciplines.
I have no big narrative to offer. Without having to embroil into any ideological or historical arguments, the first and foremost argument against using English in the core courses is the education outcome.
As HK's higher education is no longer an elitist one, it cannot be denied that many students of social sciences and humanities understand teachings in Cantonese much better than in English, and they will participate through discussion and thinking more actively in Cantonese than English.
If we still believe that one of the functions, if not the most important function, of universities remains educating the youths in a community, and educating them how to think and argue rather than simply mastering a language or several languages (there is no lack of language schools outside universities, and we can subsidize students to learn languages in foreign countries for say 1 semester if languages are really important), we should teach them in the language that they can use to think and speak most freely and creatively, which is Cantonese for most locals, no matter how we define "mother-tongue" technically, historically or ideologically.
Here I disagree with Eric: I think it is more important to teach core courses in this "best language". If students do not understand and do not themselves think about the ideas in those core courses (which are important, basic and fundamental and that's why they are "core"), how can they employ these ideas critically in elective courses?
Even if we have to accept that the most important function of universities is to produce new knowledge instead of cultivating citizens who can think independently (which I disagree), the people doing this kind of knowledge production are mainly the teachers and the research students, not the undergraduates. Currently instead of ideally, undergraduates only learn the basic/classical ideas in a discipline, rather than those cutting-edge things that are claimed to be English-dependent. What is the point of “exchanging with people from other countries” if many students cannot contribute their best thinking and ideas due to the inevitable loss of using not the most fluent language they can use? Will it add a new problem of spoon-fed and one-way exchange to the existing problem of spoon-fed and one-way education in universities? Moreover, what is the point of this forced exchange in the class, when many students are struggling to understand what their international classmates are talking about?
Eliza may be right to argue that “the use of English has allowed both the teachers and students of CUHK to have direct linkage with the centers of knowledge production that predominantly reside in the English-speaking world”, but how many undergraduates are intended to and actually become research students, not to say scholars, to participate in this international knowledge production, which claimed to be best prepared by English undergraduate education? Why should we sacrifice the chance of the majority to benefit from “best language” university education and become independent thinking citizens (not to mention the creativity and intellectual curiosity nipped in the bud by the language hurdle)?
If we believe that language ability is not necessarily proportional to a person’s other abilities, why should we punish those with poorer language ability but could excel in an academic discipline if being taught in their best language? Are those having no chance of (or simply no interest in) participating in the game of “international knowledge production” deserved to be abandoned by their teachers? Why don’t we leave the compulsory English teaching and learning to postgraduate studies?
I disagree with Eliza’s idea that if Cantonese is good for effective learning, it would require that the teaching staff of our entire university be Cantonese-speaking people only (even if we do not have to resort to the obvious reason that effective learning of students is not the sole purpose of university), not to say the extreme ideas that “It would require that the university stop running all international exchange programs, especially not to send our students to foreign universities because there is no way they can learn “effectively” in a non-Cantonese environment. It would even mean that we stop inviting distinguished international visitors to come in and give public lectures because, after all, how effectively can students learn from their English (or Puotunghua) presentations anyway?”
University has many missions and the use of one language does not fit all. Using English may help enhance the international profile of the universities and their teachers and may help attract famous international scholars to contribute to the international knowledge production, it doesn’t help the learning of many if not most undergraduate students. We should not go to the extreme of requiring teaching exclusively in Cantonese, but neither should we go to the extreme of requiring teaching core courses exclusively in English. We have to strike a balance. For example, core courses should be offered by Cantonese-speaking teachers as far as possible so that students can grasp the basic ideas of a discipline.
I agree with Eliza that effective learning is multidimensional, but language is one of the most (if not the most) important and fundamental dimensions we cannot belittle.
I am just worrying that our university are blinded by their needs of international money and our university teachers by their own needs of international exchange, without seeing their “non-crème” students’ needs of learning the international locally. Although for many university professors, they are researchers the first and teachers the second, they should understand that society expects them to be as much teachers as researchers at least, and their average students (whose head counts form an important part of their pay) expect them to be their teachers the first.
P.S. I am not prepared to give any excuse for using English, as this is not the point of this discussion.