Mandarin Promotion Week highlights language standardisation effort

While Mandarin (Putonghua) is the language learned by almost all foreign students of “Chinese”, the mainland plays host to dozens of different dialects between its vast borders. Mandarin Promotion Week is an effort to coordinate schools, government offices and the media to enhance awareness of a standard usage of Chinese, and seeks to increase the population of standard Mandarin speakers across China. The government hopes that language standardisation will help open up far-reaching corners of China to more interest and investment from locals and foreigners alike, and will also help administrations to operate with more efficiency and certainty.

Now in its 12th year, Mandarin Promotion Week serves up events, competitions and information sessions. Particular focus is given to rural areas, where the level of education is generally lower, and the predominance of dialects is higher. Several student competitions encourage use of the standardised language, with prizes offered as incentive for participation. The Week of activities has taken on even greater significance in 2009 due to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, with several events adopting patriotic slogans such as “Love the mother language, love China”.

The Chinese government released an official proficiency test for Mandarin speaking and pronunciation in 1994, and made it compulsory for teachers, actors, and public media personnel to take the test. This effort sought to bring standard Mandarin into village centres and living rooms across the nation. In 2001, the government enacted a law that prescribed a common language and national set of official characters. Going further, and in response to some concerns that the previous 1994 proficiency test did not go far enough, the government released a more comprehensive test of standard Mandarin in early 2009, including common characters and listening in addition to speaking and pronunciation.

There is some debate as to whether these active standardisation efforts across the mainland may eventually render extinct various dialects and their associated cultural nuances. Most children, for example, progress through the school system using Mandarin exclusively, leaving dialectic awareness and education up to parents and relatives. There is also a pragmatic realisation that to effectively participate and compete in China’s growth story, Mandarin knowledge is crucial.

Language standardisation at home is also set to play a role in China’s growing influence abroad. An increasing number of Mandarin speakers on the mainland represents a growing potential pool that will be able to interact with the increasing number of foreign Mandarin speakers (some 40 million and counting, according to government sources), and suggests vast social, political and economic effects in the generations to come.