America is one of the hottest destination for Chinese students who have the ambition to have a more successful career. According to an admission counsellor of the Ivy league, the number of Chinese students studying in United States has been increased at a rate of 20% per year for last four years.
Here, at Emory University, one of the most Sino-friendly American top institution, more than one hundred Chinese students entered each year and several society of Chinese students has been formed. In order to understand how they emerge into Emory, an American international academic society, and how they fits in the English-speaking environment, we conducted an interview on a typical Chinese student, who is born in a major city of China and have education through highschool in China.
Zhuoxu Wang (Henry) comes from Chengdu, a city in the middle inland part of China. As a matter of fact, Chinese is known for having hundreds of dialects, and it plays an important role in local people’s life. Zhuoxu states that Sichuanese is the most prevalence dialect in his area, but Mandarine is also used there. In my annotated bibliography on the book Rethinking Multilingualism: Issues & Problems (http://multilingualismandus.weebly.com/problem-of-multilingualism-india.html), after analyzing the decease of language in India, I made an analogy and prediction with the dialects in China. In that case, Cantonese is the most prevalent language people use during daily life, and Mandarine is the official dialect used by government, media and school. The conclusion was it may cause trouble for non-Cantonese speaker living in Canton when doing daily communications, and with Cantonese’s strong blief in preserving their ancestor’s language, Cantonese dialect was preserved. In this case, Zhuoxu stated that Mandarine is also popular in Chengdu, Sichuan. As a matter of fact, he states that a non-Chengduese speaker will not have much trouble in daily communication and education. Compared to the difference between Cantonese and Mandarine, Zhuoxu concludes that the difference between Chengduese and Mandarin is smaller, but also significant. Comparing Zhuoxu’s statement with Ivy’s narrative (http://ivytequila.weebly.com/a-step-forward.html), we can find that when the difference between two dialect becomes larger, it is less likely for people to communicate without difficulties in understanding each other.
Please note an interesting fact that when answering the question of birth place, Zhuoxu gave the answer “Chengdu,Sichuan” in Chinese. Chengdu is a city in Sichuan province, so it make sense in English speaking habit. However, in Chinese, people always put the word of larger domain in the front. “Sichuan, Chengdu” is the proper order in Chinese. It is one of the most basic so-called “grammar” in Chinese, and it is very unlikely for a native speaker to get it wrong. The only explanation is the influence of English. Zhuoxu states that his Chinese skill is negatively influenced by learning English, and that’s in accordance with the study of Tibetan exile in India analyzed in my comments of the book Rethinking Multilingualism: Issues & Problems (http://multilingualismandus.weebly.com/problem-of-multilingualism-india.html). In that study, researcher found that Tibetan exile, who claimed to preserve the holy culture and language of Tibetan, are inevitably influenced by other languages in India, so most young Tibetans are incapable of speaking idiomatic Tibetan. Zhuoxu states that most time he pulse in the interview is because of the failure of getting the appropriate word in Chinese in his mind, as sometimes English word comes out at first. This enhance the statement that learning a language can have destructive effect on another language.
Here, at Emory University, one of the most Sino-friendly American top institution, more than one hundred Chinese students entered each year and several society of Chinese students has been formed. In order to understand how they emerge into Emory, an American international academic society, and how they fits in the English-speaking environment, we conducted an interview on a typical Chinese student, who is born in a major city of China and have education through highschool in China.
Zhuoxu Wang (Henry) comes from Chengdu, a city in the middle inland part of China. As a matter of fact, Chinese is known for having hundreds of dialects, and it plays an important role in local people’s life. Zhuoxu states that Sichuanese is the most prevalence dialect in his area, but Mandarine is also used there. In my annotated bibliography on the book Rethinking Multilingualism: Issues & Problems (http://multilingualismandus.weebly.com/problem-of-multilingualism-india.html), after analyzing the decease of language in India, I made an analogy and prediction with the dialects in China. In that case, Cantonese is the most prevalent language people use during daily life, and Mandarine is the official dialect used by government, media and school. The conclusion was it may cause trouble for non-Cantonese speaker living in Canton when doing daily communications, and with Cantonese’s strong blief in preserving their ancestor’s language, Cantonese dialect was preserved. In this case, Zhuoxu stated that Mandarine is also popular in Chengdu, Sichuan. As a matter of fact, he states that a non-Chengduese speaker will not have much trouble in daily communication and education. Compared to the difference between Cantonese and Mandarine, Zhuoxu concludes that the difference between Chengduese and Mandarin is smaller, but also significant. Comparing Zhuoxu’s statement with Ivy’s narrative (http://ivytequila.weebly.com/a-step-forward.html), we can find that when the difference between two dialect becomes larger, it is less likely for people to communicate without difficulties in understanding each other.
Please note an interesting fact that when answering the question of birth place, Zhuoxu gave the answer “Chengdu,Sichuan” in Chinese. Chengdu is a city in Sichuan province, so it make sense in English speaking habit. However, in Chinese, people always put the word of larger domain in the front. “Sichuan, Chengdu” is the proper order in Chinese. It is one of the most basic so-called “grammar” in Chinese, and it is very unlikely for a native speaker to get it wrong. The only explanation is the influence of English. Zhuoxu states that his Chinese skill is negatively influenced by learning English, and that’s in accordance with the study of Tibetan exile in India analyzed in my comments of the book Rethinking Multilingualism: Issues & Problems (http://multilingualismandus.weebly.com/problem-of-multilingualism-india.html). In that study, researcher found that Tibetan exile, who claimed to preserve the holy culture and language of Tibetan, are inevitably influenced by other languages in India, so most young Tibetans are incapable of speaking idiomatic Tibetan. Zhuoxu states that most time he pulse in the interview is because of the failure of getting the appropriate word in Chinese in his mind, as sometimes English word comes out at first. This enhance the statement that learning a language can have destructive effect on another language.
When asked if his Chinese skill helped his learning of English, his answer was a no. He explained that the difference of sentence structure and word usage between the two languages are too huge so that the knowledge of one cannot transfer to the other. But talking about the skills in reading and writing passages, especially concluding the main idea of a long material, there is some “kind of help”. This partially improved the Singapore experiment on Chinese student’s Chinese skill and English skill. The experiment result tells that students with better Chinese skill is more likely to have better English reading and writing skills (see my comments on the book Towards Global Multilingualism: European Models and Asian Realities http://multilingualismandus.weebly.com/multilingual-education-and-us.html), and Zhuoxu’s narrative makes the conclusion more specific- it is unlikely for student to apply Chinese skill on a sentence level onto English, but for higher lever, such as reading and writing a whole passage, the skills are transferable.
As we concludes that multilingualism can impact the way a person feels, acts, it is both interesting and useful to learn about the nature and characteristic of this phenomenon. From the interview of Zhuoxu, we can learn how a non-native English speaker merge into an multicultural but English-leading environment. From his narrative and analysis, we can see how his skill in Chinese (mother language) interfere with his ability in learning and mastering English. Also, we can have an impression of how the lack of ability of a language can affect one’s life and study. But as the nature of multilingualism is more a personal-based or social-based phenomenon, the pattern varies between person and person, culture and culture. Therefore, we are still far from drawing a definite conclusion; yet at least we are one more step nearer to the complete story.
As we concludes that multilingualism can impact the way a person feels, acts, it is both interesting and useful to learn about the nature and characteristic of this phenomenon. From the interview of Zhuoxu, we can learn how a non-native English speaker merge into an multicultural but English-leading environment. From his narrative and analysis, we can see how his skill in Chinese (mother language) interfere with his ability in learning and mastering English. Also, we can have an impression of how the lack of ability of a language can affect one’s life and study. But as the nature of multilingualism is more a personal-based or social-based phenomenon, the pattern varies between person and person, culture and culture. Therefore, we are still far from drawing a definite conclusion; yet at least we are one more step nearer to the complete story.