郭书谏

This paper focuses on the diaspora Chinese community in Limerick – an Irish county town in the southwest of the Republic of Ireland – and examines how Chinese parents have responded to the education policy shift resulting from the 2017 Irish foreign language strategy, which added Chinese to the official educational curriculum. A semi-structured group interview was conducted with four Chinese-speaking parents. Analysis of the data revealed that identity preservation and maintaining bonds with extended family are the predominant expressed reasons for parents to cultivate their children’s Chinese proficiency. English and Irish are prioritized over Chinese. Though the parents hold positive attitudes towards the inclusion of Chinese as a school subject in Ireland, they are disempowered from taking advantage of participating in the implementation of this national language shift due to a lack of access to social, cultural, and economic capital. Analysed through a Bourdieuian lens, the findings further expose the limitations or constraints placed on family language policy and the discrepancy between macro- and micro-level language policies. The paper is intended to shed light on education, social justice, and equality, bridging the gap between micro-level family language practices and macro-level language policy.

In recent decades, the commodification of the English language has aroused intensive research interest in the sociolinguistics on a global scale, but studies on the commodification of the Chinese language are relatively rare. Most studies take a critical approach in relation to its adverse impacts on minority rights and social justice. This study examined the language landscape in Chiangmai, Thailand, and the linguistic beliefs of local Thai Chinese language learners. Based on their feedback, this study investigated the commodification of Chinese language education in the community of Chinese language learners in Chiangmai. We found that from a less critical perspective, the commodification of a second language provides more accessible and affordable educational opportunities for learners, especially those from low-income families, and at the same time language proficiency can broaden learners’ career choices and provide employees with additional value in industries, such as tourism, commerce, and services. This finding implies that language commodification, rather than typically being associated with linguistic imperialism and unbalanced socio-economic status, can be a contributing factor in promoting higher-education availability and social sustainability in certain circumstances. There may be some mediating factors between the commodification of language and changes in the sustainable balance of language, opening up space for future research to explore.

新质生产力的发展对区域国别外语人才培养模式提出了新需求。本研究通过对国内某知名高校区域国别人才培养模式进行案例探究，以学生深度访谈为基础，探讨新质生产力背景下区域国别外语人才培养的机遇和挑战。研究表明，尽管现有高校人才培养模式取得了一定成果，但在知识体系和素养方面仍存在不足，应适当融入以外语为基础、与目标国家和区域科技行业相关的教学素材，加强多学科合作，培养行业经验，从而提升学生的科学素养和专业能力。本研究为区域国别外语人才培养提供相应参照，为外语学科在新质生产力时代下的内涵式发展提供一定启示。