Globalization of Mandarin Language: Opportunities and Challenges

The assignment discusses the rapid growth of China as a superpower and its influence on the international market. It highlights the increasing demand for Mandarin language learning, both in the US and globally, and the need for Chinese government to put more efforts in popularizing the language in the international market.

GLOBALISATION OF
MANDARIN LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION
•Chinese language is the oldest written language
in the world.
•Most common seven dialects of china are
Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Wu, Min, Xiang
and Gan (Benton & Pieke, 2016).
•Mandarin is the most common
and the national language of china.

•Mandarin is spoken by 70% of people in
china
•It is one of the official languages of Taiwan
and Singapore.
•All Chinese language belong to the Sino
Tibetian family (Chu, Kang & Huang,
2015).

Definition
•Mandarin is the official language of china
•Most commonly spoken language in the
world
•800 million speakers worldwide (Chan,
2018)
•One of the six official languages in united
nations.
•Spoken by 70% people in china

Globalization and rise of china
•China is the second largest economy in the world.
•Fastest growing economy in the world.
•It is the largest manufacturer and the largest
exporter. Brinton, Kagan & Bauckus, 2017)
•It is expected to be the largest economy by 2030.

•Mark Zuckerburg gave a speech in a Chinese
university in mandarin.
•Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd is
fluent in mandarin.
•China’s emerging position as a super power is
making Chinese languages especially mandarin a
popular choice in western countries (Christian,
2016).
•The Confucius institute promotes Chinese
languages in abroad

•The Confucius institute is a non governmental non profit
organization that aims at promoting Chinese languages
in the west. This is known as soft power.
•Chinese government is putting every possible effort to
popularize and promote Chinese language in the western
countries (Flew, 2018).
• In 1987 china established the national office of teaching
Chinese as a foreign language (NOCFL).

•It includes various activities like cultural l
exchanges and tours. It also provides
support to foreign teachers .
•Its purpose is to provide teaching materials
and resources for Chinese language, develop
and promote Chinese language worldwide,
meet the needs and demands of Chinese
learners worldwide and contribute to
harmony and diversity (Hooper & Batalova,
2015).

Immigration of Chinese overseas workers
•Mandarin and Cantonese are the third
largest spoken language in united states .
•58.62% residents in California and
16.19% residents in New York speak
Cantonese (Jin & Dervin,2017).
•Mandarin is spoken by 10% people in
New York city.

•40% of Chinese in united states reside in
California.
•Cantonese dominated North America for
decades (Gil, 2018).
•Mandarin is quickly replacing Cantonese that
was the dialect for most overseas Chinese.
•Mandarin and Chinese though written similarly
are pronounced differently.

Technical and technology development
• Chinese written characters developed from objects of
nature like sun and the moon.
• 19th century onwards the phonetic design of Chinese
written languages was developed (Robertson, 2016).
•The mandarin Romanization was developed by
missionaries from the west.
•The Chinese phonetic alphabet (Pinyin) became the
phonetic system of china (Ruan, Zhang & Leung,2015).

• Chinese phonetic system uses 25 characters.
• With the help of pinyin illiterates and foreigners can
learn mandarin (Lo, & Pan, 2016).
• The problems in communication that the people of china
face due to the diversity of lchinese language can be
solved by the help of the phontetic system (pinyin).
• With its help people can pronounce chinese characters

Trends in widespread popularity of mandarin
•Beijing olympic gave a boost to the tourism
industry of china. Which increased the
interest in mandarin (Shambaugh, 2013).
•Barack obama’s daughter is learning
mandarin . Mark zuckerburg has a
knowledge of mandarin.
•Australian minister kevin rudd is fluent with
the language (Simmons, 2017).

Opportunities in mandarin as an international language
• British council recent survey reveals the rapidly
growing demand of mandarin
• Statistics show in united states lthe demand for
learning chinese has doubled between 2009 and
2015 (Wilkinson, E., & Harvard University
center, 2016).
• Number of chinese learners acros the world gone
up from 30 million to 100 million.

Conclusion
• China’s growth as a super power has been
rapid (Wang & Adamson 2015))
• From a poverty stricken country to the
third largest economy in the world.
• Influence of china is felt in every sector by
the developed countries of the world

• Until a few years back parents taught their
kids spanish and french (Shambaugh,
2015)
• Today parents are making their kid learn
mandari n as their second language.
• The careeropportunities and wide scope of
learning mandarin is evidentin the
international market

Recommendation
• Chinese government should put more efforts in popularising
the language in the international market.
• Campaigns for soft power can be developed by chinese
government to make the language more popular among
western students (Yang, 2015).
• The government can grow more scholarship programmes for
the students who are willing to studychinese culture and
language.
• Opportunities for research and further development of the
language.

• The government of china can tie up with foreign schools
and universities to provide chinese classes to the students
• It is the duty of the government to look into the needs and
demands of the students and the teachers of chinese
languages (Hayhoe, 2017).
• Providing enough research materials and studies to the
students and the teachers overseas is important
• Benefits and facilities for teachers who are willing to teach
mandarin in foreign schools and universities.
• Financial aids can be provided to needy students.

Thank you