Research on Bilingual Education of Ethnic Minorities in China : From the Perspective of Multilingual Co-existence

This paper, through the analysis of the state of bilingual education in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province of China, illuminates the specifics of bilingual education of ethnic minorities in present day China from the perspective of multilingual co-existence. With recent emphasis on multilingual and multicultural coexistence, in the multilingual and multicultural state of China the attainment of a “language harmony” or a harmonious linguistic relation between the Han language of the majority and the languages of the ethnic minorities has been planned. However, this “language harmony” has stopped at the level of academic harmonizing of Han and ethnic minorities` languages, or of constitutional or regional regulations regarding the use of ethnic languages and the freedom of linguistic choice, and the presence of a gap between principles and reality has surfaced. The present paper, in the first place, summarizes the definition, contents and function of what has been conducted under the name of “ethnic education”, and considers what “true ethnic education” constitutes. Then, after re-confirming the “linguistic rights” delineated in constitutional and regional regulations, and on the basis of concrete instances from Xinjiang, it makes clear that the bilingual education which was aimed at the leveling of ethnic and Han languages according to the original concept of “Min-Han Jian-Tong” has escalated to become a “New bilingual education” biased towards Han language education. At the end, it considers the future of bilingual education in present day China, and offers an inquiry into the role of education and language in identity formation. The illumination of the specifics of bilingual education in Xinjiang Uyghur is believed to contribute to a more subtle comprehension of the present state of ethnic education and minority languages education as well as to the future developments of ethnic education in modern Chinese society