Editors Note: For the past few decades, China has been dealing with a new kind of “language crisis”. As a consequence of the Opening Policy of the early 1980s, along with the advent of new technology in China, Chinese people today are much less compelled to spend countless hundreds of hours writing and memorising characters and studying complex, archaic grammar patterns. Learning foreign languages is considered “hip”, and many foreign words and phrases have slowly made their way into mainstream Chinese culture.

The rapid adoption of technology, especially text messaging on cell phones and typing on computers has sent Chinese handwriting to the “endangered species list”. China, aware of these threats, has resorted to increasingly desperate measures to preserve their traditional culture, most notably by banning English abbreviations on television in 2010. Granted their desire to preserve their native language is completely justified, yet one cannot help but wonder whether this situation resembles a person trying to bail water out of a sinking (dragon) boat. Can China succeed in rekindling people’s enthusiasm for their native language?

On July 26^th, Chinese authorities announced the launch of a new Chinese proficiency test, the “HNC”, which is intended for Chinese people (not to be confused with the Chinese proficiency test for foreigners, the “HSK”). The goal of this new examination is to help Chinese people avoid forgetting how to write characters, using “Chinglish” and other foreign words in their day-to-day speech, and to hopefully rekindle their enthusiasm about Chinese language and culture.

Conflicts with reviving enthusiasm in Chinese study

Experts believe that Chinese is the world’s oldest living language, and that Chinese characters are the world’s only existing pictographic writing system. The importance of protecting this living history cannot be understated, but it seems that it is becoming more and more difficult to keep such an old language relevant in a time when technology and trends become outdated in months or years. 

According to Dai Jiagan, the director at the Chinese Ministry of Education Examination Center, in recent years, China has gone crazy over foreign languages and cultures, and at the same time it has grown increasingly cold towards its own native language and culture. The impacts of this phenomenon can be seen quite clearly in online forums and comments sections, as Western phrases and unstandardised internet lingo have become more commonplace.

Dai Jiagan stressed that international research indicates that speaking a native language play a unique and irreplaceable role in enhancing a national or ethnic identity. Western developed countries have long instituted their own specific policies to protect and promote their national language(s), including administering language examinations for their citizens. Since the beginning of the last century, China too has instituted a standardised language education curriculum and developed specific teaching programmes (teaching teachers how to teach). Now, at the beginning of this century, China wants to further regulate a standardised language and literature course curriculum, describing their ideal course curriculum as teaching "knowledge and ability, process and method, attitudes and values".

The missing piece of the puzzle

In 2008, the Ministry of Education Examination Center was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission to develop a Chinese proficiency test to be given to Chinese audiences. The test will include a hand-written composition section, but the rest of the test will be taken on a computer. The test will be graded on a six-point scale: Entry Level, Basic Level, Common Level, General Purpose Level, High/Increased Level, and Professional Level. In addition to a final grading report, those who take the exam also will be given a comprehensive evaluation report, making it easy for them to understand how their own Chinese skill level compares to specific populations and geographic regions’ skill level. This evaluation report will also make it easier for the exam taker to know what specific skills they need to further study to improve their language proficiency.

Dai Jiagan believes that when two people first meet, their degree of language proficiency is the first thing that they are going to notice about each other. Similarly, taking this examination does not only reflect a person’s language proficiency for private contemplation, but will also be a very useful tool on the job market. That is to say, potential employers will no doubt think more highly of a high-scoring HNC job candidate than a low-scoring one. Officials believe that this will encourage Chinese people to take seriously their language proficiency strengths and weaknesses, and to hopefully as a secondary effect, rekindle their interest in studying Chinese. 

The HNC Chinese proficiency test is planned to start this October in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and other initial pilot sites. It has already started in Beijing and Hunan.
 

Source: huanqiu.com
 

Related links
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Radical Simplification: Should Chinese Characters Be Erased?
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Keywords: Chinese proficiency test Western influence on Chinese language language reform in China