On the afternoon of November 5 and 6, 2019, Professor Xu Daming and Professor Wang Ling of Nanjing University, Professor Shen Qi of Tongji University and Professor Zhang Zhiguo of Shanghai Maritime University were invited to lecture on language policy and planning at the School of Foreign Languages of Southeast University.
Professor Xu Daming
Professor Wang Ling
Professor Xu Daming gave a speech entitled Dimensions of Language Management: A study of medium of instruction in higher education in Macau . He mainly reviewed the recent research on the language of teaching in Macau universities. By analyzing the cases of Macau Polytechnic Institute and University of Macau, he studied and discussed various aspects of language management, so that the existing language policy and language management framework were integrated and unified. Professor Wang Ling made a speech entitled A Study on Language Adaptation Behavior of Residents in Urbanization: a case study of Hefei, Nanjing and Beijing. Based on the discussion of the residents' language adaptation behaviors and their characteristics in Hefei, Nanjing and Beijing, she pointed out that both local residents and immigrants had language adaptation behaviors. In addition, the two experts provided valuable suggestions on the theory and practice of language policy and planning, and gave detailed answers to questions raised by the participants.
Professor Shen
Professor Zhang Zhiguo
Professor Shen Qi's lecture was entitled Chinese Discourse Planning: A New Task of Language Planning in the Construction of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind. Professor Shen first discussed the relationship between the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind and language planning. He believed that language planning was one of the main missions of language research under the framework of the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. Through analysis of origin and development of the discipline of language planning and discourse planning research, Professor Shen proposed three major goals of discourse planning in China in the new era, which provided a clear and reasonable reference to the research of discourse planning in China. Professor Zhang Zhiguo's lecture was entitled Interplay of Language Value, Language Choice and Language Policy. Through a comprehensive review of previous interpretations of the connotation of language value, Professor Zhang proposed that language value could be divided into three categories: economic value, cultural value and emotional value, and further proposed that language choice was mostly based on economic value and the principle of going upward. By sorting out the close interaction among the three, he hoped to help researchers better understand the language development, human language selection behavior, and formulation and implementation of language policies.
The four professors’ speeches were highly logical, scientific and convincing, which showed their excellent academic abilities and attitudes. The participants had a heated discussion on this issue and benefited greatly in further clarification of the purposes, directions and methods of language policy and planning research.
Reported by Wu Zhixin
Photographed by Wang Yining
