Strengthen the application research of language and characters, and build a harmonious language life.
-Speech at the 11th Five-Year Scientific Research Work Conference of the State Language Commission.
Vice Minister of Education and Director of the State Language Committee Zhao qinping
(28 November 2006)
Dear experts and comrades,
The 11th Five-Year Scientific Research Conference of the State Language Commission was held here today to summarize the scientific research work of the State Language Commission and local language commissions during the 10th Five-Year Plan, discuss the 11th Five-Year Scientific Research Plan for the application of spoken and written languages, and study and deploy the scientific research work of the language commission system. At the same time, the 43rd national Putonghua proficiency tester qualification examination training course started here today. Putonghua training test is one of the three basic measures to promote Putonghua, which has made remarkable achievements in the past ten years. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the vast number of testers, experts and scholars who participated in testing research and comrades in various regions and industries who care about and support this cause!
Below I will talk about three aspects of the scientific research work on the application of language and characters in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan.
Building a harmonious language life is the goal of language work.
On October 11th, 2006, the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues in Building a Harmonious Socialist Society. The "Decision" holds that: "Social harmony is the essential attribute of Socialism with Chinese characteristics and an important guarantee for the country’s prosperity, national rejuvenation and people’s happiness." "Social harmony is the unremitting goal of our party."
Language is the most important symbol system for human communication and thinking, an important part of culture and the most important cultural carrier. The attribute of language determines that language life is an important part of social life, and the harmony of language life is an important manifestation of social harmony and an important factor to promote social harmony. To build a harmonious society, language and writing workers have an important historical mission.
At present, China’s language life is harmonious on the whole, but there are also many problems that need to be treated scientifically and properly. For example:
1. The relationship between Mandarin and dialects;
2. The relationship between the languages of all ethnic groups in China;
3. The relationship between mother tongue education and foreign language learning;
4. Protection of endangered languages;
5. The relationship between the international spread of Chinese and the domestic language and writing work;
6. The communication of language life between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait;
7. Language communication among Chinese communities in the world;
8. Language and writing problems in virtual space in China.
To treat the problems in current language life scientifically and properly, we must understand the national conditions of the language. It is necessary to monitor and study the situation of language life, especially the hot issues of language life, and make a scientific analysis by setting up a national language resource monitoring and research center. It is necessary to advocate a pragmatic style of study, support the field investigation of local languages, and support the investigation and study of language life in all fields of society. We should pay attention to summing up the historical achievements of language and writing work in China, draw lessons from foreign experience reasonably, and be good at summing up the laws from today’s work practice. It is necessary to strengthen the publicity of the national language policy and language standards, attach importance to the popularization of linguistic scientific achievements, actively provide high-quality language services to the society, help all sectors of society and the general public solve the language problems they encounter, and guide the language life to develop in a harmonious direction.
Second, language science is the basis for doing a good job in language and writing.
The development of language and writing is regular, and the work of language and writing must follow the development law of language and writing. Language life is constantly developing and changing, and language work must grasp the basic situation and development trend of language life.
Great achievements have been made in the language and writing work in New China for more than 50 years, which has made important contributions to China’s cultural construction, scientific and educational development and economic and social progress, and also provided a solid foundation for today’s national informatization process. At the end of March this year, the meeting held by the Ministry of Education and the State Language Committee to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the State Council’s Resolution on the Simplification of Chinese Characters and the Instruction on Promoting Putonghua, and the academic seminar on the standardization of language and characters jointly held by the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Institute of Language Application of the Ministry of Education have made a good summary. Of course, there have been some mistakes in the work of language and writing in history, leaving a profound lesson. Historical practice shows that the effectiveness of language work depends on the understanding of the law of language development and the understanding of language life and its development trend. Therefore, in order to do a good job in language and writing, we must strengthen the research of language science.
In language science, basic research is very important, and the application research of language and writing plays a more direct role in the work of national language and writing. The basic research needs to be strengthened, but the applied research of language and writing develops late, with less achievements, which needs to be strengthened more. We should strive to form a relatively complete discipline system and education system of applied linguistics within a few years, establish a number of dynamic scientific research bases and talent training bases of applied linguistics, and cultivate a large number of applied linguistics talents with modern academic vision, innovative consciousness and compound nature to meet the needs of the country for applied linguistics. The discipline construction of applied linguistics should be put on the agenda, and a seminar on the discipline construction of applied linguistics can be held when necessary. The discipline construction of applied linguistics is more extensive than the scientific research of applied linguistics, including the construction of bases, the determination of research directions, the construction of teaching staff and the setting of degrees. From the perspective of scientific research, discipline construction emphasizes the research direction; From the perspective of personnel training, it emphasizes knowledge structure and curriculum system.
The country pays more and more attention to the interdisciplinary research between natural science and humanities. Applied linguistics is an applied discipline, especially with information technology, and also involves psychology, law, education and so on. In the past, the key laboratories of the Ministry of Education paid little attention to interdisciplinary subjects, especially those lacking the intersection of natural science and social science. In recent years, the country has begun to promote interdisciplinary subjects, especially the combination of natural science and social science, such as new media and digital art. Applied linguistics, especially computational linguistics, is a typical combination of information technology and linguistics. We should establish some bases in these areas, and these bases can become key laboratories of the Ministry of Education to a certain extent. I hope to see such key laboratories during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period. The knowledge structure of applied linguistics talents should have at least three aspects: linguistic knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge (such as information technology) and related cultural qualities.
Informatization is a subject that all countries in the world are very concerned about. Standardization and informatization of language and characters are the basis of realizing social informatization. It is important to promote the standardization and informatization of language and writing as an important task of applied linguistics research and as an important task of national language and writing work. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the introduction of modern information technology achievements into language research, into the application of social language and writing, and into the work of language and writing, so as to realize the modernization of language research means and language and writing work means.
It is necessary to strengthen the research on the evaluation system of language and characters. The Putonghua training test in China has been carried out for more than ten years and has made great achievements. The proficiency test of Chinese characters is about to begin, and I believe it will also play a good social role. The Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK) for Chinese as a second language and the Chinese Proficiency Test (MSK) for ethnic minorities have been implemented successively, which has achieved good social reputation. However, we still lack the language proficiency assessment system of Chinese as the mother tongue. On the one hand, it is necessary to gradually improve the current Putonghua proficiency test and writing application ability test, and gradually adopt modern means to improve the quality and efficiency of testing and management; At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the research on the evaluation system of language application in some important countries in the world, and strive to complete the comprehensive evaluation system of Chinese native speakers’ language ability in recent years in order to meet the needs of mother tongue education in schools at all levels and meet the needs of social industry access system and on-the-job training. This evaluation system, in cooperation with HSK and MSK, can form a complete Chinese proficiency test system in China.
Promoting scientific research is an important task for language committees at all levels.
Language and writing work is social, contemporary and academic. Especially in the current society, language concepts are diversified and language life is complicated. Language and writing management is always facing new situations and solving new problems. Therefore, it is necessary to have a solid scientific research as the foundation and a large number of experts as the backing to do a good job and improve the quality and efficiency of the work. Promoting the study of language science is an important task of language committees at all levels.
There are many departments concerned about language science research, and there are also many foundations involved in language research. In close contact with these departments and foundations, the State Language Committee should also formulate its own scientific research plan, set up scientific research teams and guide and coordinate the scientific research work of local language committees according to the work functions entrusted by the state. Apply for projects through multiple channels and strive for project funds. Because applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary subject, evaluation system and software construction can all apply for project funds from the science and technology department.
Local language and writing institutions should scientifically plan their local scientific research work, have the initiative to coordinate the local language and writing research work, and play an important role in the local language and writing research work. Local language committees should put scientific research on the agenda, incorporate it into the relevant work evaluation index system, implement the responsibility of scientific research management to people, and gradually form an incentive mechanism for language research. It is necessary to formulate scientific research plans according to local conditions, scientifically solve problems in local language life through academic research, and make contributions to the national language and writing research work. We should pay attention to the role of local universities and academic groups and rely on experts and scholars closely. It is necessary to give full play to subjective initiative, raise funds for scientific research in various ways, and comprehensively use traditional means and modern information technology to do a good job in publicizing and popularizing language policies and language norms and standards. Scientific research should be regarded as a new bright spot in the work of the Language Committee in the new period, so that the quality and management level of language and writing work in various places can be effectively improved through scientific research.
Comrades, during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, with the efforts of national language researchers and language committees at all levels, China’s language application research has achieved fruitful results, and remarkable progress has been made in the development of language standards, information-processing-oriented language application research, tracking and monitoring of social language life, and modernization of research methods and information service means. A new situation has emerged in the national and local language and writing work, and new achievements and measures have been made in the legal construction of language and writing work, the evaluation of urban language and writing, the promotion of Putonghua, and the construction of language and writing training and evaluation system. On this basis, China’s future language and writing work, China’s future language and writing scientific research work, will certainly achieve greater results.
We should strive to promote the harmony of language life and contribute to the sustainable development of the country, the construction of an innovative country and the construction of a harmonious society!
Thank you!