| dc.description.abstract | Along with the rapid development of China’s economy and national strength in recent years, the Chinese government places increased importance on the cultivation of soft power, through which hoping to enhance China’s influence. One of the measures is to vigorously promote Chinese language to the world.
However, Chinese language promotion worldwide is a vast complex project. In order to obtain effective promotion results, it demands multi-disciplinary support. Based on relevant theories of language ecology and language policy and planning (LPP), I select three countries, namely the USA, Australia, and Singapore, to investigate Chinese use situation within them and accordingly raise some promotion suggestions, in hope of providing reference value for promoting Chinese elsewhere in the world.
Beginning with stating research questions and research design and explaining the ways and the pros and cons of data collection, my thesis then introduces the theoretical framework of language ecology and LPP, including the definition, early development, and relation to my research. Then, the thesis describes some background knowledge on Chinese language, clarifies some basic concepts, and introduces the transformation from Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) to International Promotion of Chinese Language (IPCL) from a historical perspective in modern times, particularly since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The next three chapters focus on the in-depth analysis of Chinese usage in the USA, Australia, and Singapore respectively, specifically on the basis of the three countries’ demographic structure, Chinese immigrants, languages and household language use, Chinese learning in local education system, and influential LPP. The final conclusion part summarizes lessons learned and concludes with suggestions that could help achieve better results of Chinese language promotion in the three countries. | eng |