Content area
Full Text
Linda Tsung , Language power and hierarchy: Multilingual education in China . London : Bloomsbury Academic , 2014. Pp. 264. Pb. $150.00.
Book Notes
Conceptualizing language as symbolic power, Linda Tsung, an Australian scholar of Chinese origin, establishes the link between multilingual education and power relations in contemporary China from an insider-outsider perspective. Based on a number of case studies and empirical fieldwork in five main multilingual minority regions (mainly the autonomous regions), Tsung delicately but forcefully spells out the importance and urgency of reviving, maintaining and practicing multilingualism in modern China.
The eight-chapter book opens with a review of multilingualism and multilingual policies and educational practice in the international context. In the author's view, multilingualism is not static but interlocked with language status, power and markets. Examples including Singapore, India, Switzerland, and Germany are...