Language Policy In Zimbabwe And Its Influence On The Promotion Of Chinese

On May 11,2015,the Zimbabwe Government pronounced that Chinese has been incorporated into the Zimbabwean education system.Immediately afterwards,South Africa,Tanzania and Zambia as well as other countries also included Chinese into the national education system,which shows that Chinese learning is more and more important as China has become a major investor in Africa.On January 7,2017,Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Foreign Minister Beatrice Attalah of Madagascar.He says that China welcomes all African countries to participate in the "Belt and Road" initiatives.In fact,China has already discussed and docked with many African countries,especially countries on the east coast of Africa,and has made positive progresses.As one of the countries in Southeast Africa,Zimbabwe is a significant African country in the "Belt and Road" initiatives,and the incorporation of Chinese into its national education system is obviously beneficial to Chinese language promotion in Zimbabwe.However,the problems in the current language policy also exert negative impacts on the promotion of Chinese in Zimbabwe.On this basis,several researches methods are adopted through the study on language policy and promotion of Chinese in Zimbabwe,including the synthetic analysis of literature data,the historical-structural method,interview etc.The author analyzes the influencing factors for language policy-making and effects of language policy on language use and education in Zimbabwe.In addition,the author also explores the influences of current language policy on the promotion of Chinese in Zimbabwe,thus targeting to propose several strategies for better promotion of Chinese in Zimbabwe.The results reflect that the language policy in Zimbabwe has exerted both positive and negative effects on promotion of Chinese.When it comes to positive influences,the Zimbabwe Government has pronounced that Chinese has been incorporated into the Zimbabwean education system,which reflected that there is a relative fairer environment for promoting Chinese.And it brings more opportunities for Zimbabwean to learn different kinds of languages under the context of language diversity.Current language policy of Zimbabwe reveals a positive attitude to Chinese.Therefore,the Chinese language promotion system in the University of Zimbabwe can be gradually constructed and improved.The negative effects are reflected in three aspects.The current language policy stipulates three official languages and allows minority languages to be taught in schools.At the same time,its statement that four foreign languages should be incorporated into the national education system has led to conflicts among different kinds of languages,including conflicts between the colonial language English and national languages,conflicts between national languages and minority languages as well as conflicts between foreign languages and indigenous languages.Therefore,the language environment is very complicated for the promotion of Chinese in Zimbabwe.In addition,Zimbabwe's economic basis for the implementation of language policy has been challenged by a large variety of languages,which results in less allocation of educational resources for Chinese language teaching.Finally,the language policy in Zimbabwe still remains uncertain and instable.Based on the effects of current language policy on Chinese language promotion problems and challenges of Chinese language promotion in Zimbabwe,the author proposes targeted measures to further promote Chinese language in Zimbabwe.In view of the complicated conflicts among different kinds of languages,promotion of Chinese should be proceeded through taking language use environment in Zimbabwe into account,thus applying targeted teaching method.In view of the shortage of educational resources,there will be no major improvement in the short term from the perspective of language policy.Then new channels for Chinese language promotion can be exhibited.In view of the instability of Zimbabwe's language policy,close attention should be paid to the direction of its language policy and targeted adjustments of Chinese language promotion strategies need to be adopted in Zimbabwe.