Journal of Asian Pacific Communication - Volume 11, Issue 1, 2001

This paper is an introduction to language management and to the papers in this and the previous volume of the Journal. It refers to contributors’ papers as the text evolves. It discusses first management of problems in discourse, then directed management with the help of a mini-case study and some examples, then surveys sources of language problems and their solutions according to a selection of functions of language. In the first volume, it brings up the communicative, symbolic, social and entertainment functions as sources of language problems. In this second volume, it continues with a discussion of the development function as a source of language problems. The paper then brings together discourse and behavior towards language in their socio-economic context in a unified restatement of the theory. The division of volumes is necessarily arbitrary, yet, each volume can be read independently of each other. This and all the papers together celebrate J. V. Neustupný’s contribution to language management.

Language Planning is called Language Reform in China. The chief aims are:1. To standardize and popularize the lingua franca of China;2. To write in vernacular style instead of the traditional classic style;3. To design and promote a system of Chinese phonetic symbols;4. To simplify the Chinese characters;5. To design and, if needed, improve writing systems for minor nationalities.

The paper describes the language situation in Shanghai in 1999.

Learner self-management (LSM) refers to the ability to deploy procedures and to access knowledge and beliefs in order to accomplish learning goals in a dynamically changing environment This paper will elaborate the components of learner self-management and provide an interactive model which elaborates how these components interact.

Although much of the work in the study of negotiation of meaning subsequent to Krashen (1982, 1985) support the notion that negotiation of meaning leads to comprehensible input, which in turn results in acquisition, I question the prevailing assumption based on four reasons. Firstly, negotiation studies show a tendency to under-estimate the role of adjustment. Secondly, it is questionable whether the negotiation for comprehensible input plays a crucial role in language acquisition where the input obtained by the learner is merely simplified input, not optimal input. Thirdly, the study of negotiation of meaning focuses upon meaning in the narrow sense of the word. Limiting the study of negotiation to lexical inadequacies does not guarantee an understanding of successful acquisition. I agree with Neustupný that interactive competence is an ingredient for acquisition. This notion embraces three areas of competence: sociocultural, sociolinguistic and linguistic which are inseparable for understanding language acquisition. Lastly, the relationship between negotiation and acquisition needs to be considered in terms of language learning strategies. The above four points indicate that the framework of negotiation for language acquisition needs to be reconstructed through a focus on the adjustment of inadequacies.

A common belief among a number of applied linguists working with parallel texts (texts from a source language, L1, and their translations into a target language, L2) is that “translated language is different from the original language” (Mauranen 1998: 160). A related research question is “Are translated texts different from comparable texts in the target language as well?” One way to answer the above question is to establish “translation universals” which make translated texts different from comparable texts in the target language. The process of simplification of translated language has been mentioned as one such universal feature (Baker 1993, 1995; Laviosa-Braithwaite 1996). The purpose of the present study is (a) to investigate one of the consequences of the process of simplification, i.e. reduction in lexical density, in a number of texts and their translations from English into Chinese. It will also be hypothesized that (b) translated texts into English and (c) translated texts into Chinese, in comparison with similar monolingual texts in the two languages, will be less lexically dense. A Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) model will be used for defining and calculating lexical density. Some implications of the findings for teaching translation will also be discussed.

The article proceeds from the linguistic, social and political situation that has developed on the territory of the Czech Republic over the course of the 20th century. The biographical accounts given by people of German extraction who live in the Czech Republic form the empirical starting point. The article focuses on how they construct their language biographies. Of particular interest is how they acquired the Czech language (especially after 1945) — namely which factors in the acquisition of Czech they view as important and what their reported acquisition strategies are like. Similarly, the paper takes notice of how the German language has been preserved in the older generations of Czech Germans and the ways in which the younger generations of Czech Germans acquire German.