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Since this statement was issued by none other than the State Council (Guówùyuàn 國務院), it is evident that they attach great significance to these new rules, regulations, and directives.

The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954, is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the premier and includes the heads of each of the cabinet-level executive departments. Wikipedia

The translation is by Google, with a few minimal changes by me.  Although not perfect, the translation should suffice to give a good indication of the seriousness which the CCP attaches to matters of language and script.

Original Chinese version:  http://www.81.cn/yw/2021-11/30/content_10111766.htm

Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening Language and Writing Work in the New Era

Source: The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China Release: 2021-11-30 19:21:14 Slideshow Mobile phone share to The General Office of the State Council Regarding Comprehensive Strengthening of the New Era Opinions on language work No. 30 (2020) of the State Council

The people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, all ministries and commissions of the State Council, and all directly affiliated institutions:

Language and writing are the most important communication tools and information carriers of human society, and are the basic elements and distinctive signs of culture. The language and writing business has basic, overall, social, and universal characteristics. It is related to the improvement of national quality and the all-round development of people, it is related to the inheritance of history and culture and economic and social development, and it is related to national unity and ethnic unity. It is the comprehensive strength of the country. The important support for the work of the party and the country has an important position and role in the overall work of the party and the country. Since the founding of New China, especially since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, with the great attention of the party and the country, our country's language and writing cause has made historic achievements. At the same time, the popularization and popularization of the national common spoken and written language is still unbalanced and inadequate, and the innovation of spoken and written information technology has not yet adapted to the development needs of informatization, especially artificial intelligence. The modernization of the language and written work governance system and governance capabilities urgently needs to be improved. In order to comprehensively strengthen the language work in the new era, with the approval of the State Council, the following opinions are hereby put forward.

1. General requirements

(1) Guiding ideology. Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implement the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Plenary Sessions of the 19th Central Committee, and adhere to the people-centered development thought in accordance with the decisions and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. Focusing on popularizing and regulating the use of the national common spoken and written language, strengthen the legal construction of spoken and written languages, promote the standardization, standardization and informatization of spoken and written languages, scientifically protect the spoken and written languages ​​of all ethnic groups, build a harmonious and healthy language life, and inherit and promote the excellent Chinese language and culture. Enhance the country’s cultural soft power, and contribute to the establishment of the Chinese nation’s community consciousness and the building of a modern and powerful socialist country.

2) Basic principles. ——Persist in serving the overall situation and serving the people. Based on the new historical position of our country’s development, focus on national development strategies, strengthen top-level design, give full play to the political, social, cultural, educational and foreign exchange functions of language, improve the ability of language work to serve the overall situation of national development, and promote language work. The governance system and governance capabilities should be modernized to serve the needs of the people in learning to use language and improving the quality of science and culture.

——Persist in popularizing and improving quality. We will unswervingly promote the national standard spoken and written language, increase the popularization of the national standard spoken and written language in ethnic areas and rural areas, increase the degree of popularization, improve the quality of popularization, and enhance the national language ability and language and cultural literacy.

——Insist on following the rules and categorized guidance. Accurately grasp the national conditions of our country's language, follow the law of language development, firmly establish the main status of the national common language, establish a scientific view of language, reform and innovation, seek progress in stability, adapt measures to local conditions, and implement classified policies, and properly handle the relationship between various languages. Build a harmonious and healthy language life.

——Insist on inheritance and development, and coordinated advancement. Give full play to the role of language as a carrier, and dig deep into the cultural connotation of Chinese language. Deal with the relationship between inheriting excellent traditional culture and adapting to the needs of modernization. Improve the system and mechanism, optimize the allocation of resources, and form a multi-party joint force.

(3) Main goals. By 2025, the national penetration rate of Putonghua will reach 85%, the standardization, standardization, and informatization of the language will be further improved, the technological level and innovation capabilities of the language and writing will be significantly improved, and the excellent Chinese language and culture will be better inherited and carried forward to meet the needs of the people. The adapted language service system is more perfect.

By 2035, the national common spoken and written language will be more comprehensively and fully popularized nationwide, the penetration rate of Putonghua in ethnic areas and rural areas will increase significantly, the national spoken and written language business will make great progress, and the new era of language work governance system will be basically realized. And modernization of governance capabilities.

2. Unswervingly promote the popularization of the national common spoken and written language

(4) Vigorously increase the popularity of the national common spoken and written language. In accordance with the new era of "focusing on key points, comprehensive popularization, consolidation and improvement", the work policy of promoting Putonghua in the new era, classified guidance, and precise policy implementation. Focus on ethnic areas and rural areas, focus on key populations, increase the promotion of the national common language, continue to promote the popularization of the national common spoken and written language, greatly increase the popularity of the national common spoken and written language and the level of Putonghua in rural areas in ethnic areas, and help rural revitalization. Innovatively carry out a national promotion week for the promotion of Putonghua and normalized publicity activities to increase the awareness of the whole society in the standardized use of the national standard spoken and written language. Carry out national surveys and quality monitoring of the popularization of Putonghua. Build a number of national language promotion bases with demonstration and leading roles.

(5) Adhere to the school as the basic position of the national common language education. Strengthen school language work, and fully implement the statutory requirements of the national common language as the basic language used in education and teaching. Insist on incorporating the standardization of language and writing requirements into all links of school, teacher, student management, education and teaching, evaluation and evaluation, and carry out the construction of school language and writing work to meet the standards. Establish and improve the monitoring and evaluation standards of students' language application ability. Vigorously improve the core literacy and teaching ability of teachers in the national common spoken and written language. Strengthen the construction of teaching materials to ensure the implementation of the national standard and standard for common spoken and written languages. Build a scholarly campus to improve students' listening, speaking, reading, writing and language literacy in the national standard spoken and written language. Unless otherwise stipulated by the state, the dissertation shall be written in the common national language.

(6) Comprehensively strengthen national language education in minority areas. Promote the comprehensive coverage of three subjects in primary and secondary schools in ethnic areas, and further promote the teaching of the national standard language to ensure that minority junior high school graduates basically master and use the national standard language, and minority high school graduates are proficient in and use the national standard Languages. Strictly control the admission of teachers. Applicants for minority teacher qualifications in ethnic areas should reach at least the third-level standard in Mandarin, and gradually reach the second-level standard or above. Strengthen the education and teaching ability training of teachers in ethnic minority areas in the national common language. Strengthen the education of Putonghua for preschool children and learn Putonghua before school. Carry out "vocational skills + Putonghua" ability improvement training to improve the level of Putonghua application of young and middle-aged labor in ethnic minority areas. Make full use of modern information technology to improve the quality of education and teaching of the common language and writing of the country in ethnic areas.

(7) Enhance the ability of national language application. For employees in schools, agencies, press and publishing, radio, film and television, network information, public services, and other systems, the national standard of spoken and written language should meet the national standards. Carry out demonstration training of the national standard spoken and written language to improve the application ability of the national standard spoken and written language of teachers, grassroots cadres and other groups. Develop Mandarin learning resources. Promote the Putonghua proficiency test and improve the national standard language application ability evaluation system. Carry out national language education, improve national language and cultural literacy, and improve national language ability.

3. Accelerate the construction of basic language and writing capabilities

(8) Strengthen the standardization of language and writing. Intensify the standardization of spoken and written languages ​​in the industry system, and strengthen the supervision and inspection of spoken and written languages ​​in schools, government agencies, press and publishing, radio, film and television, network information, and public services. Incorporate the standardization requirements of language and characters into the content of industry management, urban and rural management, and the creation of civilized cities, civilized villages and towns, civilized units, and civilized campuses. Strengthen the monitoring research and standard guidance of new words, new words, letter words, foreign language words, etc. Strengthen the education of language civilization, strengthen the regulation and management of the use of various new media languages ​​such as the Internet, resolutely curb the spread of vulgar and violent online languages, and build a healthy and civilized online language environment. Strengthen the management of place names using characters and spelling. Encourage places where conditions permit to carry out standardized construction of urban and regional spoken and written languages. Continuously improve the language standard system and standard system. Establish an international standard system related to Chinese education. Do a good job in the issuance and implementation of norms and standards, promotion and publicity, consulting services, and evaluation and certification.

(9) Promote the innovation and development of language and information technology. Give full play to the basic supporting role of language information technology in the construction of national informatization and intelligentization, enhance the ability of language information processing, and promote the application of language and text in media. Vigorously promote the in-depth integration of language and text with artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and other information technologies, strengthen research on key issues such as natural language processing in artificial intelligence environments and original technology research and development, strengthen the transformation and promotion of language technology achievements, and support the development of digital economy . Strengthen the construction of language information platform, build a global Chinese learning platform, and provide high-quality learning resources and information service resources.

(10) Strengthen the scientific research of language and writing. Support the basic research and applied research of language and characters, encourage interdisciplinary research, and improve the construction of related disciplinary systems. Strengthen the construction of language research bases and platforms, improve the layout of the scientific and technological innovation system, improve the research level and decision-making consulting capabilities, and strengthen the construction of national language think tanks. Improve the management level of scientific research work and strengthen the transformation of scientific research results in language and writing.

4. Effectively enhance the national language service capabilities

(11) Research and formulate national language development plans. Strengthen the national language development plan, and make unified plans and deployments for the popularization and popularization of the national common spoken and written language, standardized and standardized language construction, ethnic language education, protection and utilization of language resources, foreign language education, international Chinese education, and language talent training. Improve the multilingual foreign language education plan and language structure in colleges and universities, and cultivate and reserve compound language talents. Strengthen language industry planning research. Persist in the combination of government guidance and market operations, and develop language industries such as language intelligence, language education, language translation, and language creativity.

(12) Improve the ability to serve the national strategy. Focusing on national needs, explore innovative language policies and measures to serve the national strategy. Strengthen language services in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, pilot free trade zones, and the “Belt and Road” construction. Regularly carry out special language surveys to provide support for the formulation of national strategic plans. Carry out monitoring of language life conditions. Strengthen national emergency language services.

(13) Meet the diverse language needs of the people. Establish a language service mechanism and build a national language volunteer service team. Improve the language service capabilities of urban and rural communities, and improve the quality of language and cultural services for ethnic minority people who work and do business in cities. Compile and publish reports on domestic and foreign language policies and language living conditions. Accelerate the standardization, standardization, and informatization of sign language and braille, accelerate the promotion of national common sign language and national common braille, strengthen the construction of sign language and braille subjects and talent training, and provide barrier-free language services for the hearing and visually disabled. Provide language services for people who come to China to travel, study, work, and live in China.

5. Actively promote the inheritance and development of Chinese excellent language and culture

(14) Inherit and promote the excellent Chinese culture based on language and writing. Implement the Chinese classic recitation project to strengthen the research and interpretation, educational inheritance, resource construction and innovative dissemination of Chinese excellent language and culture. Promote all sectors of society and schools at all levels to carry out Chinese classics recitation, writing and lecture activities, strengthening the education of classic poems in primary and secondary schools, and standardizing the education of writing Chinese characters. Implement the classic rural rejuvenation plan to help the rural revitalization strategy. Promote the inheritance and development of Chinese excellent traditional culture represented by oracle bone inscriptions, and give play to the role of ancient characters in the inheritance and development of Chinese civilization. Promote the dissemination of Chinese ideological and cultural terms. Strengthen the protection of geographical names and cultural heritage. Cultivate more language and cultural scholars who have a thorough knowledge of Chinese and Western cultures and who are fluent in Chinese and foreign languages. Strengthen the translation of contemporary Chinese academics and culture, and improve the ability to spread Chinese culture in foreign languages.

(15) Deepen language and cultural exchanges and cooperation with Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Support and serve Hong Kong and Macao in the development of Mandarin education, and cooperate in the development of Putonghua proficiency testing to improve the application of Mandarin in Hong Kong and Macao. Intensify language and cultural exchanges with young people in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and organize activities such as Chinese classic recitation performances and language and cultural training. Strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in terms of scientific and technological terminology, Chinese information technology, language research and personnel training. Strengthen research on language policies in Taiwan.

(16) Protect and develop language resources. Vigorously promote the protection, development and utilization of language resources. Scientifically protect dialects and minority languages. Strengthen the management of national language teaching materials and improve the quality of national language teaching. Build and improve the national language resource database, and promote the open sharing of language resources. Build a network Chinese language museum. Promote the construction of China's language resources protection project, and create landmark achievements such as language and cultural resources display platforms.

6. Vigorously enhance the international status and influence of Chinese

(17) Strengthen international Chinese education and services. Strengthen the construction of international Chinese teachers. Attract more overseas Chinese teachers to study in China for masters and doctorates related to Chinese international education. Build a global Mandarin proficiency test system. Improve the international Chinese education examination standards. Strengthen the promotion and application of Chinese in overseas Chinese schools and strengthen the training of overseas Chinese teachers. Vigorously enhance the influence of Chinese in the academic field, and advocate the first publication of scientific research results in Chinese. Promote the use of Chinese in international organizations and international conferences and use ratio. Promote the international application of Chinese Pinyin.

(18) Expand international exchanges and cooperation in language and writing. Expand bilateral and multilateral language policy and language and cultural exchanges and cooperation. Promote the overseas dissemination of Chinese classics and build a brand for communication. Establish a policy and planning exchange mechanism with the language work agencies of key countries. Promote the integration of language exchanges and cooperation into the inter-governmental humanities exchange mechanism, and the "Belt and Road" cultural exchanges and cooperation construction projects.

Seven, strengthen organizational guarantees

(19) Strengthen the party's leadership over language work. Persist in and strengthen the party's leadership throughout the entire process of language work. Governments at all levels should attach great importance to language and writing work, effectively incorporate language work into the government’s agenda and related work performance management goals, establish and improve working mechanisms, and have sufficient staff. Comprehensively use legal, administrative, educational, technological and other means to perform the government's responsibility to supervise the application of spoken and written language and provide language public services in accordance with the law, and accelerate the modernization of the language work governance system and governance capabilities. Incorporate language work into the evaluation system for the performance of education responsibilities by governments at all levels, and important matters of the language work of the provincial people's government should be reported to the National Language Commission in a timely manner. Strengthen the functions of the national common language at the county and township levels.

(20) Improve the system and mechanism of language work. The National Language Commission coordinates the national language work. Improve and improve the management system of "party committee leadership, government leadership, language committee coordination, department support, and social participation", and establish an effective work mechanism for division of labor, joint management, and coordination. Education (language and writing) departments at all levels must actively play the role of leading, coordinating, and coordinating advancement. Relevant functional departments shall perform language work duties in accordance with the law, and incorporate language and written standards into the scope of team building, industry standards, and supervision and inspection. Improve the discussion mechanism of the National Language Commission, such as committee meetings and advisory committees. Innovate the mechanism of social participation in the language and writing business. Explore a diversified, multi-channel, and multi-level funding investment mechanism. Encourage the support of language and writing undertakings through social donations and other means.

(21) Consolidate the legal basis for language work. Implement the national common language law. Promote the improvement of the language legal system and formulate related supporting regulations. Strengthen management in accordance with the law to ensure that the national common spoken and written language is used as the official language of the agency, as the basic language used in the fields of schools, press and publishing, radio, film and television, and public services. Instruct local governments to improve relevant local regulations in accordance with the provisions of the National Common Language Law. Incorporate the requirements of language standardization into relevant industry regulations and standards. Promote enforcement inspections of the National Common Language Law. Improve the legal management of spoken and written languages ​​and the supervision and coordination mechanism of law enforcement. Incorporate the study and promotion of language laws and regulations into the content of law popularization planning and education.

(22) Strengthen the construction of the language work team. Strengthen the training and training of the cadre team of the language system to improve the management ability and level of language work. Carry out language training for Putonghua testers and practitioners in related industries. Improve the personnel training and use mechanism, and build a team of high-quality language scientific research personnel. Improve the incentive mechanism, commend and reward organizations and individuals that have made outstanding contributions to the development of the language and writing industry in accordance with laws and regulations.

Office of the State Council

September 14, 2020 (This article has been abridged)

Editor in charge: Ye Mengyuan

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VHM:  It looks like they're strengthening their policies regarding language and writing overall.  No Uyghur, no Tibetan, no Mongolian language in minority schools anymore!  No instruction in Sinitic topolects either.

 

Selected readings

Omitted this time, because there are too many previous posts that are relevant, and this one is already too long.

 

[Thanks to Peter Kupfer]

November 30, 2021 @ 8:31 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and politics

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