Should the Chinese Language be Taught in Putonghua? Contested Identities in Post-1997 Hong Kong

This talk by Po King Choi was the inaugural Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture organized by the York Centre for Asian Research on 27 April 2017. Bernard H. K. Luk (1946-2016) was a Professor of History at York University, Toronto and an internationally recognized authority on the history of Hong Kong. Dr Choi’s lecture explores the nationalist politics and debates around the medium of instruction of the Chinese language in Hong Kong. She analyzes the surprising levels of uptake of state policies that were implemented to promote the standardized national language, Putonghua (PTH) and maps out pedagogical perspectives about the efficacy of teaching and learning PTH. The talk also examines emergent forms of resistance to PTH standardization and the concomitant mobilization of a “Hong Kong identity” against fears of encroaching mainland ideological dominance. Drawing on interviews with teachers and student activists, her talk provides a sense of the experiences, sentiments and strategies of resistance on the ground. Choi’s lecture makes pertinent connections between the politics of language education, post-Umbrella Movement forms of resistance and broader democratization movements in Hong Kong

#34 Luk Lao

This bilingual poem, using Lao (Isaan dialect) and English, narrates how her genocide survivor, Lao refugee mother uses language as a form of resistance and as a cultural legacy to pass on to her first-generation American born children

Impact of global growth fluctuations on India: an empirical study

The article examines how growth fluctuations in major trading partner countries of the world have affected the Indian economy since its liberalization from the mid 1990s. This empirical study confirms that domestic output of India was strongly influenced by global shocks. The findings are not surprising as India’s trade and financial integration with the rest of the world has been on the rise.Economic integration, global shock, regional shock, India

Oor die koninkryk van God

As Johannes die Doper spreek van die koninkryk van God wat naby gekom het (Matt. 3 : 12) en Jesus dat die koninkryk inderdaad gekom het (Matt. 12 : 28; Luk. 11 : 20; 17 : 21), spreek hulle oor ’n saak wat eers ver was en nou naby is, en wat eers nie was nie of elders was en nou gekom het

The EU as a Global Actor in a Multipolar World and Multilateral 2.0 Environment. Egmont Paper No. 36, March 2010

This paper discusses a number of long-term global trends that are likely to affect the ambition of the EU to be a global actor. Being or becoming a global power is indeed not only determined by an internal and voluntary policy of that actor. It also depends on a number of external forces. The first part of this paper will present two ongoing transformations of the world that together are weakening the position of the EU as an aspiring global power. The first trend is a shift in economic gravity from the East to the West. The second trend is a demographic decline in Europe. Both trends make it increasingly difficult for the EU to be a global power. But at the same time one can also identify a number of developments with regard to multilateralism that bear in them opportunities for the EU to increase its influence as a global actor. The second part of this paper focuses on two such trends, the shift to multipolarity and the changes in the multilateral architecture. As for the latter, this paper introduces the notion of 'multilateralism 2.0.' as a metaphor to grasp these changes

The Strongly Symmetric Elements and Solutions of Yang-Baxter Equation

It is shown that all strongly symmetric elements are solutions of constant classical Yang-Baxter equation in Lie algebra, or of quantum Yang-Baxter equation in algebra. Otherwise, all solutions of constant classical Yang-Baxter equation (CYBE) in Lie algebra $L$ with dim $L \le 3$ over field $k$ of characteristic 2 are obtainedComment: 15page

Who Owns Language in Online Real-Time Interactions?

Research on epistemics in conversation has shown that various difficulties arise in conversation when there is no symmetry in knowledge, and how interlocutors navigate the asymmetries introduced by epistemic status and epistemic stance (cf. Heritage & Raymond, 2005). Yet, there is no empirical study which shows how these asymmetries are navigated between German native speakers (L1 speakers) and language learners (L2 speakers).The data presented in this paper entail examples where language learners of German are more knowledgeable (K+) about the target culture and native speakers are less knowledgeable (K-) about their own culture. It shows that there is an ongoing competition between L1 and L2 speakers, specifically between their status-based authority, which addresses what native speakers should know, given their status (Drew, 1991) and source-based authority, which deals with actual experience (Enfield, 2011)