An Investigation Study On Language Policy Of International Organizations Headquartered In China

With the deepening of globalization,international organizations(IOs)are playing an increasingly important role in promoting international cooperation and resolving international disputes,and they are becoming international resources that countries must strive for to enhance their international influence.In IOs,language represents country,and the use of language implies profound identity,power and ideology.Therefore,language policy of IOs is worthy of in-depth study.However,the current researches on language policy of China’s IOs are very few.Through investigation,there are six IOs headquartered in China at this stage,including International Bamboo and Rattan organization(INBAR),Boao Forum for Asia(BFA),Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO),International Society for Digital Earth(ISDE),New Development Bank(NDB)and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank(AIIB).Based on this,under the guidance of Spolsky’s language policy theory including three components and language policy theory of international organization,the thesis conducts a research on language policy of these six IOs from three aspects,language ideology,language management and language practice through literature,questionnaire and interview methods.Through investigation,in language ideology,IOs headquartered in China all have the contradiction between maintaining language diversity and improving work efficiency.INBAR,BFA and SCO lay more emphasis on language diversity.ISDE,NDB and AIIB take working efficiency as priority.For Chinese officials,they hold that work efficiency is the top priority and language diversity awareness is weak.Moreover,some of them lack mother tongue responsibility and language sovereignty awareness.In language management,official language of INBAR is multilingual,BFA and SCO are bilingual,and ISDE,NDB and AIIB are monolingual,involving English,Chinese,Russian,French and Spanish.When recruiting,language requirements basically consistent.English is the mandatory,the requirements for Chinese are fewer and other languages are advantageous.In language practice,for online practice,they focus on reducing costs and improving efficiency.Offline work environment is mainly bilingual and monolingual.The usage rate of English is the highest.Chinese is mainly used in daily communication of Chinese officials,and its usage rate in meetings and documents is low.In general,language policies of IOs headquartered in China have following characteristics.Firstly,intergovernmental,regional and comprehensive organizations lay emphasis on protecting language diversity and are multilingual or bilingual in language management,involving INBAR,BFA and SCO,and nongovernmental,global and specialized IOs take efficiency as priority and monolingual inside and out,including ISDE,NDB and AIIB.Secondly,language practices of monolingual and bilingual organizations are consistent with their ideology.Language practices of multilingual organizations differ from their language ideology and language management.So we can say that the awareness of language diversity and multilingualism only exist in documents,and language practice is monolingualism mainly.Thirdly,languages are few including English,Chinese,Russian,French and Spanish.English is the dominant language in these IOs.Chinese ranks second,but their usage rate is quite different.Russian is necessary in the SCO,and other languages are just embellishments.As the only language domain above the national government,IOs’ special nature,members are not individual but state,adds a dose of politics to their language policy.Based on this,the author combines China’s national conditions,its participation in IOs,nature of these IOs and the spread of English to make a relatively comprehensive analysis of the reasons and pros and cons behind the above-mentioned language phenomenon.Then,combining with the attitude of Chinese citizens towards language use in IOs in China and the deficiencies of present language policy,the author makes some suggestions for future language policy of these IOs.