Abstract Language rights protection has always been a priority for the Chinese government since its establishment in 1949. Some scholars have already paid attention to language rights in Chinese laws, focusing on several major legal documents like the Constitution, the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, the Civil Procedure Law, the Criminal Procedure Law, the Administrative Procedure Law and the Law on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language. However, few studies make diachronic analyses of the change in language rights in legal documents since 1949. To fill this gap, this research collects all the articles about language rights in Chinese laws and regulations from 1949 to 2022. Based on the collected data, the evolution of language rights protection in China is divided into four periods: the initial period (1949-1977), the developing period (1978-1996), the improved period (1997-2017), and the mature period (2018). It is found there are that language rights distributed in 11 fields: the organ of the state, justice, ethnic affairs, culture and tourism, intellectual publishing, education, broadcasting, infrastructure, commerce and trade, health care and protection for disadvantaged groups.The detailed information about the four periods is as follows. First, the awareness of language rights emerged during the initial period, but the relevant articles were not comprehensive, only focusing on language rights in basic fields like the fields of justice and ethnic affairs. Second, in the developing period, the protection of language rights was expanded to the fields of education, intellectual publishing and protection for disadvantaged groups. Third, during the improved period and mature period, language rights protection covered more fields including the fields of broadcasting, infrastructure construction, business and trade, as well as health care. The improvement of language rights protection in the basic fields has promoted its expansion to other fields.Based on the development of the four phases, language rights protection in China mainly presents two features. First, it has expanded from basic fields to other fields. In the initial period, the protection of language rights mainly concentrated on three fields, namely the fields of justice, ethnic affairs and culture and tourism. By 2022, it covered 11 fields in total. Second, the focus on the language rights protection has shifted in the direction of “language use–language learning–language communication”. In the early years of the founding of the People’s Republic, the priority of language rights protection was language use. The legal documents explicitly stipulated the equal status of the languages of ethnic minority groups and guaranteed the use of these languages. Later in 1982, the Constitution was amended to include the promotion of Putonghua, which promoted Putonghua learning. Thus, language learning became part of language rights protection. Last, since 2000, international communication and the dissemination of Chinese have received precedence over others, contributing to the focus on language communication.As to the development in each field, the main fields of concern in the language rights protection are the fields of justice, ethnic affairs, intellectual publishing and protection for disadvantaged groups. It is found that in each field, language rights protection typically starts with language use, and then in the later stages, it becomes more specific, focusing not only on the norms of relevant professionals and texts at the micro level but also on adjusting existing provisions according to practical circumstances and expanding the scope of attention to different groups.With the above findings, this study shows the basic situation and development of language rights protection in China since 1949 and the characteristics within the fields it covers. It presents the condition of language rights protection in a more objective and comprehensive way, shedding light on future work. In addition, the diachronic analyses disclose the close relationship between language rights protection and social changes, further proving the dynamic nature of language rights and emphasizing that language rights protection should advance with the times.
Wang Yating,Zhang Huiyu. On the Evolution of Language Rights in Chinese Laws and Regulations from 1949 to 2022[J]. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2024, 54(4): 86-99.
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2024, Vol. 54 
