Die Bedeutung des Chinesischen und die sich abzeichnende multimediale Revolution in der Fremdsprachenpädagogik

Abstract

The dependence of a society on widespread knowledge of foreign languages is the result of the expanding international market and the growing division of labour in a multilingual world.

The main result of this development is the need of the lingua franca. Its function has meanwhile been taken over by English which has become indispensable as a means of communication between minor nations in mutual contact.

The emergence of English as the lingua franca does not make the knowledge of other languages superfluous. Whenever there is intensive bilateral cooperation, mutual knowledge of the two languages concerned is indispensable or highly profitable.

The importance of a language can be based on utilitarian and non-utilitarian arguments. On utilitarian grounds the importance of Chinese is determined by the size of the country, the number of speakers of Chinese, the volume of China´s trade in the world market, China´s weight in world politics. On non-utilitarian grounds a language is worth studying in proportion to its contribution to world culture. In both respects Chinese is of exceptional value.

The importance of Chinese in the cultural field is also due to its writing system. Thanks to its writing systems being independent of any vernacular, Chinese has transcended dialectal, language and time barriers and become the vehical of more than two thousand years of cultural heritage.

The need for more Chinese does not mean that other languages must be neglected. The new computercontrolled media make it possible to confer much of the teaching to means of autonomous learning and thus make the teaching process independent of former organizational and other restrictions. The necessary hard and soft ware being available, everything now depends on the creation of the teaching materials themselves, including electronical dictionaries, grammars, encyclopedia and other reference systems.