Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1980

their education in Anglo-Chinese secondary schools as opposed to Chinese middle schools? One of our major functions is to promote tertiary education in the Chinese language, and w e have to face up to our commitment of providing for students from the Chinese middle schools. That is policy from a socio-linguistic perspective. When we come inside the University as a learning and teaching institution to determine what our language policy should be, we have got to be concerned with two pedagogical aspects. The first is the role of languages as tools of learning for our students inside the University. What do our undergraduates need in terms of language proficiency to enable them to participate fully in a university course? W e must look at language as an access to knowledge at university level. In this, we need to think in terms of lectures, which provide them with the basic information, and in terms of individual study, which each student has to use to further his or her knowledge. When we come dow n to the situation in Hong Kong, muc h of the knowledge that w e want our students to acquire by individual study is printed only in English. W e simply cannot escape this fact, so, for pedagogical purposes, there is a need for English for undergraduate studies. If we are to give our students access to knowledge, they must have the skills which enable them to use this information effectively. The second factor is the role of languages in their post-university careers. W e need to be very realistic about preparing our students for careers in Hong Kong so that they can maximally serve the society by making the best use of their training received at the University. For better or worse, in Hong Kong, students applying for positions which require the quality of the knowledge that they acquired at The Chinese University have got to be very proficient in English to be able to get such positions. So we must look at our graduates' proficiency in languages, both English and Chinese. W e should, therefore, form a language policy which accommodates the pedagogical function as a university, and the social function as a university in the Hong Kong society. Sometimes people will say these two things conflict with each other but we do not believe that they do. In the English Department, particularly, we are trying to help the University to understand and to clarify what its language policy ought to be. Q. You just brought up the question of whether the University should be ‘favouring’ people who have had their education in Anglo-Chinese schools. Does the English Department at present accept more students from the Anglo-Chinese schools than the Chinese middle schools? A. The pattern is changing and it is a very complex one. At present we are accepting more students from the Anglo-Chinese stream. It is a fact that Anglo-Chinese schools greatly outnumber Chinese middle schools in today's Hon g Kong. Certainly one very important reason for this is parental belief that attending Anglo-Chinese schools will be most satisfactory for career purposes for their children. Should we, as a university, be promoting the further development of Chinese middle schools or not? Should we declare that is not our concern? This is a very sensitive socio-linguistic issue. Q. Is this one of the areas where the University can play a leadership role in the society? A. Yes, and we should. By our commitment to university education principally in Chinese we are playing a leading role in the clarification of language policy for education. Many of us would prefer to put social issues first and quality of education second. When you deal with socio- linguistic aspects you are often called upon to decide which is more important. They are very difficult decisions for the University to make. I am not qualified to state m y opinion about this, being someone who was not born and educated in Hong Kong. But it is a many-sided issue that needs to be looked at very carefully by the University. Q. Just now, you also mentioned that much of the knowledge that we want our students to acquire is printed only in English. Would the translation of English books help to solve, at least to some extent, the problem of those who are less proficient in English? A. It would not be a problem at the elementary level where the standard textbooks exist for years and do not change rapidly. If I could let you have a look at the reading I have to do, just to keep abreast of m y discipline, you would understand how impossible it is to have these translated. In m y discipline there are twenty to thirty journals that I am supposed to read being published all the time. D o we translate these? D o 2 1