One thing that I wonder about China studies in general is: to what extent do existing language skills (or being really young) contribute to one’s comparative advantage?
For instance, consider a young person who was raised English/Chinese bilingual (presumably there are lots of people fitting this description who are interested in China studies, and this number is rapidly increasing) against say, a person in their late twenties or early thirties who has just studied politics/history/philosophy or whatever. Would you expect the former person to be far better suited to China studies overall?
Good question. In general, I’d say that of course coming to the field with heritage language skills helps, but as long as you’re willing to put in the time (which is considerable!) into learning Chinese, once you get to professional fluency you’ll end up on the same footing.
Good question. In general, I’d say that of course coming to the field with heritage language skills helps, but as long as you’re willing to put in the time (which is considerable!) into learning Chinese, once you get to professional fluency you’ll end up on roughly the same footing.
Thanks for such a detailed post, Jordan!
One thing that I wonder about China studies in general is: to what extent do existing language skills (or being really young) contribute to one’s comparative advantage?
For instance, consider a young person who was raised English/Chinese bilingual (presumably there are lots of people fitting this description who are interested in China studies, and this number is rapidly increasing) against say, a person in their late twenties or early thirties who has just studied politics/history/philosophy or whatever. Would you expect the former person to be far better suited to China studies overall?
You’re welcome!
Good question. In general, I’d say that of course coming to the field with heritage language skills helps, but as long as you’re willing to put in the time (which is considerable!) into learning Chinese, once you get to professional fluency you’ll end up on the same footing.
You’re welcome!
Good question. In general, I’d say that of course coming to the field with heritage language skills helps, but as long as you’re willing to put in the time (which is considerable!) into learning Chinese, once you get to professional fluency you’ll end up on roughly the same footing.