The ‘medium-of-learning’ effect: Cognitive dependence on English terminology as a result of English-medium education

Innovations, knowledge production and consumption are increasingly dominated by EAP (Canagarajah 2002). Non-English-L1 researchers in any field who want to access state-of-the-art knowledge and, better still, contribute to the existing knowledge base need to have basic literacy skills in EAP, including genre-specific characteristics (Li 2003). This paper reports on one aspect at the receiving end of the knowledge consumption process: Chinese students’ cognitive dependence on English terminologies as a direct consequence of English-medium education. Empirical evidence was obtained from an experimental study involving 108 educated Chinese-English bilinguals in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The experiment, entitled ‘One day with only Cantonese/Mandarin’, required participants to use only their dominant community language for one day, and to avoid using any other language(s) (cf. Garfinkel 1967). Data were constituted by 108 reflective diaries and 13 focus-group interviews. The findings suggest that in English-L2 settings where English is used as a medium of instruction, learning through the medium of English makes learners cognitively dependent on technical terminologies in English. Two main types of evidence will be presented: (a) cognitive salience of English terminologies; and (b) negligence of corresponding technical terms in their native language. Implications for the global hegemony of English will be briefly discussed.