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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1439

Part of Plenary lectures (Other abstracts in this session)

Speech Communities in Transformation: The effects of linguistic urbanization in China

Authors: Xu, Daming
Submitted by: Xu, Daming (China Center for Linguistic and Strategic Studies, Nanjing University, China, People's Republic of)

The speech communities in China in the 21st century, no matter old or new, large or small, rural or urban, are all impacted by urbanization. The studies of the linguistic consequences of this impact show how new speech communities were formed and old ones transformed, how linguistic varieties originated, developed and changed in the community, and how a community had gained its identity and how it changed over time. In this paper, I will present three examples of those studies.

The first example shows how a speech community was formed in a dialect-contact situation and how the linguistic identity of the community changed overtime. The new-town speech community of Kundulun, located in the northwestern part of China, has experienced in half a century’s time a process of speech community formation, which is illustrated by the step-by-step building up of its constraint patterns of linguistic variation (Xu 2010). As shown in a real-time study, not only the linguistic variables have undergone changes, the linguistic identity of the community too has changed. Three major stages of linguistic identity development have been identified: the stage of un-integrated multiple identities, the stage of transplanted identity, and, finally, the stage of localized identity.

The second example shows how a speech community changes in its membership, location and linguistic repertoire. The mega-city speech community of Shanghai, located in the eastern coastal area of China, has experienced over a century’s time a process of speech community transformation, which is illustrated by a summary of a group of dialectological and sociolinguistic studies (Van den Berg 2005, Qian 2010, Xue 2010, You 2010). As shown by the studies of both micro and macro approaches, the speech community is where language varieties are incubated and fostered (Xu 2004). In today’s Shanghai, effective speech communication as well as a distinctive linguistic identity is maintained with well-formed speech community conventions in spite of seemingly boundless diversities resulted by mobility and migration.

The last example shows how a rural speech community is affected by urbanization. The small speech community of Fu Village, located in the farming land of the Yangtze Delta, has experienced in the last decade a process of decline of vitality of the local dialect and local linguistic identity, which is reflected in changes in kinship addresses and in changes in pronunciations of the local dialect (Fu 2011). While the older generation remained largely unaffected by the standard variety in spite of its massive media exposure, the younger generation could hardly maintain a distinction between the local and the standard variety in reading style. The study demonstrates that the change in language behavior and attitude goes hand-in-hand with the peasant-worker mobility as part of the urbanization process in China.

Linguistic urbanization is by no means restricted to China but is a worldwide phenomenon in the 21st century. Therefore, the Chinese studies should have general implications. As the studies show, linguistic urbanization is a dynamic process involving not only changes in the structures of language but also the restructuring of speech communities. The process demonstrates the interactive relationship between linguistic varieties and speech communities.

References:

Fu,Yirong.2011.YanyuShequheYuyanBianhuaYanjiu:JiyuAnhuiFucundeShehuiYuyanxueDiaocha[StudiesoftheSpeechCommunityandLanguageChange:AsociolinguisticinvestigationoftheFuVillageinAnhui].Beijing:PekingUniversityPress.

Qian,Nairong.2010.“TheSpreadofShanghainesetoNanqiaoFengxianDistrict”,inVandenBerg&Xu(eds.),2010,pp.184-190.

VandenBerg,Marinus.2005.“Vitality,IdentityandLanguageSpread:ThecaseofShanghainese”,ZhongguoShehuiYuyanxue[JournalofChineseSociolinguistics],No.2,pp.236-243.

VandenBerg,Marinus&DamingXu(eds.),2010.UrbanizationandtheRestructuringofSpeechCommunitiesinChinaandEurope.NewcastleuponTyne:CambridgeScholarsPublishing.

Xu,Daming.2004.“YanyuShequLilun[TheSpeechCommunityTheory]”,ZhongguoShehuiYuyanxue[JournalofChineseSociolinguistics],No.1,pp.18-28.

Xu,Daming.2010.“TheFormationofaSpeechCommunity:MandarinnasalfinalsinBaotou”,inVandenBerg&Xu(eds.),2010,pp.120-140.

Xue,Caide.2010.“AStudyoftheLanguageBehaviourofShanghaiResidents”,in VandenBerg&Xu(eds.),2010,pp.164-183.

You,Rujie.2010.“LanguageCompetitioninContemporaryShanghai”,inVandenBerg&Xu(eds.),2010,pp.141-163.