MCLC: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (5)

Mon Sep 16 10:24:57 EDT 2013

MCLC LIST
From: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
Subject: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (5)
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About Shanghainese (Wu), here are some references in English and Chinese
that deal with these issues, -- it seems very little sociolinguistics
research is published in English. The Indonesian research I was referring
to earlier was getting into surveying the actual social mechanics of the
demise of languages (language shift) ?by key variables such as education,
gender, family role, and importantly by social situation (languages vanish
from certain social arenas first, before they vanish altogether). There is
an excellent thesis from just this year at Stockholm U, in Swedish (see
below), --

But first: The database Linguistics Abstracts Online
(linguisticsabstracts.com) has only a few items, none recent:

The spread of Putonghua and language attitude changes in Shanghai and
Guangzhou, China
by Minglang Zhou. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication (2001) Volume 11
/ Issue 2 / Pages 231 - 253.
Subdiscipline: 	Sociolinguistics

This study measures languages attitudes of 82 college students in Shanghai
and Guangzhou, where language planning has promoted Putonghua (PTH) over
local varieties since 1956. Since the 1980s, industrialization,
commercialization, and greater demographic mobility have changed what used
to be homogeneous local variety speech communities, resulting in greater
demand for PTH in cross–variety communication. Do language attitudes
change with greater demand for PTH? A direct measurement shows that the
Shanghainese and Cantonese are largely similar in language use but differ
in language attitudes: instrumental motivation and impressions of
stereotyped PTH speakers correlate differently with language use for these
groups. An indirect measurement indicates that, because of low social
distance, the Shanghainese and Cantonese as whole groups preferred neither
PTH nor their respective local varieties, though the Shanghainese females
significantly upgraded PTH on both social status and group solidarity,
while the Shanghainese males upgraded Shanghainese. These findings do not
conform well to the textbook–case dichotomy found in early studies between
high and low varieties on the dimensions of social status and solidarity.
The non–conforming language attitudes may represent attitude changes amid
emerging patterns of language use in these two Pacific cities.

Prestige and the local dialect: The social role of Shanghainese in Shanghai
By Robert Angus. California Linguistic Notes (2002) Volume 27 / Issue 2 /
Pages 1 - 23.
Subdiscipline: 	Sociolinguistics

Shanghai lies in the Wu dialect area in east central China. Whereas Modern
Standard Chinese is the prescribed national standard in instruction,
broadcasting, and commerce, a specific variety that descended from Wu is
the native language of the city. We are accustomed to finding that local
varieties experience a diminution of prestige in such circumstances. The
social and historical circumstances of Shanghai, however, uniquely create
a situation in which this is not the case. In this paper I will briefly
discuss the history of the city and its development, trace social
attitudes (and ideas of prestige) on the part of its natives, show how the
use of the local variety indexes social status and prestige among
residents of the city, and provide evidence that the use of the native
dialect of Shanghai is neither transitional nor restricted to the spheres
heretofore considered Low in the typical diglossia situation.

Sound changes in modern Shanghainese: The influence of immigrant and
prestigious dialects
Rongqiu Shen. Journal of Chinese Linguistics (1996) Volume 24 / Issue 1 /
Pages -
Subdiscipline: 	Sociolinguistics

The Modern Shanghai Dialect has undergone drastic sound changes since the
1930's. This paper proposes that the changes are results of contacts with
immigrant and prestigious dialects that have influenced the local
phonological system. It also provides an analysis of the characteristics
of these changes.

Acquisition of Chinese among children in Shanghai
Robert Angus, Qiu Lei. California Linguistic Notes (2001) Volume 26 /
Issue 1 / Pages 1 - 15
Subdiscipline: 	Psycholinguistics

While one of the authors was traveling in Shen Zhen, a large city located
in Guang Dong province, where Guang Dong hua (Cantonese) is spoken, he
became acquainted with a 12 year old girl whose family had relocated from
Si Chuan province, where a dialect of Chinese quite close to the national
language, putonghua (PTH), is spoken, and who had no Guang Dong hua when
she arrived. Furthermore, all her schooling is conducted in PTH. Most of
her classmates also hail from other provinces, so they have no Guang Dong
hua, either. Nonetheless, she reports, she is attempting to learn the
language of Guang Dong, primarily from television, using the subtitles
provided as a guide. She is not alone in the situation of learning a
second dialect. The question of learning second dialects in China is an
important question for both educators and business people, as the economy
grows, nationally and internationally.

Jin Liu. Deviant writing and youth identity: Representation of dialects
with Chinese characters on the internet. Chinese Language and Discourse
(2011. Vol.2 / Issue 1).
" … discusses how the written Shanghai Wu words are explored to mark a
distinct visual ... "

+ A few more can be found in the Linguistics and Language Behavior
Abstracts (LLBA), such as:

SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOUND CHANGE: THE CASE OF WO IN SHANGHAINESE
Liu, Guo-qiang. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 35.2 (2012):
203-214.

Abstract (summary)
Research has shown that language change is driven on one hand by forces
internal to language itself such as grammar-internal systematic pressure,
and on the other hand by social motives such as social identity. Language
contact presents new features, but why is it that some of them are
incorporated as variation and evolving into language change, while others
are not? This paper reports a study on a sound change in Shanghainese, a
dialect of the Chinese language. Data were collected in natural contexts
of conversation followed by a brief interview with informants to gain
identity-related information about them. It has found that previously
negative perception of status attached to a new sound induced by
language/dialect contact changed into a positive perception, and people
started to identify positively with this new sound. Further, there were
differences in various differentage and gender groups in taking up the new
sound. As a result, this sound has evolved from a nonnative alternative to
a systematic variation and it is being established as a sound change. This
study has thus further confirmed that social identity plays a pivotal role
in driving language features into language variation and language change.

Wu, Zhiqian; Gordon, Elizabeth.
Language Variation in Shanghai. Working Papers in Language and Linguistics
21. July (Jul 1987): 54-65.

Xiao-quan, Chu. Linguistic Diversity in Shanghai. Journal of Asian Pacific
Communication 11.1 (2001): 17-24.

--As usual, there may be more research in other languages, such as
Japanese.

And, in Chinese, there are a number of research articles, including many
listed in a really quite excellent student thesis on the efforts to
"rescue" Shanghainese, completed at Stockholm University Spring 2013, in
Swedish, entitled "'Det är okultiverat att prata shanghainesiska?
Riksspråkets spridning vs en dialekt i behov av skydd" [It's uncultivated
to speak Shanghainese: The spread of national language vs. a dialect in
need of protection] and is by Sheng-Ying Isabella Weng, and directed by
Professor Marja Kaikkonen at the Dept for Oriental Languages.

(I hope Sheng-Ying Isabella Weng would publish her excellent piece soon,
as an article in one of these many venues.)

The thesis has numerous useful references, including to works in Chinese
linguistics and related fields:

Gāo Jūn 高军 & Dù Xuéwén 杜学文. ”'Yŭ tóng yīn' yú rénquán
băozhàng – duì Xiànfă 'Guójiā tuīguăng quánguó tōngyòngde
Pŭtōnghuà' tiáokuăn de fălĭ sīkăo” “语同音”与人权保障——对宪 法“国家
推广全国通用的普通话”条
款的法理思考 (”Language Unity” and the Safeguard of Human Rights – Legal
analysis of the clause of ”popularizing Putonghua nationwide”). Yánbiān
dàxué xuébào (Shèhùi kēxuébăn) 延边大学学报(社会科学版)(Journal of
Yanbian 
University, Social Science) 42 (dec. 2009), 154-159.

Hè Juān 贺鹃 & Lĭ Yú 李鱼. ”Fāngyán yú Pŭtōnghuà de chōngtū” 方言
与普通话
的冲突. Yúlín kējì 榆林科技 2010/Z1, 21-23.

Liú Fēiyŭ 刘飞宇 & Shí Jùn 石俊. ”Yŭyánquán de xiànzhì yú băohù
– 
cóng dìfāng fāngyán yìzhìpiān bèijìn shuōqĭ” 语言权的限制与保
护——从地方方言译制
片被禁说起(Limitation and protection of language right – From the
prohibition 
of translated movie in local dialect). Făxué lùntán 法学论 坛 (Legal
Forum) 20 (nov. 2005), 110-114.

Liú Xiànghóng 刘向红. ”Xīnmín Wănbào 'shànghăihuà shìjiàn'
diàochá” 新民晚报“上海话事件”调查. Xiàndài kuàibào 现 代 快 报 (Modern
Express). 
Publ. at Téngxùn Shìbó 腾 讯 世 博 18.01.2010.
http://2010.qq.com/a/20100118/000065.htm

Lù Jǐnpíng 陆 锦 平. ”'Yăyán' yú 'fāngyán' zhī héxié gòngshēng
– 
lùn duīguǎng Pŭtōnghuà hé bǎohù fāngyán” “雅言”与“方言”之和谐共
生——论推广普通话和
保护方言. Yŭyán yánjiū 语言研究 (Feb. 2006), 155-156.

She also mentions this (interesting, since there is now a new trend of
writing novels in Shanghainese):

McLaren, Anne E. ”Producing Texts in Chinese Dialects: A Study of the
Lower Yangzi Delta Region”. The International Journal of the Book 7:1
(2009) 17-24.

There is also an interesting kind of fetishism of foreigners who can speak
Shanghainese. A friend sent me this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2gEIZCM5NA

And people certainly are nostalgically reveling in their "vanishing"
language! -- f.ex. see,
沪语MTV -《上海童年》

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBvfXHL222Y

Sincerely,

Magnus Fiskesjö 