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Jie Dong

Tsinghua University, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty Member

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The University of Hong Kong

Brenda Alvarado

Universidad Autonoma de Baja California

Dégi Zsuzsanna

Maria Van Staden

Tohoku University

Central European University

National Taiwan University

The University of Sydney

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Books by Jie Dong

Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide

The ‘Long March’ to the City: Language, Discourse, and Layered Identities among China’s Internal Migrants

Papers by Jie Dong

Global Learning from the Periphery: An Ethnographic Study of a Chinese Urban Migrant School

Sustainability, 2020

This paper presents an ethnographic study on the global learning practice of teachers and student... more This paper presents an ethnographic study on the global learning practice of teachers and students in a Chinese internal migrant school. Rural children have relocated to urban centers with their parents on a massive scale over the past decades, as China undergoes rapid economic changes. Many migrant children have to attend privately run migrant schools which often function within limited budgets. Drawing on various types of data, this study investigates informal learning in a global context. In particular, the research focuses on a Scout program that is modeled on world Scouting movements and that is tailored for the migrant pupils’ educational demands. The data collection tools include participant observation, in-depth interview and document collection. The research finds that, with limited educational resources, the informants learn globally to improve the sustainable development of the migrant pupils, to fight against educational inequality, and to facilitate mutual understanding...

Ethnographic fieldwork: a beginner's guide

Choice Reviews Online, 2011

It is a scary thing, isn&amp;amp;#x27;t it: the idea of being alone &amp;amp;#x27;in the ... more It is a scary thing, isn&amp;amp;#x27;t it: the idea of being alone &amp;amp;#x27;in the field&amp;amp;#x27;, trying to accomplish a task initially formulated as a perfectly coherent research plan with questions, methods, readings and so onand finding out that the &amp;amp;#x27;field&amp;amp;#x27;is a chaotic, hugely complex place. Fieldwork is ...

Language and Movement in Space

The Handbook of Language and Globalization, 2010

revolutionary change. It is good to remember that the development of the telegraph, telephone, ra... more revolutionary change. It is good to remember that the development of the telegraph, telephone, radio and television caused the same buzz among contemporary observers. And what to think of the development, centuries earlier, of book printing? 2 These earlier developments, too, had an impact on the way in which people used and circulated language, and on the way in which language varieties penetrated societies. Only, contemporary observers sought to understand linguistic phenomena very much with reference to language, not to society, and very much from within a frame in which the temporal and spatial conditions of occurrence of language were seen as accidental and not very important. The descriptive and comparative tradition of the late 19 th and early 20 th century was an 'artefactual' tradition, in which languages were connected to timeless peoples, who were topographically plotted on a particular area of distribution (Irvine 2001; Blommaert 2006). When time was concerned, linguistics tended to use genealogical models; when space was concerned, it tended to use horizontal models of space, expressed in stock metaphors such as 'spread' or 'distribution' of languages or of linguistic features. Modern sociolinguistics drew this artefactualised image of language into real time and space. Studies of language variation focused strongly on diffusion-the spread of linguistic variables over a horizontal space, as in the work of Trudgill, Labov and others (see Britain & Cheshire (2003). The conceptual development of space and time in such studies is superficial: there is attention for generational transmission (time) and distribution of variables in one locality or across localities such as cities, regions or countries (space). Labov's famous studies of New York City (1966) and of Martha's Vineyard (Labov 1972) are classics in this trend. Contact linguistics, in the meantime, focused on the sociolinguistic and linguistic patterns resulting from migration (Clyne 2003), and patterns of multilingualism resulting from migrations also drew the attention of scholars (Extra & Verhoeven 1998). One widespread problem with such studies is that the people whose language repertoires are studied, even if

When modern public space encounters postmodern migration: abnormality and the making of migrant identities

Sociolinguistic Studies, 2013

This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multiling... more This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multilingual practices in the context of China’s linguistic diversity and population movement. Drawing on the data from ethnographic observation, interview and document collection, the article demonstrates how small discursive features become emblematic of individual and group identities, and how such identities are negotiated and ratified at various scale levels, particularly in the public and institutional spheres. Using a theoretical framework revolving around indexicality, this article starts with a discussion on the notions – abnormality and modernity – that are essential for data analysis, and presents three examples to demonstrate the discursive processes of migrant identity construction. The article concludes that people invoke general social norms and administrative notions when producing discourses from the public and institutional spheres, and that the identity categories defined and m...

‘Isn’t it enough to be a Chinese speaker’: Language ideology and migrant identity construction in a public primary school in Beijing

Language & Communication, 2009

This article explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguis... more This article explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguistic exchanges in a public school in Beijing. On the basis of ethnographic observation and metapragmatic discourses, the research demonstrates how the microscopic linguistic differences of migrant children index the cultural and metapragmatic factors at a linguisticideological level, and how such differences serve as a ground for the dialogical process of identity construction. Three vignettes illustrate this process. The first one presents a class observation in which a migrant pupil articulates a discourse on her own and her fellow-pupil's identities. It demonstrates awareness of her rural and migrant identities and of the negative indexical values such identities project. The migrant pupil overlays this migrant identity with a stable category of national identity through a claimed belonging to a homogeneous language community. The blur of migrant and local identities, however, is challenged in the interviews with a local Beijing pupil and a local teacher in the second and the third examples. The second example shows the comments of a local Beijing pupil on his migrant fellow-pupil's accent which marks as being of rural origin, a migrant to the city, unsophisticated and less intelligent; and the third example examines a teacher's comments on her pupil's identity, language, and how such identities have an impact on the pupil's appraisal. The research suggests that small features of language become emblematic of individual and group identities, and such identities can be an impact on the appraisal of migrant pupils' performance at school as well as in frames of a macro-political order invoking homogeneism within the dominant language ideologies in education, emphasising linguistic uniformity and homogeneity.

Voicing as an Essential Problem of Communication: Language and Education of Chinese Immigrant Children in Globalization

Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 2013

This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among migrant children inside Ch... more This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among migrant children inside China and in the Dutch Chinese diaspora. It is focused on the education related experiences of Chinese immigrants. We present three examples from our ethnographic fieldwork conducted in China and in the Netherlands to instantiate a theoretical argument: voice is the effect of as well as the condition for communication and the whole process of communication is essentially a voicing process.

Enregisterment Putonghua Symbolic power Indexicality Language Standardization

Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores how a once alien and unsophisticated lang... more Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores how a once alien and unsophisticated language has enregistered as a national linguistic standard through the mediation of metadiscursive practices in everyday social life, and how its indexical values associated with speaker attributes and social personae are reproduced in mass circulation of metadiscursive standard. It shows that the standardization of Putonghua has been a deliberate institutional effort closely related to the making of the nation; it is however, part of a more general and more tacit ideological process -enregisterment -through which the symbolic dominance of Putonghua is accepted as natural and normative. , and to the audiences of the ISB7 for feedback, comments, and useful suggestions. All remaining shortcomings are my own responsibility.

Space, scale and accents: Constructing migrant identity in Beijing

This paper draws on the recently theorised notions of space and scale in sociolinguistics to inve... more This paper draws on the recently theorised notions of space and scale in sociolinguistics to investigate the complexity and micro-variation of the Chinese language in the context of mass internal migration, and the way in which sociolinguistic processes shed light on the construction of migrant identities. In spite of the enormously rich diversity in Chinese languages, images of linguistic stability and homogeneity overlie the societal diversity that characterises every real social environment. The monoglot ideologies focused on Putonghua often present obstacles for migrant workers whose Putonghua proficiency is limited, and disqualify their existing language resources and skills. Three vignettes will illustrate this. The first one demonstrates the presence and influence of Putonghua in an eastern coastal city through a story told by a migrant child; the second vignette reveals how a migrant worker's regional accent is misrecognised in the interactions with the locals; and the third vignette illustrates how a migrant worker is polyglot in one language and how this polyglot repertoire is organised indexically in relation to layered and stratified spaces. Therefore the monoglot ideologies often disqualify some people's linguistic resources; many migrant workers nevertheless develop a polyglot repertoire and navigate such obstacles.

Isn’t it enough to be a Chinese speaker’: Language ideology

This paper explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguisti... more This paper explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguistic exchanges in a Beijing public school. Drawing on the data from ethnographic observation and interviews, the research demonstrates how small features of language become emblematic of individual and group identities, and how such identities have an impact on the appraisal of migrant pupils' performance at school as well as in wider frames of macro-political order which often invoke homogeneism within the dominant language ideologies, emphasizing linguistic uniformity and homogeneity.

Voicing as an Essential Problem of Communication: Language and Education of Chinese Immigrant Children in Globalization

This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among labor immigrants both insi... more This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among labor immigrants both inside China and in the Dutch Chinese Diaspora. We provide ethnographically grounded data oriented toward a theoretical point: voicing is an essential problem in communication. Whether one is able to achieve his voice-an outcome of a communicative process-is often conditioned by pretextual factors that exist before and beyond communication, and has to be negotiated in the communicative process. [voice, enregisterment, migration, discursive identity, China] 162

Neo-Liberalism and the evolvement of China’s education policies on migrant

Coupland—The Handbook of Language and Globalisation C 16 Language and Movement in SpaceCoupland—The Handbook of Language and GlobalisationCoupland—The Handbook of Language and Globalisation C

When modern public space encounters postmodern migration: abnormality and the making of migrant identity

This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multiling... more This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multilingual practices in the context of China's linguistic diversity and population movement. Drawing on the data from ethnographic observation, interview and document collection, the article demonstrates how small discursive features become emblematic of individual and group identities, and how such identities are negotiated and ratified at various scale levels, particularly in the public and institutional spheres. Using a theoretical framework revolving around indexicality, this article starts with a discussion on the notions -abnormality and modernity -that are essential for data analysis, and presents three examples to demonstrate the discursive processes of migrant identity construction. The article concludes that people invoke general social norms and administrative notions when producing discourses from the public and institutional spheres, and that the identity categories defined and motivated in these discourses are rigid, static and general.

Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide

The ‘Long March’ to the City: Language, Discourse, and Layered Identities among China’s Internal Migrants

Global Learning from the Periphery: An Ethnographic Study of a Chinese Urban Migrant School

Sustainability, 2020

This paper presents an ethnographic study on the global learning practice of teachers and student... more This paper presents an ethnographic study on the global learning practice of teachers and students in a Chinese internal migrant school. Rural children have relocated to urban centers with their parents on a massive scale over the past decades, as China undergoes rapid economic changes. Many migrant children have to attend privately run migrant schools which often function within limited budgets. Drawing on various types of data, this study investigates informal learning in a global context. In particular, the research focuses on a Scout program that is modeled on world Scouting movements and that is tailored for the migrant pupils’ educational demands. The data collection tools include participant observation, in-depth interview and document collection. The research finds that, with limited educational resources, the informants learn globally to improve the sustainable development of the migrant pupils, to fight against educational inequality, and to facilitate mutual understanding...

Ethnographic fieldwork: a beginner's guide

Choice Reviews Online, 2011

It is a scary thing, isn&amp;amp;#x27;t it: the idea of being alone &amp;amp;#x27;in the ... more It is a scary thing, isn&amp;amp;#x27;t it: the idea of being alone &amp;amp;#x27;in the field&amp;amp;#x27;, trying to accomplish a task initially formulated as a perfectly coherent research plan with questions, methods, readings and so onand finding out that the &amp;amp;#x27;field&amp;amp;#x27;is a chaotic, hugely complex place. Fieldwork is ...

Language and Movement in Space

The Handbook of Language and Globalization, 2010

revolutionary change. It is good to remember that the development of the telegraph, telephone, ra... more revolutionary change. It is good to remember that the development of the telegraph, telephone, radio and television caused the same buzz among contemporary observers. And what to think of the development, centuries earlier, of book printing? 2 These earlier developments, too, had an impact on the way in which people used and circulated language, and on the way in which language varieties penetrated societies. Only, contemporary observers sought to understand linguistic phenomena very much with reference to language, not to society, and very much from within a frame in which the temporal and spatial conditions of occurrence of language were seen as accidental and not very important. The descriptive and comparative tradition of the late 19 th and early 20 th century was an 'artefactual' tradition, in which languages were connected to timeless peoples, who were topographically plotted on a particular area of distribution (Irvine 2001; Blommaert 2006). When time was concerned, linguistics tended to use genealogical models; when space was concerned, it tended to use horizontal models of space, expressed in stock metaphors such as 'spread' or 'distribution' of languages or of linguistic features. Modern sociolinguistics drew this artefactualised image of language into real time and space. Studies of language variation focused strongly on diffusion-the spread of linguistic variables over a horizontal space, as in the work of Trudgill, Labov and others (see Britain & Cheshire (2003). The conceptual development of space and time in such studies is superficial: there is attention for generational transmission (time) and distribution of variables in one locality or across localities such as cities, regions or countries (space). Labov's famous studies of New York City (1966) and of Martha's Vineyard (Labov 1972) are classics in this trend. Contact linguistics, in the meantime, focused on the sociolinguistic and linguistic patterns resulting from migration (Clyne 2003), and patterns of multilingualism resulting from migrations also drew the attention of scholars (Extra & Verhoeven 1998). One widespread problem with such studies is that the people whose language repertoires are studied, even if

When modern public space encounters postmodern migration: abnormality and the making of migrant identities

Sociolinguistic Studies, 2013

This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multiling... more This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multilingual practices in the context of China’s linguistic diversity and population movement. Drawing on the data from ethnographic observation, interview and document collection, the article demonstrates how small discursive features become emblematic of individual and group identities, and how such identities are negotiated and ratified at various scale levels, particularly in the public and institutional spheres. Using a theoretical framework revolving around indexicality, this article starts with a discussion on the notions – abnormality and modernity – that are essential for data analysis, and presents three examples to demonstrate the discursive processes of migrant identity construction. The article concludes that people invoke general social norms and administrative notions when producing discourses from the public and institutional spheres, and that the identity categories defined and m...

‘Isn’t it enough to be a Chinese speaker’: Language ideology and migrant identity construction in a public primary school in Beijing

Language & Communication, 2009

This article explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguis... more This article explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguistic exchanges in a public school in Beijing. On the basis of ethnographic observation and metapragmatic discourses, the research demonstrates how the microscopic linguistic differences of migrant children index the cultural and metapragmatic factors at a linguisticideological level, and how such differences serve as a ground for the dialogical process of identity construction. Three vignettes illustrate this process. The first one presents a class observation in which a migrant pupil articulates a discourse on her own and her fellow-pupil's identities. It demonstrates awareness of her rural and migrant identities and of the negative indexical values such identities project. The migrant pupil overlays this migrant identity with a stable category of national identity through a claimed belonging to a homogeneous language community. The blur of migrant and local identities, however, is challenged in the interviews with a local Beijing pupil and a local teacher in the second and the third examples. The second example shows the comments of a local Beijing pupil on his migrant fellow-pupil's accent which marks as being of rural origin, a migrant to the city, unsophisticated and less intelligent; and the third example examines a teacher's comments on her pupil's identity, language, and how such identities have an impact on the pupil's appraisal. The research suggests that small features of language become emblematic of individual and group identities, and such identities can be an impact on the appraisal of migrant pupils' performance at school as well as in frames of a macro-political order invoking homogeneism within the dominant language ideologies in education, emphasising linguistic uniformity and homogeneity.

Voicing as an Essential Problem of Communication: Language and Education of Chinese Immigrant Children in Globalization

Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 2013

This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among migrant children inside Ch... more This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among migrant children inside China and in the Dutch Chinese diaspora. It is focused on the education related experiences of Chinese immigrants. We present three examples from our ethnographic fieldwork conducted in China and in the Netherlands to instantiate a theoretical argument: voice is the effect of as well as the condition for communication and the whole process of communication is essentially a voicing process.

Enregisterment Putonghua Symbolic power Indexicality Language Standardization

Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores how a once alien and unsophisticated lang... more Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores how a once alien and unsophisticated language has enregistered as a national linguistic standard through the mediation of metadiscursive practices in everyday social life, and how its indexical values associated with speaker attributes and social personae are reproduced in mass circulation of metadiscursive standard. It shows that the standardization of Putonghua has been a deliberate institutional effort closely related to the making of the nation; it is however, part of a more general and more tacit ideological process -enregisterment -through which the symbolic dominance of Putonghua is accepted as natural and normative. , and to the audiences of the ISB7 for feedback, comments, and useful suggestions. All remaining shortcomings are my own responsibility.

Space, scale and accents: Constructing migrant identity in Beijing

This paper draws on the recently theorised notions of space and scale in sociolinguistics to inve... more This paper draws on the recently theorised notions of space and scale in sociolinguistics to investigate the complexity and micro-variation of the Chinese language in the context of mass internal migration, and the way in which sociolinguistic processes shed light on the construction of migrant identities. In spite of the enormously rich diversity in Chinese languages, images of linguistic stability and homogeneity overlie the societal diversity that characterises every real social environment. The monoglot ideologies focused on Putonghua often present obstacles for migrant workers whose Putonghua proficiency is limited, and disqualify their existing language resources and skills. Three vignettes will illustrate this. The first one demonstrates the presence and influence of Putonghua in an eastern coastal city through a story told by a migrant child; the second vignette reveals how a migrant worker's regional accent is misrecognised in the interactions with the locals; and the third vignette illustrates how a migrant worker is polyglot in one language and how this polyglot repertoire is organised indexically in relation to layered and stratified spaces. Therefore the monoglot ideologies often disqualify some people's linguistic resources; many migrant workers nevertheless develop a polyglot repertoire and navigate such obstacles.

Isn’t it enough to be a Chinese speaker’: Language ideology

This paper explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguisti... more This paper explores the establishment of migrant identities through linguistic and sociolinguistic exchanges in a Beijing public school. Drawing on the data from ethnographic observation and interviews, the research demonstrates how small features of language become emblematic of individual and group identities, and how such identities have an impact on the appraisal of migrant pupils' performance at school as well as in wider frames of macro-political order which often invoke homogeneism within the dominant language ideologies, emphasizing linguistic uniformity and homogeneity.

Voicing as an Essential Problem of Communication: Language and Education of Chinese Immigrant Children in Globalization

This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among labor immigrants both insi... more This article explores voicing processes of identity construction among labor immigrants both inside China and in the Dutch Chinese Diaspora. We provide ethnographically grounded data oriented toward a theoretical point: voicing is an essential problem in communication. Whether one is able to achieve his voice-an outcome of a communicative process-is often conditioned by pretextual factors that exist before and beyond communication, and has to be negotiated in the communicative process. [voice, enregisterment, migration, discursive identity, China] 162

Neo-Liberalism and the evolvement of China’s education policies on migrant

Coupland—The Handbook of Language and Globalisation C 16 Language and Movement in SpaceCoupland—The Handbook of Language and GlobalisationCoupland—The Handbook of Language and Globalisation C

When modern public space encounters postmodern migration: abnormality and the making of migrant identity

This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multiling... more This article explores the discursive processes of migrant identity construction through multilingual practices in the context of China's linguistic diversity and population movement. Drawing on the data from ethnographic observation, interview and document collection, the article demonstrates how small discursive features become emblematic of individual and group identities, and how such identities are negotiated and ratified at various scale levels, particularly in the public and institutional spheres. Using a theoretical framework revolving around indexicality, this article starts with a discussion on the notions -abnormality and modernity -that are essential for data analysis, and presents three examples to demonstrate the discursive processes of migrant identity construction. The article concludes that people invoke general social norms and administrative notions when producing discourses from the public and institutional spheres, and that the identity categories defined and motivated in these discourses are rigid, static and general.