Putonghua in the context of multilingual China and the world

Roczniki Humanistyczne, 2019

The process of creating a modern national standard language for the whole of China has been long. It started in the beginning of the 20 th century, when it became clear that a common spoken tongue was needed to unite the Chinese people. Thus the concept of Guóyǔ-'national language'-was created. After the founding of People's Republic of China, the work was taken up anew, the standard was renamed Pŭtōnghuà-'common speech.' Its pronunciation is based on the dialect of Beijing, the Mandarin dialects have been the source of lexicon, and grammar has been founded on "model works in báihuà." But how exactly did the work on creating the new standard look like? This paper intends to show the process of codification of the pronunciation of what we now know as Pŭtōnghuà. How it was decided to choose the speech of Beijing as the starting point, how the work was carried out, and also how the standard is changing.

The so-called Chinese diasporas, i.e. Chinese communities outside Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), have traditionally been dialect dominant; that is, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants are speakers of especially Southern) dialects. Cantonese and Hokkien are two of the most prominent dialects. With globalization and the rise of China as a world politico-economic power, the national, standardized variety, Putonghua, is gaining particular prestige amongst the Chinese diasporas. For example, all the Cantonese schools for British Chinese children in the UK now also teach Putonghua, but none of the Putonghua schools teach Cantonese. Using ethnographic interviews with and participant observation of Chinese people of different generations in various diasporic communities, this paper examines the changing hierarchies of varieties of Chinese, the implications of such changes for the education and identity development of the young, and the constitution of a (speech) community in the post-modern era. It focuses on language attitude and linguistic practices (including literacy practices). It also investigates the tensions between the competing ideologies and discourses on national and ethnic identities, nationalism, community relations and cultural values.

Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference of the Association of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, 2013

Standard Mandarin in Taiwan (台灣標準華語), a creole born of early Republican language standards tempered with the speech habits of émigrés from the mainland following the Chinese Civil War of the 1940s, has, over the past seventy years, evolved into a stable yet distinctive native Mandarin offshoot with features that distinguish it from Mandarin varieties spoken on the Chinese mainland. This paper looks at the features of this native creole Mandarin, followed by an examination of attitudes towards Standard Taiwan Mandarin in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world, and explores the historical and cultural factors that lend legitimacy to this distinct Mandarin variety.

Język, Komunikacja, Informacja, 2019

the effects of language policy in china abstrakt (efekty polityki językowej w chinach). Ludność Chin składa się z 56 oficjalnie uznanych grup etnicznych, które posługują się (w zależności od zastosowanych kryteriów) od 135 do prawie 300 językami. Około 90% populacji deklaruje przynależność do narodowości Han. Język używany przez tę większość nie jest bynajmniej jednolity; odmiany chińskiego są tak zróżnicowane, że większość z nich jest wzajemnie niezrozumiała, a niektórzy lingwiści nazywają je nawet odrębnymi językami. Pozostałe 10% mówi językami, które są podzielone na pięć rodzin językowych. Czy jest możliwe wprowadzenie jednego wspólnego języka w kraju o największej populacji na Ziemi? Chiny prowadzą taką politykę językową od lat pięćdziesiątych. Celem jest rozpowszechnienie krajowego standardu-mandaryńskiego (putonghua) w całym kraju, tak, aby wszyscy mieszkańcy mogli swobodnie się komunikować. To idealistyczne dzieło jest już bardzo zaawansowane i spowodowało ogromne zmiany w językowym krajobrazie Chin. Nie wszystkie zawarte w konstytucji prawa języków mniejszości są respektowane. Również nie-mandaryńskie odmiany chińskie podlegają unifikacji, a w lokalnych językach zachodzą zauważalne zmiany. W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono różne aspekty chińskiej polityki językowej; pozytywne i negatywne skutki, jakie ma ona dla języków używanych w Chinach. abstract. The population of China consists of 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, which speak (depending on the criteria used) from 135 to nearly 300 languages. About 90% of the population declare themselves as belonging to the Han-Chinese nationality. The language spoken by this majority is by no means uniform, the varieties of Chinese are so diversified, that most of them are mutually unintelligible, and some linguists even call them separate languages. The remaining 10% speak languages that are classified into five language families. Is it possible to introduce one common language in a country with the largest population on Earth? China has been carrying out such a language policy since the 1950s. The goal is to spread the national standard-Mandarin, or Putonghua, all over the country, so that all inhabitants could communicate freely. This idealistic work is already very advanced and it has caused vast changes in the linguistic landscape of China. Not all the rights of minority languages declared in the constitution are respected. Also the non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese are subject to unification and noticeable changes are ongoing in the local tongues. This paper shows the various aspects of Chinese language policy, the positive and negative effects it has on the languages spoken in China.

Lingua Posnaniensis, 2020

As with most fields of life, China can trace its history of word standardization back to ancient times, when the first dictionaries (such as Erya, ca. 3 rd century B.C.) appeared. Modern Standard Chinese used in Mainland China-Putonghua-has been subject to standardization since its proclamation as the official national language of China in 1956. The definition states quite clearly that its base is formed by the Northern dialects. This statement concerns also vocabulary. However, it is not a simple matter to make a choice of words which are to be used throughout the country. On the one hand, the so-called "Northern dialects" are spoken by almost 70% of the Han Chinese population, i.e. by about 800 million people. Although the Northern dialects are said to be quite uniform, the vast area that they cover must bring diversity in vocabulary. On the other hand, the remaining 30% of the Han Chinese speak a range of mutually unintelligible tongues, which are bound to penetrate the Northern dialects. The aim of this paper is to show how the lexicon of Putonghua is being codified. An attempt will be made to reveal how the basic vocabulary was selected during the forming of Putonghua in the 1950s. Some of the tools used by the State Language Commission in order to control the process of vocabulary standardization will be described. Moreover, the paper intends to describe the ongoing changes in the Chinese lexicon. It will show the sources of new words that are gradually accepted into the authoritative dictionaries of modern Chinese.

The so-called Chinese diasporas, i.e. Chinese communities outside Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), have traditionally been dialect dominant; that is, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants are speakers of (especially Southern) dialects. Cantonese and Hokkien are two of the most prominent dialects. With globalization and the rise of China as a world politico-economic power, the national, standardized variety, Putonghua, is gaining particular prestige amongst the Chinese diasporas. For example, all the Cantonese schools for British Chinese children in the UK now also teach Putonghua, but none of the Putonghua schools teach Cantonese. Using ethnographic interviews with and participant observation of Chinese people of different generations in various diasporic communities, this paper examines the changing hierarchies of varieties of Chinese, the implications of such changes for the education and identity development of the young, and the constitution of a (speech) community in the post-modern era. It focuses on language attitude and linguistic practices (including literacy practices). It also investigates the tensions between the competing ideologies and discourses on national and ethnic identities, nationalism, community relations and cultural values.

Language and Communication, 2004

This paper examines factors complicating the definition of Standard Chinese, including register and socio-geographical variation, sound change and folk etymology, foreign loans and contact-induced structural change, and inherent imprecisions in the national spelling system. Also examined are reactions to change in the linguistic and language-teaching communities , how lay and academic attitudes towards impurities and linguistic innovation differ, and how differences between Chinese and western notions of 'language' and 'dialect' serve to further widen the gap between the textbook standard and perceived standardness. Predictions are made regarding the future development of Modern Standard Chinese that take into consideration the popular appeal of the language of westernized Chinese societies (e.g., Hong Kong and Taiwan) and the effect of the growth of native speakers of Mandarin in the Chinese-speaking world. #

The concept of World Englishes was put forth in acknowledgement of the variations observed in the English language across time and space most especially in light of globalization and migrations. In the same vein, a recent study on the Chinese language proposes " World Chineses " (全球華語) which seeks to track and investigate the variances of the wide array of Chinese languages and dialects. Seemingly homogenous China is revealed to be in fact diverse in terms of languages and the creation of a standard language, Chinese Mandarin (普 通 話) is seen within the framework of language ideology. Language ideology, broadly defined in this paper as the perceptions on the hierarchies and usage of a specific language, seeks to uncover the rise and fall on the use of Chinese languages in the context of 20 th century China. Select countries and regions to which Chinese migration has a history of shall also be explored for ethnographic data, but these will constitute an exploratory work as part of this paper's limitations due to time constraints.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 2018

This paper aims to investigate lexical borrowings from ethnic languages to standard Mandarin. Data are collected through daily observation after years of living in Xinjiang, China. The data suggest that phonetic loans and hybrid loans are the major approaches in lexical borrowings from Uyghur, Russian, and Persian. Two motivations behind Uyghur borrowings into Mandarin are discussed: cultural borrowings and core borrowings. Cultural borrowings are new objects, concepts of ethnic origins, which are new to Han Chinese communities. Core borrowings are Mandarin words which have been replaced by Uyghur. However, core borrowings are not associated with the prestige of the donor language in this case; instead, frequency, marker, friendliness, and religious consideration are the major reasons. In addition, this paper analyses the strategies of lexical borrowings from ethnic languages in Mandarin. It further discusses the cultural backgrounds behind lexical borrowings. The lexical borrowings...

rcsd.soc.cmu.ac.th

2020

;is chapter examines (dis)continuities in language planning from Republican China to modern language planning in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan after the middle of the twentieth century and the political split of the two polities. From the perspective of language ideology, the "K9:s marked a transitional period during which a former inclusive approach to language standardization, aimed at the integration of different regional features, gave way to an exclusive approach that defined correctness in terms of the pronunciation of the Beijing area. ;is shift has since been upheld consistently on both sides of the Taiwan strait, despite the fundamental ideological differences between the two polities. ;is continuity implied a growing marginalization of topolects through neglect (PRC) and suppression (Taiwan). In both cases, the spread of standard Mandarin has been successful, not only in terms of actual language use but also in terms of attitudes toward the standard.

Lingua Posnaniensis

As with most fields of life, China can trace its history of word standardization back to ancient times, when the first dictionaries (such as Erya, ca. 3rd century B.C.) appeared. Modern Standard Chinese used in Mainland China – Putonghua – has been subject to standardization since its proclamation as the official national language of China in 1956. The definition states quite clearly that its base is formed by the Northern dialects. This statement concerns also vocabulary. However, it is not a simple matter to make a choice of words which are to be used throughout the country. On the one hand, the so-called “Northern dialects” are spoken by almost 70% of the Han Chinese population, i.e. by about 800 million people. Although the Northern dialects are said to be quite uniform, the vast area that they cover must bring diversity in vocabulary. On the other hand, the remaining 30% of the Han Chinese speak a range of mutually unintelligible tongues, which are bound to penetrate the Northe...

This article provides and introduction to the range of research issues covered by the contributions to this special issue on English in contemporary China. It is suggested that the role of English in Chinese society today cannot be considered in isolation from the sociolinguistic background, as well as the social and political context of contemporary Chinese society. With reference to the present-day sociolinguistic dynamics of China, an important issue is the current spread of Putonghua as the national language across the nation, a process linked to the demands and exigencies of the state education system. With reference to the spread of English, one continuing issue is the relationship between the learning of English, and the actual use of the language. In this context, it is relevant to consider that, in recent decades, official policies to the language have drawn their motivation from both economic and political considerations, where various ideologies have played a role.

2014

The first perspective is diachronic, a look at the Chinese language in Qinghai over time. Because there are no sources that provide information about the early stages of the language, I will focus on the questions of when the Chinese language came to be spoken in Qinghai, and from what period the present variety of Chinese used in Qinghai descended. Because these are primarily historical questions, their answers are necessarily derived from historical sources. The second section takes a synchronic perspective, a view of the Chinese language in Qinghai through social and geographic space at the present time. This section will deal with the questions of what kind of Chinese is the Chinese in Qinghai, who uses it, and along what ethnic, geographic and social lines the intemal variations in the language are most strongly associatcd. These are more clearly linguistic and sociolinguistic questions, and the sources with which they are answered, primarily my own research along with essays f...