Before reading:
A little background of this annotated bibliography
If you have had a quick look of my website, you may know that I'm from Shenzhen, a young city in the southeastern part of China. When talking about China, everyone instantly thinks about Beijing, Shanghai or Hongkong. However, Shenzhen is also one of the most important cities in China. One characteristic of Shenzhen is that its citizens are immigrants from almost every part of Right above is a picture of Shenzhen China.
Therefore, I grew up in an environment full of different dialects. And this background, together with my personal narrative in project 1 "A Step Forward", makes me think about the question "How should we view the relationship between Mandarin and dialects in China?" Starting with a question which I didn't fully have a answer to, I conducted an academic research and wrote the annotated bibliography below.
Therefore, I grew up in an environment full of different dialects. And this background, together with my personal narrative in project 1 "A Step Forward", makes me think about the question "How should we view the relationship between Mandarin and dialects in China?" Starting with a question which I didn't fully have a answer to, I conducted an academic research and wrote the annotated bibliography below.
You can click the button above to look at my personal narrative in Project 1 . This narrative helps me to come up with my research question in this annotated bibliography. It's a story about how I have been influenced by Cantonese, a Chinese dialect, since elementary school.
This annotated map can help you to visualize the complexity of dialects in China.
Hanging in the Balance
--The Relationship Between Mandarin and Dialects in China
Introduction:
In my personal narrative in Project 1 “A Step Forward”, my relationship with my Cantonese classmates underwent a significant change. At first, we did not get along with each other because I spoke Mandarin and they spoke Cantonese. But after I tried to learn Cantonese and approach them, our relationship started to improve. Finally we became friends and accepted each other’s languages. This change in personal relationship, which took place at the same time as a change in the relationship between two languages in the classroom, makes me think about a similar question in a larger picture, that is, how we should view the relationship between the official language (Mandarin) and dialects in China. In this annotated bibliography, I cite three sources to pursue my question. The first source is about how the public attitudes towards dialects are changed due to an economic boom. The second examines the relationship between dialects and Mandarin from the point of a policymaker. And the last one uses a survey to show how the ethnic minority views their own languages. These sources explore this question from different angles and complement one another to help me draw the conclusion in the end.
In my personal narrative in Project 1 “A Step Forward”, my relationship with my Cantonese classmates underwent a significant change. At first, we did not get along with each other because I spoke Mandarin and they spoke Cantonese. But after I tried to learn Cantonese and approach them, our relationship started to improve. Finally we became friends and accepted each other’s languages. This change in personal relationship, which took place at the same time as a change in the relationship between two languages in the classroom, makes me think about a similar question in a larger picture, that is, how we should view the relationship between the official language (Mandarin) and dialects in China. In this annotated bibliography, I cite three sources to pursue my question. The first source is about how the public attitudes towards dialects are changed due to an economic boom. The second examines the relationship between dialects and Mandarin from the point of a policymaker. And the last one uses a survey to show how the ethnic minority views their own languages. These sources explore this question from different angles and complement one another to help me draw the conclusion in the end.
Source 1:
Erbaugh, Mary S. "Southern Chinese Dialects as a Medium for Reconciliation within Greater China." Language in Society. 24.1 (1995): 79-94. Print.
This article consists mainly of two parts. Firstly, Erbaugh claims that southern dialects in China have received little support from the government in history. Even though they play a vital role in China and bear uncanny resemblance to Mandarin, the politicians have been struggling to control the use of these dialects in order to guarantee an unified and “pure” Chinese language. However, he argues that the government has started to adopt benign attitudes towards dialects after an economic boom in the southern part of China, whose success is in part attributed to the use of dialects. The second part is about how the linguistic minorities began to be increasingly proud of their local cultures and languages since the economic boom, which also pushed toward dialect prevalence. The author has a similar summary as mine; however, he aims to focus more on the political influence of the success of dialects, whereas I think he actually emphasizes more its impact on social life.
Erbaugh, Mary S. "Southern Chinese Dialects as a Medium for Reconciliation within Greater China." Language in Society. 24.1 (1995): 79-94. Print.
This article consists mainly of two parts. Firstly, Erbaugh claims that southern dialects in China have received little support from the government in history. Even though they play a vital role in China and bear uncanny resemblance to Mandarin, the politicians have been struggling to control the use of these dialects in order to guarantee an unified and “pure” Chinese language. However, he argues that the government has started to adopt benign attitudes towards dialects after an economic boom in the southern part of China, whose success is in part attributed to the use of dialects. The second part is about how the linguistic minorities began to be increasingly proud of their local cultures and languages since the economic boom, which also pushed toward dialect prevalence. The author has a similar summary as mine; however, he aims to focus more on the political influence of the success of dialects, whereas I think he actually emphasizes more its impact on social life.
Source 2:
Guo, Longsheng. "The Relationship between Putonghua and Chinese Dialects." Language Policy in the People's Republic of China Theory and Practice since 1949. Ed. Minglang Zhou. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. 45-55. Print.
This chapter from a compiled book is about the politicians’ redefinition of dialects in China. Guo examined three stages of the evolution of the relationship between Mandarin and dialects: the initial understanding in the 1950s, the process of reconsideration in the 1980s, and the final attitude in the mid-1990s. Guo cites many texts to authorize how policymakers in China believe the uniformity of language is healthy, and the diversity of language is harmful in the first place. However, a redefinition takes place when the modernization in the southern part of China proves that diverse dialects actually help the improvement of the society instead of hindering it. Therefore, the politicians gradually change their minds and start to emphasize the promotion of Mandarin while stipulating certain conditions where dialects could be employed as communication tools. At last, it is finally recognized that there is a mutual facilitating relationship between Mandarin and dialects, and Mandarin is not the dominant language anymore. I think the author’s abstract describes concisely what this chapter aims to talk about.
(Something interesting: A Chinese version of this summary: 从文集中挑选出来的这个章节主要讲述了中国政治家对本国方言地位的定义过程。作者郭主要研究了方言与普通话之间关系转变的三个主要过程:1950年代的最初定义,80年代定义的改变阶段以及90年代所达成的最新定义。郭引用了许多材料来证实50年代的时候,政府态度坚决的认为方言的运用对有害而无益。然而,由方言而促进的现代化进程使政治家们意识到方言不但不会阻止社会的发展,反而会对其有所促进。所以,从意识到这点开始,这些政治家逐渐转变了自己的观点,开始在保证普通话主导地位的同时开始允方言的运用。直到90年代最终,最终确认了方言与普通话之间相互促进的关系。到此为止,普通话不再是占绝对主导地位的语言了。我认为,作者对这篇文章的概括与我的基本一致。 )
Source 3:
Yang, Shuhan, Ling Li, Aisige Yalikunjiang, Xunyu Tao, Quan Li, and Siyuan Dong. "Ethnic Identity of Minority No-Fee Preservice Students." Chinese Education & Society. 46.2/3 (2013): 76-89. Print.
This article is an analysis of the result of a survey conducted in the form of a questionnaire. The authors enumerate statistics from the survey to explain how the minorities view their relationship with the majority, including that of the language. They insist that the minority students have a strong sense of identity with both their ethnicity and the Chinese nation, and the correlation between the two is positive. Moreover, the authors highlight the fact that these linguistic minorities are still unsatisfied with the current status of their languages, since Mandarin and dialects are equal in theory but unequal in practice. According to the abstract of this chapter, the authors aim to explore how ethnic minorities define themselves in different aspects, but I think they end up stressing more on the language section.
Conclusion:
After analyzing these three sources, I can now briefly answer the question I raised in the beginning. The relationship between Mandarin and dialects is very complicated. We cannot simply perceive them as two opposing forces since they are mutually complementary. But neither can we view them as languages staying in harmony since minorities are still struggling to achieve the real equality between Mandarin and dialects. However, this conclusion is partial. As we can see, the actual feeling of individuals (minority students) has huge differences from what linguistic experts assume (Erbaugh and Guo). Therefore, further research may focus more on more personal attitudes towards the relationship between Mandarin and dialects. In this way, we may get a more comprehensive answer. It might also be interesting to compare the relationship between official languages and dialects in China with that in other countries. One may wonder how the relationship between dialects and Mandarin may develop in the future. From my point of view, the future evolution of their relationship hangs in the balance. We never know how it might develop, just like it never occurred to the Mandarin speakers in the 1950s that dialects may one day become as important as Mandarin.
Wait! There's more!
Now you have finished reading of my project. Are you a little interested in multilingualism, my writing class topic? If so, you can click the button below to learn more about my class and see more works of my classmates and professor.