This work is written by Yuxin Jin, Nov. 2023. A colleague on the same project.

This work is also part of a larger project to discover the causes of the diminish of Shanghai Dialect. The rest of the works are listed below:

• Language Planning and Policy
• Internal Migration
• Linguistic Feature and Language Barriers
• Economic
• Ideology (This article)

Introduction

As for our group, we are seeking to figure out the cause of the diminish of local dialects in contemporary Chinese metropolitan environment by using Shanghai dialect as a case study. Indeed, currently, the use of dialects is vanishing. According to certain experts who field in this area, “Language, as a key code to particular histories, sensibilities and identities, is a logical focus of governments with modern is ambitions and nationalist ideologies. In the latter half of the twentieth century, language policy has become a dimension of state power with profound implications for relations between minority populations and their governments, so much so that language rights may serve as an index to the overall status of minorities within state polities, including the People's Republic of China (PRC).” (Hill, 2004) From scholars, there are various reasons why this situation exists. “The changing scene of language practice in Shanghai cannot be fully explained by actions of language planning. In fact, a set of factors drive the evolution of language use and among them three factors play the more important role: communal identity, political intervention, and economic conditions.” (Xiao-Quan, 2001) Yet the perspective I am going to analyze about is the ideology shift and language attitude.

Influence of the Attitude of the Government

In discussion of why Shanghai dialect is disappearing, one controversial issue has been people’s attitude towards the language. On the one hand, some argue that the attitude of the government has influenced society’s attitude towards the local dialect, diminishing the chances of speaking this language. Some researchers, such as Fang Xu, have maintained that “Native Shanghairen like me were raised to speak and treat the dialect as the default language of the city. But now I was shunned for speaking it in public.” “In the current Chinese context, state language policies that work to establish Putonghua’s dominance over regional dialects, such as the Shanghai dialect, reflect the leadership’s intention in strengthening nationalism and the promotion of China’s soft power through the Belt and Road Initiative.” “With Putonghua increasingly pushing the Shanghai dialect to the periphery, language loss is possible.” (2021)

Impact of the Change of Language Ideology

On the other hand, some contended that the language ideology is a cause since individuals believe that the language they use represent their social status. Some other scholars like William Bright (Schieffelin, 1998) have suggested that “Through educational obtainment, an individual’s possession of linguistic capital is an effective indicator of socioeconomic status, and one of the main tools to achieve it in Shanghai. Nancy Dorian notes that the hierarchy of languages corresponds to social statuses of their speakers, and the correlation goes both ways. If a speaker has power and prestige, it will be projected onto the language they speak, and vice versa. Or, to put it more simply, people are ranked by the language they speak. This ranking explains why many native Shanghairen avoid the Shanghai dialect and adopt the dominant language in the state’s Putonghua panopticon.” (Xu, 2021) “I draw on a concept of ideology, rather than merely a ‘culture of language,’ because ‘ideology,’ whatever else it may mean, suggests a connection with those power relations and interests that are central in a social order. Some such connection is surely relevant to honorific language.” (Schieffelin, 1998) These two opinions are related, since the leader’s attitude leads to the condition that every single citizen will redefine the social hierarchy according to the standard provided by the government. This subtly changes the language attitude of people and shifts the ideology, making individuals speaking Mandarin instead of Shanghai dialect. For instance, “The results of the matched-guise experiment show that language attitudes among the current university generation in Shanghai do not conform to the expected situation in which the H variety is ranked higher in social status while the L variety is ranked higher in group solidarity, as PTH is rated significantly higher than SHH on a dimension of social status, but SHH is not rated significantly higher than PTH on the dimension of group solidarity.” (Gilliland, 2006) “The speakers of the disadvantaged language, usually the minority, are subject to pressure, social, economic, or otherwise, to learn the majority language, and as a result of these pressures may eventually develop negative attitudes towards their own language. Accordingly, speakers of the minority language increasingly become bilingual, and may not pass their minority language onto their children, who might learn it incompletely or not at all. ” (Wellman, 2013) “Therefore, our results confirm that dialect is a channel through which people expose their identity.” (Chen et al., 2014)

Factors about Local Livers

However, there are other experts claiming that local dwellers considering their dialect prestigious is a main factor. Jianhua Bai (1994) ,for instance, has written that “Some of the subjects who have been to Guangzhou responded that, if a person knows both PTH and the local dialect there, he or she will certainly switch to the local dialect upon arrival at that city. They said that you are very likely to be treated coldly in a store or other services there if you speak PTH instead of the local dialect. This is so not because they do not understand you well, but because they consider their own dialect more prestigious. This is obviously a negative factor affecting the spread of PTH.” (Bai, 1994) “In some places of China, especially rural areas, there is deep-rooted provincialism. Some people consider their own dialect superior to all others, including PTH. Many subjects said that they would switch back to their local dialect when they visit their hometowns in order to appear similar to others in that speech community, even though the people there understand both PTH and the local dialect. If they speak PTH instead of the local dialect the neighbors, and even their parents and close relatives will sneer at them and reproach them as ‘weird’, ‘forgetting their origin’, ‘speaking with a bureaucratic tone’, etc. ” (Bai, 1994) Similarly, “Shanghai listeners perceived themselves similarly in particular on the traits ‘hardworking’, ‘intelligent’, ‘well-educated’ and ‘rich’ .” (Kristiansen, 2021, p. 279) In this way, new Shanghainese are possible to feel uncomfortable and have a negative attitude towards Shanghai dialect, indicating that they aren’t likely to speak this language in the future. In comparison, some other studies reveal that Shanghainese speak Shanghai dialect for certain use. “The Cantonese speakers in Kalmar’s study demonstrated recognition of the social advantages of PTH for pragmatic purpose, and the Cantonese and Shanghainese speakers in Bai’s study found PTH pragmatically advantageous; in the current study the Shanghainese speakers were clearly instrumentally motivated in their intensity in PTH use, while the Cantonese were instrumentally motivated to study PTH for a long time.” (Zhou, 2001) The conclusions are significantly different, too: “Integrative orientation was not specified in the two previous studies, which however revealed some local variety speakers’ disaffection for PTH speakers, whereas the current study finds that some integrative orientation, such as a favorable impression of the stereotyped PTH speakers, played a positive role in PTH achievement and PTH spread, though it did not correlate positively with every aspect of PTH use.” (Zhou, 2001)

Conclusion

Overall, considering all the factors discussed above, both language ideology and the citizen’s attitude have significant impact on the diminishing use of Shanghai dialect, while local dwellers also are crucial factors why newcomers aren’t willing to use this typical language.

Reference

Bai, J. (1994). Language Attitude and the Spread of Standard Chinese in China. Language Problems and Language Planning, 18(2), 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.18.2.03bai

Chen, Z., Lu, M., & Xu, L. (2014). Returns to dialect. China Economic Review, 30, 27–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2014.05.006

Gilliland, J. (2006). Language Attitudes and Ideologies in Shanghai, China [The Ohio State University]. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/etd/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=osu1391600649

Hill, A. M. (2004). Language Matters in China: An Anthropological Postscript. In M. Zhou & H. Sun (Eds.), Language Policy in the People’s Republic of China (Vol. 4, pp. 333–338). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-8039-5_19

Kristiansen, G. (2021). Cognitive sociolinguistics revisited. De Gruyter Mouton.

Schieffelin, B. B. (Ed.). (1998). Language ideologies: Practice and theory ; [full-day symposium on “language ideology: practice and theory” ... held ... in Chicago, Ill., november 1991] ]. Oxford Univ. Press.

Wellman, L. (2013). Pudong and Putonghua: Sound Change and Language Shift in Shanghai.

Xiao-Quan, C. (2001). Linguistic diversity in Shanghai. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 11(1), 17–24. https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.11.1.04xia

Xu, F. (2021). Silencing Shanghai: Language and identity in urban China. Lexington Books.

Zhou, M. (2001). The spread of Putonghua and language attitude changes in Shanghai and Guangzhou, China. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 11(2), 231–253. https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.11.2.07zho