This work is written by Jiarui Zhang, 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 (This article)
• Linguistic Feature and Language Barriers
• Economic
• Ideology

Introduction

Economy and technology have indeed made great contributions to the development of society. At the same time, language is also a very representative feature of a city. The different language environment creates the unique culture and personality of different cities. In Shanghai, Shanghai dialect, Mandarin and English are the most spoken languages, and the use of these languages together reflects the side of Shanghai, an inclusive and nostalgic international city. (Xie, n.d.) However, with the rapid development of modern metropolises, the local dialect such as Shanghai dialect is gradually declining. Scholar believes that “cultural and linguistic diversity should not be sacrificed for the sake of economic development.” (H. Xu, 2014) This paper will seek on the decline of Shanghai dialect under the influence of internal population migration in the metropolitan environment.

In China, only the movement of people who have changed their household registration is considered migration, and other temporary residence that does not change the nature of their household registration can only be considered population movement. Permanent residents who go through the legal process of change of residence enjoy the same rights, obligations and social benefits as indigenous people. (Chan, 2013)

Cause and Effect of the Internal Migration

China has been always experiencing internal migrations along the history. In resent years the tendency of internal migration is increasing in a rapid speed especially in metropolis for instance Shanghai. According to Shanghai’s 7th National Population census main data bulletin, among all permanent resident population, there is 42.1% of permanent residents from other provinces and cities in Shanghai, increasing 16.7%, compared to the last population census which is ten years before. (Shanghai Statistics Bureau, 2021)The reason peolpe migrate is because of the problem of “overpopulation vs. limited arable land”. People choose to move from small cities to big cities largely because of the employment structure in the cities. (Huang & Zhan, 2005) The Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region are famous for their rapid development of industrial production. Due to their geographical advantages, they have rivers extending outward. At the same time, they are located on the territorial border of China and have active trade exchanges with the surrounding countries and regions such as Japan, the United States, Canada and New Zealand. The prosperous development of foreign trade has led to the development of a considerable number of foreign-funded enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. Most of the jobs provided by these companies have the attractive conditions of high salary and high social status, which stimulates foreigners to migrate to the Yangtze River Delta and other trading areas. (Zhao, 2023) On the other hand, metropolitan areas such as the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, as important manufacturing bases, have a high demand for human resources of cheap labor. Many workers who migrate to the big cities do not have high education background and high education level, and most of them are engaged in cheap manual labor such as farming labor in their hometown. Some of them choose to develop in the big cities out of passives. The surplus population leads to the shortage of arable land, and some families are faced with career risks, so they are forced to migrate to the big cities to struggle for livelihoods. The other part of people want to get a better life and choose to move to big cities, because there are better career choices in big cities, while career opportunities in small cities are mostly occupied by people with background and capital. Big cities have better educational resources and a more open and inclusive social environment, and some people choose to migrate in order to have better living resources for their offspring. Under such social conditions, geographical environment and economic advantages, people migrated to the metropolis on a large scale. With the influx of more and more outsiders, the social culture is subtly influenced by the crowd. People from different sources bring their own regional cultural accents. In order to achieve social and cultural unity, the government began to promote Mandarin on a large scale. With the passage of time, Mandarin has gradually become the mainstream language of society, and local dialects have been continuously reduced, which is the natural selection in order to conform to the development of the mainstream of society.

Internal Migration Map on Architecture and Family Structure

The internal migration of Chinese people greatly influenced the architecture and social culture of the cities to which they were moved. One of the oldest landmarks in Shanghai is the Hutong. Hutong architecture can be regarded as the representative of closed architecture to a large extent, which is not only the encapsulation and concealment of the appearance of the building, but also refers to the constraints of the moral norms of the hierarchy. In this intimate interior space, many cultures have been passed down for a long time, including the transmission of local dialects. Chinese society is tightly knit, just as Chinese people value family ties and neighborhood relationships. (Bracken, 2013) In the closed social environment, a dialect has been well fermented, Shanghai dialect has become a proud characteristic of Shanghainese differentiate themselves from outsiders.(Gil, 2016) However, due to China's internal migration, this balance has been disrupted, and the rapid development of society can no longer accommodate these ancient buildings. Hutongs are facing demolition, and some of their indigenous people are being evicted. The gradual disappearance of Shanghai's local architecture has cut off the preservation of the Shanghai dialect, and families are no longer living under the same roof for several generations, so there is no cultural transmission between elders. In old China, the society was rural and the social structure was in line with face-to-face communities, that is, a person's neighbors were closely connected and they were acquaintances who knew each other. In such a society, the people who interact with each other every day were almost fixed, and people did not need to pay special attention to each other to know who was coming. (Xiaotong Fei et al., 1992) With the internal migration of the population, the composition of the society became complicated, lattice apartment buildings replaced the close-knit hutongs in the neighborhood, (F. Xu, 2021) the members of the society became distant, the family relationship was no longer composed of monocultural background, and the parents may be from outside Shanghai, and the communication with the family members must be in a popular language, which is Mandarin. The Shanghai dialect can no longer serve the purpose of keeping family members together, so its use continues to decline.

Conclusion

To sum up, the decline of Shanghai dialect is largely influenced by internal population migration. The job flexibility and abundant choices in the metropolis have led many people to migrate to the metropolis. The prosperous economy and trade brought by the superior geographical location have greatly improved the living conditions in the metropolis, allowing more people to migrate to the big city for the sake of quality education for their offspring. Internal population migration has affected the local architectural structure and families in Shanghai to a certain extent. The hutongs are becoming less and less, and the group life has become scattered and solitary. Such living habits and social structure have blocked the transmission of Shanghai dialect by blocking the language environment and family inheritance among relatives. Under the change of social structure brought about by internal population migration, Shanghai dialect and even local dialects around the world are suffering from reduction or even disappearance.

Reference

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