Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860–1960

Tam, Gina Anne

doi:10.1017/9781108776400

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 149 publications

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“…Beginning in the late 19 th century, evolutionary logics underpinned the belief that China’s linguistic diversity could partly explain its failure to compete in a global order of nation‐states (Guo 2004, 46). From this perspective, topolects were “stagnant vestiges of history that the modern nation [would leave] behind in its march towards progress” (Tam 2020, 167). At the same time, fangyan played a key role in defining the nation’s linguistic identity by serving as emblems of authentic local cultures (Tam 2020, 114–122).…”

Section: Competing Standard Language Ideologies: Locating the Topolec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From this perspective, topolects were “stagnant vestiges of history that the modern nation [would leave] behind in its march towards progress” (Tam 2020, 167). At the same time, fangyan played a key role in defining the nation’s linguistic identity by serving as emblems of authentic local cultures (Tam 2020, 114–122). Despite the value of fangyan in defining local cultural identities, Chinese policy discourses consistently contrasted the fangyan with modernity and portrayed standard Mandarin as a force that would unify all inhabitants of China’s vast territories.…”

Section: Competing Standard Language Ideologies: Locating the Topolec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Topolects in Motion: Narrative Possibilities for Language Vitality among Mobile Chinese‐Canadians

Ward

Chow

2022

J Linguistic Anthropol

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This article examines the language autobiographies of 12 Chinese-Canadians to address how topolects (Ch. fangyan)-spoken language varieties marking place-based belongingformulate identity once removed from their original places. We found that narrators located topolects in their pasts and homelands, while associating standard Mandarin with mobility and the future. We argue that, by associating topolects and standard Mandarin with contrasting times and places, narrators reformatted prevailing standard language ideologies from mainland China to rationalize experiences of linguistic exclusion. Despite pressures for language standardization, the narrative grounding of topolects in kinship chronotopes offers possibilities for maintaining diverse Chinese languages amidst mobility. [Chinese languages, language and mobility, language autobiographies, language standardization, language vitality]

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Section: Competing Standard Language Ideologies: Locating the Topolec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Competing Standard Language Ideologies: Locating the Topolec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Topolects in Motion: Narrative Possibilities for Language Vitality among Mobile Chinese‐Canadians

Ward

Chow

2022

J Linguistic Anthropol

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“…See also Feng's account of the tension between recognition of the languages of ethnic minorities and the promotion of a standard Chinese (Feng, this volume). ( 7) The complex co-existence of fangyan and standard Mandarin has a long history, in China and Chinese nationalism; see Tam (2020).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Language Standardization and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts – Asian Perspectives

McLelland¹,

Hui²

2022

Language Standardisation and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts

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“…The history of Chinese script reforms is often told as a history of Chinese language reforms (DeFrancis 1950;Kaske 2008). From the vernacularization movement (baihua) to the designation of Mandarin as the national language in the 1920s, historians have largely focused on language as the most volatile and politicized medium of communication (Tam 2020). While the significance of language politics in modern China is beyond doubt, it is only recently that scholars have started to recognize the conceptual problems arising from prioritizing the history of language reforms over script reforms (Zhong 2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Chinese Latin Alphabet: A Revolutionary Script in the Global Information Age

Kuzuoglu

2022

J of Asian Stud

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This article rethinks the history of Chinese script reforms and proposes a new genealogy for the Chinese Latin Alphabet (CLA), invented in 1931 by Chinese and Russian revolutionaries in the Soviet Union. Situating script reforms within a global information age that emerged out of the nineteenth-century communications revolution, the article historicizes the CLA within a technologically and ideologically contrived Sino-Soviet space. In particular, it shows the intimate links between the CLA and the Unified New Turkic Alphabet (UNTA), which grew out of a latinization movement based in Baku, Azerbaijan. The primary purpose of the UNTA was to latinize the Arabic script of the Turkic people living in Soviet Central Asia, but it was immediately exported to the non-Turkic world as well in an effort to latinize languages across Eurasia and ignite revolutionary internationalism. This article investigates the forgotten figures involved in carrying the Latin alphabet from Baku to Shanghai and offers a new framework to scrutinize the history of language, scripts, and knowledge production across Eurasia.

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Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860–1960

Cited by 23 publications

References 149 publications

Topolects in Motion: Narrative Possibilities for Language Vitality among Mobile Chinese‐Canadians

Topolects in Motion: Narrative Possibilities for Language Vitality among Mobile Chinese‐Canadians

Introduction: Language Standardization and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts – Asian Perspectives

The Chinese Latin Alphabet: A Revolutionary Script in the Global Information Age

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