Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960
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Description
Taking aim at the conventional narrative that standard, national languages transform 'peasants' into citizens, Gina Anne Tam centers the history of the Chinese nation and national identity on fangyan - languages like Shanghainese, Cantonese, and dozens of others that are categorically different from the Chinese national language, Mandarin. She traces how, on the one hand, linguists, policy-makers, bureaucrats and workaday educators framed fangyan as non-standard 'variants' of the Chinese language, subsidiary in symbolic importance to standard Mandarin. She simultaneously highlights, on the other hand, the folksong collectors, playwrights, hip-hop artists and popular protesters who argued that fangyan were more authentic and representative of China's national culture and its history. From the late Qing through the height of the Maoist period, these intertwined visions of the Chinese nation - one spoken in one voice, one spoken in many - interacted and shaped one another, and in the process, shaped the basis for national identity itself.
Publication Date
4-16-2020
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
New York
Keywords
China, Chinese dialects, language studies, dialects, nationalism, Chinese nationalism
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | East Asian Languages and Societies
Original Publication Information
Cambridge University Press
Recommended Citation
Tam, G. A. (2020). Dialect and nationalism in China, 1860-1960. Cambridge University Press.