Research Methods for Chinese Sociolinguistics
Name：
Marinus van den Berg
Nationality：
Netherlands
Academic Title：Associate Professor
Home University
Leiden University
（From）：
Email Address： yamarien@yahoo.co.uk
Undergraduate
Master
English
Sociolinguistics, social survey methods
Lecture, class discussion, small assignments / reading assignments
(1) Continuous assessment, participation, handed in assignments or
presentations：60%
(2) Final Examination：40%
2 credits
Professor Marinus van den Berg is the organizer of the “Industrialization, Language
Contact, and Identity Formation in Europe and China” research project, which started
in 2005 and was supported by grants from the Netherlands organization for scientific
research (NWO), and grants from several Chinese Universities. Among these Nanjing
University, Fudan University, Shanghai University, both in Shanghai, Jinan
University, Guangzhou, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, and Jilin University,
Changchun. Professor Van den Berg also taught research method courses at these
universities and worked with graduate students on collecting, processing and
analyzing data. It is these experiences and data that form the basis for the course
being offered. A collection of essays by members of the research network appeared
in 2010 as “Industrialization and the Restructuring of Speech Communities in China
and Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing (with Daming Xu)”, which is the key text
for this course. Details available at Amazon.com through the Look Inside option.
Currently a Special Issue for the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication is in
preparation with the working title “The Restructuring of Chinese Speech
Communities”.
This course is an introduction to Chinese sociolinguistics, and starts with a basic
understanding of Chinese dialects and the position of the Chinese Standard Language
(PTH). It then moves on to discuss ways in which to investigate the changing Chinese
language situation. To that purpose, basic sociolinguistic concepts of language
varieties and the speech community will be related to
Industrialization/Urbanization, Language Contact, and Identity Formation. Rapid
urbanization in modern cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen raises the
question of the nature of the Speech Community in these cities, and in particular
questions the nature and direction of change. Students will be asked to use these
discussions and insights to write a research proposal that potentially could be used
as a source for data collection, leading to an MA or Ph.D. thesis. The course
therefore will also pay attention to the kind of data to be collected, to data
processing with SPSS, and to data analysis.
1. Introduction--Some basic sociolinguistic concepts and the Chinese
Sociolinguistic Setting.
2. Chinese dialects and Mutual Intelligibility
3. Language planning in China: From diglossia to language standardization.
4. Predicting change: In what direction can we expect the Chinese language situation
to develop?
5. Language and Urbanization
6. Approaches to the Speech Community:
7. Speech Communities and Language Contact:
8. Language in the Chinese countryside
9. The Research Proposal:
The role of the research proposal; background,
of study
research question; goal and purpose
10. The study of Language Spread
11.
Reseach Methods: Questionnaires
12. Questionnaire research: the Jilin University Survey
(Discussion of language behavior questions)
13. Data Processing: working with SPSS
14. Ordinal variables, Correlation and factor analysis
15. Research Method: Unobtrusive measurement
16. Language in Shanghai: Nanjing East Road and Xujiahui
17. Language in Guangzhou Department Stores
18. Language in Shenzhen: the Dongmen Market data
19. Review and question time
20. Examination.
Marinus van den Berg and Daming Xu (Eds.). (2010). “Industrialization and the
Restructuring of Speech Communities in China and Europe”. Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.
The New Sociolinguistics Reader, 2nd edition, 2009, edited by Nicolas Coupland and
Adam Jaworski. Palgrave Macmillan.