Hongyuan Dong

• Linguistic situation in China
• New media research in other disciplines
• Linguistic Landscape and “Virtual Linguistic
Community (VLC)”
• Case study of Chinese Wiki
• Discussions of the pros and cons of VLC

• Linguistic Imperialism (e.g. Phillipson 1992, 2003 on English in the EU)
• National Language and Minority Rights (e.g.
Steven May 2006, esp. on African and Native
American languages)
• Linguistic Landscape (e.g. Ivkovic and
Lotherington 2009)
Dominant languages cause the shift and eventual loss of minority languages.

• The Monolithic view: Han Chinese and minority languages such as Tibetan,
Mongolian and Uyghur
Majority
The Han Chinese
The “Chinese” Language
Minorities
The non-Han minorities
The minority languages
• Leading to research on LPP on minority languages in China, e.g. Zhou 2003

• The Pluralistic view: Sinitic Languages vs. Non-
Sinitic languages (e.g. Mair 1991)
Majority
The Han Chinese
The Sinitic Languages
Minorities
The non-Han minorities
The minority languages
• Leading to research on regional cultures and identities of Chinese (e.g. Liu 2013) and
Sinophone studies (e.g. Shih 2013)

• Source/Credits: Wikipedia article on languages of China

• Mandarin (northern and southwestern China)
• Cantonese (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong)
• Min (Fujian, Taiwan, Hainan)
• Wu (Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu)
• Hakka (Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Taiwan)
• Gan (Jiangxi)
• Xiang (Hunan)
“Mandarin, Fuchow, Cantonese, Shanghai, Suchow, and the other major fangyan…Certainly they are no closer to each other than Dutch is to English or Italian to Spanish”
(Mair 1991)

• Putonghua (“common speech”) is the national language in China.
• Putonghua is a standardized language with
Beijing Mandarin as its base of pronunciation.
• National Commission on Language and Script
Work, within the Ministry of Education is in charge of the standardization of Putonghua.
• There are many other varieties of Mandarin in northern China. They are mostly mutually intelligible with Beijing Mandarin.

• Law of the People‘s Republic of China on the
Standard Spoken and Written Chinese
Language
• Adopted at the 18th Meeting of Standing
Committee of the Ninth National People’s
Congress on October 31, 2000.

Chapter 1 Article 8
– All the nationalities shall have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages.
– The spoken and written languages of the ethnic peoples shall be used in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution, the Law on
Regional National Autonomy and other laws.

• All the Han people are regarded as one nationality. Therefore the article above does not grant each different region their freedom to use their own regional variety of Chinese.
• Compare: if English is imposed on all EU countries?

• “Minority language” is usually taken to be the language spoken by an ethnic minority, e.g.
Tibetan, Mongolian and Uyghur.
• But in LPP, a “minority” is “not based on numerical size, but on clearly observable differences among groups in relation to power, status, and entitlement.” (May 2006: 255)
• Thus in this sense, the various Sinitic languages that are different from the National Language can be considered minority languages, especially those non-Mandarin dialects.

• Stage I: increasing pressure on minority-language speakers to speak the majority language, particularly in formal language domains.
• Stage II: Bilingualism characterized by a decreasing number of minority-language speakers, esp. among the younger generation, and decrease of fluency
• Stage III: replacement of minority language by majority language
• (Baker & Prys Jones, 1998; Stephen May 2006)

• Most varieties of Chinese. Especially those in the south, are in the second stage of language shift as described above.
• Local efforts to resist the dominance of the national language have sprung up in various places.

In July 2010, a government proposal to increase
Putonghua programming on Guangzhou Television's main and news channels sparked widespread protests in Guangzhou, and to a lesser extent in Hong Kong. The proposal was rejected eventually.
Photo source: http://chinamusictech.blogspot.com

• Oriental Morning Post, May
9, 2011: “Some elementary schools offer Shanghainese classes to students”
• Zhou Libo, a Shanghainese stand-up comedian who debuted in 2006, is an advocate and practitioner of the Shanghainese language and culture

• In political science and international affairs, scholars have long been debating the role of new media in social change (e.g. Atton 2003,
Kraidy 2002, Shirky 2011, Joseph 2012,
Gladwell 2010).

• The same characteristics of new media, especially social media, that have enabled the kind of social changes (e.g. Joseph 2012) can also be used to the advantage of minority language users.

• Liu (2012: 59-78) lists many ways the Internet has been used by Chinese “dialect” speakers to promote linguistic diversity.
– Xue Cun’s internet song in Northeastern Mandarin
– Dialect versions of a famous monolog from Steven
Chow’s (1995) movie A Chinese Odyssey circulating on the internet
– Writing in dialects, pinyin, English on line.
– Mock “standard tests” on dialect competence
– Dialect rap songs on web communities
– Regional online communities such as
Shanghaining.com

• Any online community that shares a common primary language can be called a virtual linguistic community, an instance of Linguistic Landscape.
• A VLC does not necessarily have focus on language, and in many cases, they focus on production of content.
• Building VLC’s by minority-language users (not necessarily native speakers) can be an effective way of promoting linguistic diversity.
• Cf. Virtual Speech community (Paolillo 1999)

• Diversity in using Putonghua
– Use of non-standard language;
– creating non-standard words;
– mixing in elements (e.g. Pinyin, English, etc.);
• Diversity in using local languages (e.g. online)
– making and distributing artistic productions such as songs created in a local language on line;
– creating cyberspace for publication in their local languages, e.g. Wikipedia pages in local languages.
– Youtube videos as non-written productions.
– Creating dedicated local websites (e.g. Shanghaining.com)

• The wikipedia content community can be viewed as a virtual linguistic community, especially when they focus on creating contents in a non-standard variety of Chinese.
• Thus a statistical analysis of such communities can help us understand the nature of such VLCs.
• Data on the following pages are retrieved from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias as of
March 9, 2015

175
195
N/A
N/A
N/A
Wiki Rank Chinese variety Articles Registered Users Operating Status
15 Mandarin 814,324 2,007,603 In use
79
119
143
161
Cantonese
Southern Min
Gan
Hakka
35,280
12,798
6,305
4,512
100,829
21,324
21,862
13,473
In use
In use
In use
In use
Wu
Eastern Min
Northern Min
Pu-Xian Min
Xiang
3,536
2,507
89
56
50
31,800
8,907
N/A
N/A
N/A
In use
In use
Being incubated
Being incubated
Being incubated

• All major Chinese dialects are represented.
• Mandarin content dominates.
• Cantonese and Southern Min contents are the largest regional varieties.
• Surprisingly, content written in the Gan variety
(a much smaller and less known variety of
Chinese) surpasses that of Hakka and Wu.

• The relative sizes of these content communities generally correspond to those of the content.
• The only exception is that Wu ranks below
Cantonese but above all the other regional varieties.

(all Chinese speaking communities in all countries)
Chinese varieties
Mandarin
Cantonese
Min (all varieties)
Gan
Hakka
Wu
Xiang
Other (Pinghua, Huizhou)
Proportions of First-Language Speakers
74.7%
5.0%
6.0%
1.7%
2.5%
6.5%
3.0%
0.6% (Pinghua 0.2%; Huizhou 0.4%)
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese and it is also based on Lewis,
M. Paul; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2013), Ethnologue: Languages of the
World (Seventeenth ed.), Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

• The proportion of the real community of
Mandarin is smaller than the virtual community.
• Therefore it suggests that Mandarin is even more dominant online than in other spheres.

143
161
175
195
Wiki
Rank
15
79
119
Chinese variety
Mandarin
Articles Registered
Users
814,324 2,007,603
Cantonese 35,280 100,829
Southern Min 12,798 21,324
Gan
Hakka
6,305 21,862
4,512 13,473
Wu 3,536 31,800
Eastern Min 2,507 8,907
Active Users Participation Rate
24
16
22
11
7949
167
38
0.40%
0.17%
0.18%
0.11%
0.12%
0.07%
0.12%

• Participation rate is generally very low. It is not surprising because of the general weak nature of virtual connections and the lack of motivation
• Mandarin participation is much higher than all the others.

143
161
175
195
Wiki
Rank
15
79
119
Chinese variety
Mandarin
Articles Registered
Users
814,324 2,007,603
Cantonese 35,280 100,829
Southern Min 12,798 21,324
Gan
Hakka
6,305 21,862
4,512 13,473
Wu 3,536 31,800
Eastern Min 2,507 8,907
Active Users Depth
24
16
22
11
7949
167
38
9
95
16
134
32
31
219
The "Depth" column (Edits/Articles × Non-Articles/Articles × [1−Stubratio]) is a rough indicator of a Wikipedia’s quality, showing how frequently its articles are updated. It does not refer to academic quality.

• Mandarin has high participation
• Most other varieties have low participation
• But Gan has extremely high participation, showing that active user dedication is high.

Pros:
• Unregulated (legislation of online activitities is usually slower. Censorship normally does not interfere non-political content, e.g. the purely linguistic)
• low coast (the hegemonic power of the national language command resources, while the minority languages lack resources)
• Cross-boundaries and connected-ness (brings
“everyone” together)

Cons:
• Weak connections
– It is easy to get a huge number of participants, but they are not strongly motivated, as shown above.
– “slacktivism” instead of activism (Joseph 2012)
– “the revolution will not be tweeted” (Gladwell 2010)
• Lack of organizational structure and hierarchy
• Being “virtual” (it does not replace the real linguistic community. )
• Censorship (blocking of wikipedia in China, although not for linguistic reasons)

• Specifically for the Chinese wiki space
– Largely a “written” community
– Many Chinese “dialects” don’t have a writing system.
– Even with those that do, lack of literacy education in these “dialects” will make it hard for readers to read the content.

TYPES OF LANGUAGES
Standardized dominant language
Minority languages
TYPES OF COMMUNITY
Virtual linguistic community
Real Linguistic community
TYPES OF DIVERSITY
Use of non-standard elements
Use of minority languages