Organizer: Catherine Farris, University of Northern Iowa
Chair and Discussant: Mary Erbaugh, University of Oregon
As our most ubiquitous symbolic medium, language has a key role to play in the reproduction and transformation of social life and social actors. Yet China scholars in social sciences and humanities disciplines have generally paid little attention to the central importance of language in their analyses of Chinese societies. This panel is a small attempt to rectify that oversight, by introducing to Asian studies scholars new research that illuminates in various ways, the interaction between Chinese languages and sociocultural and historical processes. These papers focus on either macro level (Chan) or micro level (Mao, Farris) sociolinguistic processes in the production and reproduction of individuals and institutions in Chinese societies.
Chan Hui chen's paper, "Language Shift in Taiwan: Social and Political Determinants" addresses effects of the compulsory Guoyu (i.e., "Mandarin") language policy in Taiwan on shifting language loyalities, language use, and changing ethnic identities. She argues that qualitative and quantitative measurements indicate that ethnic identity, age, and education level are strongly related to proficiency in Guoyu and Minnanyu (mother tongue to most Taiwanese), attitudes towards the two languages, and code choice in different domains.
LuMing Mao's paper, "Face and Pronouns in Chinese" moves to an interpersonal focus, looking at Chinese concepts of face (lian and mianzi) and their link to the use of first person pronouns wo and women. He argues that Chinese face "is centered upon a self that is both a social object to others and a social (and psychological) object unto itself." His analysis draws upon and takes issue with Brown and Levinson's conceptualization of universals of politeness.
Catherine Farris's paper, "The Leading Edge: Peer Leaders in the Discursive Production of Gender in a Taiwanese Preschool" also addresses issues of interpersonal interaction and self concept. Here the focus is on the gendered self and ways in which preschool children use speech to construct and produce gendered subjectivities. She applies L. Vygotsky's concept of the "zone of proximal development" to preschool peer leaders who are more socially adept at discursive and nonverbal expressions of gender roles, and who act as a "leading edge" in socializing their less proficient peers.
These papers exemplify some of the exciting new areas of inquiry in China studies which take language in context as its point of departure. It is hoped that such research will stimulate other China and Asian scholars to seriously address the role of language in social life.
Hui chen Chan, National Chengchi University
After forty five years' compulsory Guoyu policy, the Taiwanese are experiencing a language shift from Minnanyu (mother tongue to the Taiwanese ethnic group) to Guoyu (the national language). Both qualitative and quantitative measurements indicate that the Taiwanese's ethnic identity, age, and education level are strongly related to their proficiency in the two languages, their attitudes towards the two languages, and their choices between the two languages in different domains. It is predicted that this language shift will continue, although at a slow rate, and that Minnanyu will temporarily survive on the oral level as a medium serving limited functions, mainly to satisfy partial needs for domestic business exchange, for cross generational communication with the old (especially those over 60 years old) in the Taiwanese families, and for religion. Eventually, the transformation of the Taiwanese's attitudes toward their own ethnic identity and their heavy dependence in Guoyu will bring about the functional demise of Minnanyu.
LuMing Mao, Miami University of Ohio
In this paper, I aim to explore an interesting link between the concept of Chinese face and the use of Chinese pronouns. Drawing upon and actually moving beyond Brown and Levinson's conceptualization of face, I propose that Chinese face consists of lian and mianzi and that it is centered upon a self that is both a social object to others and a social (and psychological) object unto itself. This concept of Chinese face differs considerably from Brown and Levinson's positive and negative face, and it informs and shapes, I want to suggest, much of what we do things in (Chinese) words.
One linguistic area that reflects the influence of this concept of Chinese face is the use of Chinese pronouns. In this paper, I want to focus specifically on the first person singular and plural pronouns wo and women. I will discuss a somewhat peculiar phenomenon in their usage; that is, wo and women can be used interchangeably and bidirectionally-a phenomenon that does not quite exist in English. I want to suggest that this dynamic flexible usage is informed by, and further enhances, Chinese lian and mianzi and that it conveys a Chinese sense of self that is, ostensibly at least, in symbiosis with the social.
Catherine Farris, University of Northern Iowa
This paper applies L. Vygotsky's concept of the "zone of proximal development" to contexts of peer interaction, in which peer leaders who are more socially adept at discursive and nonverbal expressions of gender roles, act as a "leading edge" in socializing their less proficient peers. Following Vygotsky, the development of higher mental processes, including the cognitive reorganization of the gender schema, is seen as originally social and only later, egocentric. Data is drawn from research at a four year preschool of Mandarin-speaking Chinese children in urban Taipei, Republic of China, and is based on journal notes and videotapes of naturally occurring conversations over a nine month period. The interactions of peer leaders in each age grade (ages two and a half to six and a half years old) are examined to show how precociously gendered subjects create a Zoped which allows their slower peers to reorganize their own gender schemas. Universal processes of gender development are seen to interact with local constructions of gender whereby children produce gendered Chinese subjectivities. Videotaped excerpts will accompany the presentation.
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