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Part of
World Englishes in their Local Multilingual Ecologies
Edited by Peter Siemund, Gardy Stein and Manuela Vida-Mannl
[Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 9] 2025
► pp. 143–165

Chapter 7
Multilingualism in Shanghai

A comparative perspective on university students’ language profiles and attitudes

 | Fudan UniversityShanghai
 | University of Hamburg
Building on previous research on the multilingual global cities of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai (Leimgruber, Siemund & Terassa 2018; Siemund & Leimgruber 2020), the present study looks into the multilingual/multidialectal texture of Shanghai, a recently emerged global city in China. To understand the societal multilingualism of Shanghai from the perspective of individuals’ linguistic repertoires, this study implements a mixed-method approach, using questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews as the data collection instruments. The questionnaires were distributed to 398 students from one comprehensive university and one polytechnic university in Shanghai and follow-up interviews were conducted with 34 students from both universities. The analysis of the data indicates that Shanghai university students uniformly possess a Chinese-English bilingual profile, while a small number of individuals develop trilingual profiles of Chinese, English, and a language other than English. It also suggests that different language varieties are assigned hierarchical values and, in particular, regional dialects continue to be marginalized due to their limited pragmatic values. The findings reveal the far-reaching impacts of government-level foreign language education planning on individuals’ multilingual profiles. Similar to other global cities such as Singapore and Dubai, students in Shanghai tend to develop English-centered bilingual language profiles, typically in combination with the national lingua franca. These bilingual profiles may be further enriched by heritage languages or world languages that are deemed economically useful.
Keywords: language attitudes, language profiles, multilingualism, Shanghai, university students
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language ecology and multilingual global cities
    • 2.1Societal multilingualism vs. individual multilingualism
    • 2.2Previous studies on Singapore and Dubai
  • 3.Foreign language education policy and multilingualism in Chinese universities
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Research sites
    • 4.2Research design and instrument
    • 4.3Participants
    • 4.4Data analysis
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Multilingual profiles
      • 5.1.1Language profiles and foreign language repertoires
      • 5.1.2The mediating role of language proficiency
    • 5.2Sociolinguistic use and attitudes towards different languages/dialects
      • 5.2.1Domains of use
      • 5.2.2Sociolinguistic attitudes
        • 5.2.2.1Attitudes towards Putonghua
        • 5.2.2.2Attitudes to English
        • 5.2.2.3Attitudes towards Sinitic dialects
        • 5.2.2.4Attitudes to LOTEs
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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