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Article published In:
Developments in Diglossic Settings in the Asian Pacific Region
Edited by Marinus van den Berg
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 30:1/2] 2020
► pp. 172–216
Special issue articles

Natives, migrants and communication practices in the Xi’an speech community

The role of discourse communities and the Putonghua koine community in China

| Shaanxi Normal University

This paper reports the results of direct observations of language use and sociolinguistic interviews in Xi’an city, Shaanxi province, China. The data were collected in the autumn of 2018. Direct observations were done in four vegetable and fruit markets providing a data set of 1,708 cases. A sample of market customers was also interviewed resulting in 168 interviews. The interview data made clear that in migrant families, home-town dialects are well maintained, but that for interactions in the city, PTH is preferred as it is for work-related interactions. The observation data showed that ninety percent of interactions between customers and salespeople were performed in either the Xi’an dialect or PTH. These two varieties were used in various combinations confirming wide-spread use of multilingual exchanges. These exchanges are further specified as speech-community-internal interactions, home-dialect exchanges and lingua franca exchanges. Community integration of migrants is clarified through the concept of the discourse communities. The latter structure the modern Xi’an speech community and connect to the national level PTH Koine Community.

Keywords: sociolinguistic survey, migration, pre-1978 industrialization, western modernization movement, speech community, discourse community, koine community, Hukou system, Xi’an city
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The reseach area: Xi’an city
  • The Xi’an language situation
  • Method
  • Unobtrusive measurement
  • Sociolinguistic interviews
  • Procedure
  • Language use in the market
  • Language use and interaction type
  • Language use in conversations
    • Customers
    • Salespeople
  • Business transactions
  • Dialect use across markets
  • Single channel communication
  • Multichannel communication
    • BT-C exchanges
    • BT-S data
  • Market interviews
  • Language behavior profiles
  • Language across dialect groups
  • Speech, discourse and koine communities
  • Speech communities
  • Discourse communities
  • The PTH koine community
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 June 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00049.ber
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