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Part of
Contemporary Chinese Discourse and Social Practice in China
Edited by Linda Tsung and Wei Wang
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 4] 2015
► pp. 163–184

Linguistic choices in the Chinese workplace

A language ecology perspective

| University of New England
| China Machinery Industry Information Institute

This chapter reports on an investigation of the choice of linguistic codes including languages and dialects in the professional workplace in contemporary China. The study was informed by current research on language ecology, market value, and indexicality and based on a questionnaire survey and semistructured interviews with petrochemical professionals in Xi’an and Beijing. Several salient features regarding the use of linguistic codes by the professionals were identified: (1) putonghua and written Chinese are commonly used in the workplace; (2) English is not as commonly used as might have been imagined in the craze for the international language; (3) despite the recognition of the local dialects, beijinghua and shaanxihua, as being an important cultural asset, they are not used extensively in the workplace. On the basis of these results, the chapter argues for a linguistic ecological perspective on the choice of linguistic codes in the Chinese workplace and the need to consider the local and global dynamics of political, social, and economic forces in accounting for code choice in different settings.

Published online: 9 October 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.4.10zha
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