Publications

Publication details [#60967]

Song, Jing and Yingmei Zhu. 2016. Attitude, maintenance, and use of Beijing dialect and Putonghua among younger generation Beijing-born residents. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 26 (1) : 32–55.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/japc

Annotation

In this study, 269 Beijing born respondents were interviewed and asked questions about their language attitude and language behavior. Research categories, apart from ‘attitude’, were ‘accent maintenance’, ‘accent selection’, and ‘code-switching’, whereas the variables employed were ‘gender’, ‘age group’, ‘origin’ of parents, ‘district’ grown-up, ‘spouse’ background, ‘education’ level, ‘job profile’, and ‘network density’. It was found that Beijing dialect in Beijing’s central city districts, coexists with the national language Putonghua, or, Standard Chinese, has high language status among native young people in Beijing and a wide range of uses. The main factors which effect respondents’ language behavior are ‘network density’, ‘place-of-origin’, and ‘occupation’. It also determined a high level of confusion between Beijing dialect accent and Putonghua accent, which was related to the mode of Putonghua teaching and Putonghua promotion. It is concluded that Beijing dialect and Putonghua will form two functional varieties, playing different roles in different language environments.