Chinese Under Globalization: Emerging Trends In Language Use In China

As China experiences tremendous economic and social transformation in the reform years, language use in China has also undergone remarkable changes in the past couple decades: the national obsession with learning the global English, which becomes both a resource for modernization and a source of contention; the expanding use of local languages and dialects in mass media, where standard Mandarin is promoted and legally prescribed as the principal language; the emergence of the Internet language that has become a creative source for constructing a distinct youth identity; the Cantonese writing movement that challenges the hegemony of the Chinese writing system, which is traditionally based on northern Mandarin, to name a few. The nine papers collected in this volume examine recent trends in language use in mainland China, and the associated social, economic, political, and cultural manifestations. Drawing on their backgrounds and expertise in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics,