Against the Law? The Changing Linguistic Landscape of Cosmopolitan Shanghai

• In Event: 591 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology Paper Session. The Changing Face of Asian Cities: Toward New Theorizing

Abstract

Speaking Shanghai dialect is portrayed as inhospitality, and often hostile to the nearly 10 million recent migrants in the narratives of the state-owned mass media and online platforms such as Weibo, the Chinese twitter. The image of speaking Shanghai dialect as anti-cosmopolitan, and for many, politically incorrect, frustrates and confuses the native Shanghainese, who for decades have regarded the dialect as their mother tongue, and comfortably used it at home and in public. The debate on whether promoting or restricting speaking the local dialect suggests deeper conflicts between the two groups, in terms of the entitlement to public space and social services. My ethnographic research investigates if a vernacular linguistic tradition could exist in an ever-diversifying cosmopolis and the everyday experiences of native Shanghainese, assessing the current linguistic and cultural environment in Shanghai. I intend to demonstrate how a cosmopolitan Shanghai challenges the natives’ cultural identity, their claims to the city, and the conflicts with non-natives. I will illustrate the resilience and resistance among the native Shanghainese against the central government’s language policies. Ethnographic data will also show that a socio-linguistic hierarchy has been established between native and non-natives, culturally and geographically. In the end, I ask whether a linguistic heritage is the price Shanghai should pay to become a global city, or is the price too high?

Author

• Fang Xu, City University of New York-Graduate Center