Language and Status

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There is a book published back in 1995 "The Jade Peony" by Chinese-Canadian author Wayson Choy. Here is a small excerpt:

"Poh-Poh spoke her Sze-Yup, Four-County village dialect, to me and Jung, but not always to Kiam, the First Son. With him, she spoke Cantonese and a little Mandarin, which he was studying in the Mission Church basement. Whenever Stepmother was around, Poh-Poh used another but similar village dialect, in a more clipped fashion, as many adults do when they think you might be the village fool, too worthless or too young, or not from their district. The Old One had a wealth of dialects which thirty-five years of survial in China had taught her, and each dialect hinted at mixed shades of status and power, or the lack of both. Like many Chinatown old-timers, the lao wah-kiu, Poh-Poh could eloquently praise someone in one dialect and ruthlessly insult them in another."

This paragraph had me mesmorized upon first read; it's very powerfully worded. Anyway, I would like to hear from others what you think about this, especially those who know several dialects and have lived such an experience.

There is a Chinese word 富貴， which seems to convey the very idea of status and power, and which, being part of the vocabulary of the language seems to imply deep cultural truths about the excerpt. I'm curious to hear what others have to say about this topic.

[Quest]

Discrimination against speakers of other dialects or accents certainly exists, especially in urban centers, where "people who don't speak our dialect/accent must have come from a farm." This excludes people from other countries or people who came before the development boom and have adopted the local way of life, even though he/she may still speak with a strong foreign accent. At least that's the case in Guangzhou, but I think that remains true throughout China, HongKong & Taiwan. Standard urban accents usually carry some status within each dialectal circle, but across dialects the status fades because people don't understand and don't care.

[liuzhou]

Discrimination or prejudice against speakers of non-standard dialects or languages is not confined to China. In fact, I suspect it is universal.

I remember when I moved to London as a Scottish 18 year old, complete with my beautiful but non standard accent , facing some forms of discrimination.

More recently, here in Guangxi, I have been the butt of some jokes because I tend to speak Chinese with a Hunan accent (Hunan being where I learned most of my Chinese). Fortunately, I have the perfect answer. "If a Fulan accent is good enough for Mao Zedong, it's good enough for me!"

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Liuzhou,

What's a Fulan accent?

[ala]

What's a Fulan accent?

Hunan. Doesn't distinguish h/f, n/l.

[HashiriKata]

Very interesting!

I wonder what dialect is most commonly spoken in Shenzhen (深圳), a city with the majority of the population are immigrants; and what dialect people'd use there when they want to "indicate their high status". Anyone here has been there?

[johnd]

In Shenzhen there's accents from all over China, particularly Guangdong, Hunan and Sichuan. Plenty of "Fulan" taxi drivers - which really confused me at first. They'd repeat the place name with a Hunan accent and I wouldn't have a clue where we were going, but seemed to turn out OK! People tend to speak Mandarin first, and would maybe slip into Cantonese if they want to show that they're not just off the boat.

But as far as status goes, I think if you've got money to spend then you're the boss. And if you're driving a BMW, it definitely doesn't matter what your accent is.

[HashiriKata]

Thanks Johnd,

Your reply is the kind I was looking for. I've also heard that it's a new city without any culture, so I'm very curious and want see what "a city without culture" is really like. Does it have language schools for Mandarin, by the way? Have you been there long? How do you find it personally?

[Ncao]

All major Chinese cities have schools for Mandarin.

[johnd]

I've been in Shenzhen for more than 3 years, and spent all my holidays travelling around China. I'd say "city without culture" is too bleak a statement. Sure, there's not many old buildings, but I think it's the people bring their culture with them - and it develops from there. I find that it's a good place to live with a great can-do attitude.

For studying Mandarin, there's Shenzhen University and a few private training schools - all the teachers that I've had have been from the north with good standard accents.