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CHINESE AS A LINGUA FRANCA IN GREATER CHINA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2006

David C. S. Li
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Abstract

This discussion provides current perspectives on the use of Chinese as a lingua franca among the Han peoples of greater China. As a national lingua franca, Mandarin Chinese or pŭtōnghuąChinese morpho-syllables intended to be read in pŭtōnghuą or Mandarin are represented in pìnyīn; those which are meant to be read in Cantonese are represented in Jyutping () with two numbers in superscript indicating the tone contour (Fan et al., 1997). is unsurpassed in terms of the number of speakers. It is however not yet widely spoken in many dialect areas of China. This is why the promotion of pŭtōnghuą among dialect speakers continues to be an important part of the language policy and planning of the People's Republic. In Taiwan, as a result of some four decades of hegemonic enforcement of the National Language Movement until 1987, an absolute majority of the Taiwanese can understand and speak Mandarin, but Southern Min continues to be commonly used in the southern parts of the island, partly because for many Taiwanese, language choice is closely bound up with national and ethnolinguistic identity. In the two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong, and Macao, Cantonese continues to serve as a lingua franca among the Chinese there. It is the only dialect which has attained a level of prestige that rivals that of the standard national language, and which has evolved written forms of its own that are commonly used in informal genres of media discourses.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 26 , January 2006 , pp. 149 - 176
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Chen Su-chiao, He Deyuan, K.K. Luke, Tim Shi, and Tsao Feng-fu for their critical comments and constructive feedback on an earlier draft. I alone am responsible for any inadequacies that remain.

References

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