Performing linguistic and cultural authenticity: Contemporary Mongolian wedding ceremonies in Inner Mongolia By Gegentuul Hongye Bai Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Human Science This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2017 Table of Contents Abstract....................................................................................................................... V Statement of Candidate .......................................................................................... VII Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ VIII List of Figures............................................................................................................. X List of Tables ........................................................................................................... XII Glossary of Mongolian and Chinese terms .......................................................... XIII Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 Research problem and rationale .......................................................................... 1 1.2 Orientation to Inner Mongolia ............................................................................ 3 1.3 Outline of thesis ................................................................................................ 10 Chapter Two: Literature review .................................................................................. 12 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 12 2.2 Language contact and language shift in Inner Mongolia .................................. 12 2.2.1 Overview of the emergence of Inner Mongolia within China .................... 12 2.2.2 Chinese colonization and language contact in Inner Mongolia ................ 13 2.2.3 Language contact and urbanization ........................................................... 16 2.3 Ritual performance, authenticity and language ideology .................................. 19 2.3.1 Ritual and the performance of authenticity in contexts of language endangerment ................................................................................................................ 19 2.3.2 Minority languages and cultures on the market ......................................... 21 2.4 Ritual performance in wedding ceremonies ...................................................... 24 2.4.1 Weddings in transforming societies............................................................ 25 2.4.2 Mongolian weddings .................................................................................. 29 2.5 Summary and research questions ...................................................................... 31 Chapter Three: Methodology ...................................................................................... 34 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 34 3.1 Approach: critical sociolinguistic ethnography.............................................. 34 3.2 Fieldwork and data collection ........................................................................ 36 II 3.2.1 Audio and video recordings of weddings ................................................. 36 3.2.2 Semi-structured interviews ...................................................................... 39 3.2.3 Participant observation ........................................................................... 45 3.2.4 Documents and artefacts ......................................................................... 48 3.3 Researcher positionality ................................................................................. 50 3.4 Methods of analysis ........................................................................................ 53 3.4.1 Content analysis ....................................................................................... 53 3.4.2 Linguistic landscape analysis .................................................................. 53 3.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 54 Chapter Four: Producing the perfect Mongolian wedding ......................................... 55 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 55 4.2 Mediated images of Mongolian weddings ........................................................ 55 4.3 Dressing up and decorating the venue .............................................................. 58 4.3.1 Wedding costumes ...................................................................................... 58 4.3.2 Venue and stage decorations ...................................................................... 65 4.4 Wider contexts of the symbolic production of Mongolian imagery ................. 71 4.4.1 Promotion of costume-wearing .................................................................. 71 4.4.2 Costume competitions, intangible heritage and tourism ............................ 74 4.4.3 Costume production.................................................................................... 78 4.5 Wedding guests ................................................................................................. 87 4.5.1 The gift or hongbao exchange .................................................................... 87 4.5.2 The proliferation of banquets ..................................................................... 93 4.6 Summary ........................................................................................................... 97 Chapter Five: Performing the wedding rituals ............................................................ 99 5.1 Introduction and orientation to Mongolian wedding traditions ..................... 99 5.2 Wedding rituals in the home ........................................................................ 101 5.3 Wedding rituals on stage .............................................................................. 107 5.4 Summary ...................................................................................................... 113 Chapter Six: Staging language and genre choice during the wedding speech.......... 116 6.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 116 III 6.2 Language and genre choice in the preliminaries ............................................. 117 6.2.1 Monolingual Mongolian preliminaries .................................................... 117 6.2.2 Bilingual preliminaries ............................................................................. 120 6.2.3 Chinese-dominant preliminaries .............................................................. 124 6.3 Language and genre choice in couple-specific commentary .......................... 127 6.4 Language and genre choice in interactive elements ........................................ 131 6.4.1 Deity worship............................................................................................ 132 6.4.2 Chinese interactive elements .................................................................... 136 6.5 Language and genres choice in blessings and good wishes ............................ 138 6.6 Comments about language and genre choice .................................................. 142 6.6.1 Comments about genre choice and tradition ............................................ 142 6.6.2 Comments about language choice ............................................................ 145 6.7 Summary ......................................................................................................... 147 Chapter Seven: Conclusion ....................................................................................... 148 7.1 Revisiting the research questions .................................................................... 148 7.1.1 What linguistic and cultural choices can be observed in Mongolian wedding ceremonies? .................................................................................................. 148 7.1.2 What ideologies are embedded in these semiotic practices? ................. 151 7.1.3 How do wedding practices and ideologies serve to produce and reproduce Mongolian “authenticity” and social hierarchies? .................................. 154 7.2 Implications and future research directions ................................................. 156 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 160 Appendix 1: Transcription and Translation Conventions .................................. 166 Appendix 2: Final Ethics Approval Letter ........................................................... 168 Appendix 3: Subject Information Statement ....................................................... 171 Appendix 4: Guiding questions for individual and focus group interviews ...... 174 Appendix 5: Flyers for video collection ................................................................ 176 Appendix 6: Flyers for recruiting wedding professionals ................................... 177 IV Abstract This study examines the linguistic and cultural practices of contemporary Mongolian wedding ceremonies in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous