Alexander Gamst Page Alexander Gamst Page Gamst Alexander Language Relations in Guangzhou The Intimate and Official Dimension of Linguistic Codes in Urban China Master’s thesis Master’s Master’s thesis in Social Anthropology Language Relations in Guangzhou Trondheim, Spring 2011 NTNU Science and Technology Science Norwegian University of University Norwegian Faculty of Social Sciences of Social Sciences Faculty and Technology Management Management and Technology Department of Social Anthropology Figure 1: Map of downtown Guangzhou circa 1995, taken from Charlotte Ikels’ Map 2 in “Return of the God of Wealth (1996)” Abstract This thesis is based on fieldwork conducted in Guangzhou, one of China’s major urban areas. The city, as well as the Guangdong province of which Guangzhou is the capital, is associated with the dialect or language called Cantonese, made known in the west through Hong Kong cinema. The national language, Mandarin, is also widely spoken, and the disparity between these two languages are my major focus. Much of my time was spent at Karen’s Place, a souvenir shop near the American consulate on the island of Shamian. Here, and elsewhere in Guangzhou, I study how the use of the local and the national languages both affect and are affected by the situation wherein they occur. My argument, while anthropological at core, utilizes much research from sociolinguistics as well as the terminology thereof. There are nine major language groups in China, and while these are mutually unintelligible, they are nevertheless officially regarded as dialects of Beijing Mandarin. In Guangzhou most people speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, at least to a reasonable standard. My observations suggest that these languages have become hierarchically ranked along two axes, one of respectability, one of intimacy, and so may be said to comprise an official/private division. These axes vary in indirect proportion to each other, so that while Mandarin gives the speaker an air of respectability, Cantonese inspires more empathy. When English is used, such as was often the case in Karen’s Place, the linguistic situation is further complicated with the introduction of a third language. The customers at Karen’s Place were sorted into categories according to what language they used, which had an impact on the treatment they received. I hold this to be comparable to Sahlins’ various levels of reciprocity, as intimacy affects economic behaviour, but must be seen within a framework of guanxi, an informal network of reciprocal relationships in Chinese communities. In many social arenas, language use is situationally determined, for instance, Mandarin should be used in official settings and when addressing police officers and such. Part of this thesis extends beyond Shamian where I discuss the consequences of using the wrong language in a given situation, particularly when one uses the intimate language, Cantonese, in an official situation. This is an example of marked language, i.e. the use of language in a noticeable way attracting attention and eliciting a stronger response than unmarked. Marked language in such cases creates what might be termed cognitive discomfort, which may be resolved with either acceptance or rejection of the marked interaction, which I in turn explain with recourse to Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. i Acknowledgements Man is a social animal whose knowledge is not produced in solitary cogitation, but in interaction with others. Even those who think themselves independent incur debts of gratitude to others in their life, without whom the production of knowledge would be impossible, or difficult at the very least. First and foremost, thanks are owed to all the fine people in Guangzhou who made me part of their lives and without whom this work would, quite literally, be impossible. Thanks are owed to both the University, the department, those who helped finance this study and to the work of those researchers past and present upon whose work I am attempting to build. Perhaps my greatest debt is to my fellow MA students, as much for moral support as for their intellectual contributions. Having a tightly knit group of people in the same situation has been invaluable for me, and I imagine this holds true for the others as well. I would also like to thank them for their criticism and suggestions when reading extracts, and here Lise Damm Fredriksen deserves special mention, who took the time to read the entire manuscript, and although she did subsequently lose her notes, her time and effort are very much appreciated. When working on a project such as this, one is in danger of being blind to one’s discipline as a whole, becoming lost in one’s individual focus and ending up what Max Weber terms “a specialist without spirit”. Therefore, I’d also like to thank Lorenzo Cañas Bottos, whose ethnographic reading group provided a welcome diversion. Special thanks go to Professor Arnulf Kolstad from the psychology department, who not only took time out to listen to a lowly MA student talk about his fieldwork, but also contributed a preliminary draft of an article he was working on. Last but not least, I’d like to thank Stein Erik Johansen for all his help and guidance. ii Some Preliminary Notes on Romanization, Terms and Names Most Chinese terms used in this thesis are in the Cantonese language, which are rendered into the Roman alphabet using the Yale system. Such Mandarin terms as I use are transcribed using the Hanyu Pinyin romanization, which has now replaced the older Wade-Giles system and is the official Romanized script in China. Some words and place names rendered in the Wade-Giles system are so entrenched that I have kept them. Hong Kong is the most notable of these, as even in mainland China it is written in this way rather than the Pinyin romanization Xiang Gang. Sources from the 70s and earlier generally use the Wade-Giles system, so Kwangtung, where Freedman (1971) conducted his fieldwork, is the same place as Guangdong (Pinyin) and Gwóngdung (Yale). Previously, both the Province of Guangdong and its Capitol city of Guangzhou, where this study is based, were called Canton by westerners. When it comes to local conventions, places were often called by their Mandarin names even when speaking Cantonese. When describing people of East Asian appearance, the term “mongoloid” (one of Mongolian appearance) has acquired an unfortunate pejorative meaning, and I therefore substitute the word “sinoid” (of Chinese appearance). Chinese names begin with the family name, most often one syllable, and end with the personal name, often two, e.g. Mao Zedong. Here Mao is the family name which is received from the father, and Zedong is the personal name. This may be a source of confusion for westerners. During the early days of the People’s Republic, it was not uncommon for European and American politicians to refer to Mao as “Mr Zedong”. Many Chinese scholars writing for a western audience inverse their names so as to reduce this confusion, for example Yan Yunxiang appears as Yunxiang Yan on his books and articles. This may cause a new level of confusion, as when a name does not follow the one syllable plus two syllable format, it is not always clear if the author has reversed his or her name or not. In those cases where I am unsure, and have been unable to find sufficient biographic material on the author, I assume that the second name is the family name, and cite the author. It is also very common to take an English name and use the Chinese family name as a surname. Many of my informants use English names, and in these instances I have generally used these, as it was thus those in question introduced themselves, or were introduced, to me. iii Language Relations in Guangzhou The Intimate and Official Dimension of Linguistic Codes in Urban China Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................. iv Chapter 1: Arriving in the Field ............................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Fieldwork in Guangzhou ..................................................................................... 6 Chapter 3: Language and Anthropology ............................................................................. 12 Chapter 4: Situational Language and Sociolinguistics ....................................................... 30 Chapter 5: Karen’s Place ...................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 6: Reciprocity and Linguistic Discrepancy........................................................... 50 Chapter 7: Guanxi ................................................................................................................. 68 Chapter 8: The Entry/Exit Administration Bureau ........................................................... 86 Chapter 9: The Influence of Gender on Linguistic Habits in Guangzhou ....................... 90 Chapter 10: The Role of the Unconscious in Determining Action .................................. 100 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 104 iv Introduction Introduction The various writing systems used in China were gathered into one standard more than two thousand years ago, making Chinese script, hànzì, the oldest written system still in use. Nevertheless, the establishment of a spoken