On the Promotion of Putonghua in China: How a Standard Language Becomes a Vernacular

Abstract

Since the century, language policy in China has had a single aim: promotion of the national standard, called Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) in the second half of the century (see Rohsenow and Guo, this volume). In this chapter, I start by discussing whether this aim has been reached. This will allow me to reflect on a seemingly paradoxical phenomenon related to the promotion of Putonghua, namely: vernacularization of the standard language. The vernacularization process described here is not without precedent, even in the history of the Chinese language(s) (see Chen, 1999). Similarly, all languages which have undergone a geographical extension outside of their traditional territory, such as English, French, Spanish, Portuguese etc., can be shown to have passed through a similar cycle: a first phase of spread, accompanied by linguistic simplification, followed by a geographical fragmentation phase, leading to larger scale variation, and finally a vernacularization phase. This last phase sometimes leads to the development of new and more complex features in language structures, independent of the norms of the original standard (or superstrate) language. However divergent these new vernaculars get, they are nevertheless often regarded as variants of one language, as is the case with English. The question is then twofold. On the one hand, regarding the function of the superstrate language, one can wonder how much the language is still able to function as a lingua franca. Regarding the vernacular varieties of the language on the other hand, one could ask what differentiates them functionally from the substrate topolects. In this chapter, I shall seek an answer to both questions by examining in some detail the status and functions of the national language, as well as those of the emerging vernaculars. First of all, concerning the promotion process of Putonghua, I shall try to assess how much the national standard has really been accepted as a lingua franca by the speakers of other Chinese topolects, and what have been the major obstacles to its spread as such. Second, due to these obstacles, as well as geographical factors, I shall show how the spread of Putonghua appears to lead ultimately to the emergence of regional varieties of the standard language. It will be shown that this phenomenon