Taste, discourse and middle‐class identity: An ethnography of Chinese Saabists

Abstract

This study adopts Bourdieu's conceptualization of taste and distinction to examine the discursive construction of Chinese middle‐class identities. Drawing on an ethnographic fieldwork of young urban professionals who display a shared passion for Saab cars, this article presents three examples to instantiate the ways that the participants employ linguistic and discursive resources to construct an urban middle‐class identity revolving around consumption and commodification: the first example is an interview about their taste for their Saab cars; the second is a participant observation of the Saab fans’ linguistic exchanges in which they demonstrate their ‘taste for each other’ – recognition of each other's in‐group membership and social identity; the third example is an online observation of their multimodal display of other lifestyle commodities. All three examples highlight the importance of language in creating a sense of distinction and in negotiating middle‐class identities among Chinese young urban professionals.