Silencing Shanghai: Language and Identity in Urban China
Subjects: Asian Studies, Urban Sociology, Cultural Geography, Sociolinguistics
This book investigates the paradoxical and counterintuitive contrast between Shanghai’s emergence as a global city and marginalization of the Shanghai dialect. The endangerment of the vernacular exposes how state-sponsored social exclusion silences a significant voice of the people and has shaken the linguistic foundation of their local identity.
Lexington Books — Special 30% Discount Offer: use code LXFANDF30
Pages: 276
978-1-7936-3533-4 • Paperback • March 2023
978-1-7936-3531-0 • Hardback • July 2021
978-1-7936-3532-7 • eBook • July 2021
Other ways to buy the book:
Reviews
Silencing Shanghai is a lucid and poignant account of the precipitous decline of the distinctive Shanghai dialect, or language, that once thoroughly permeated life in this city. This unique ethnography treats this urban dialect as a lens on the struggle to maintain a distinct urban identity and culture in the face of neoliberal globalization and state-led nation-building. The book examines both insiders -- the Shanghairen -- and newcomers -- the new migrants from other parts of China -- as they try to maintain or establish their positions in this ever-changing global city.
— James Farrer, Professor of Sociology at Sophia University in Tokyo and author of Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai and International Migrants in China's Global City: The New Shanghailanders
Tam, G. (2022). The China Quarterly, 251: 966-67.
Gong, EY. (2022). Language in Society, 51(4), 724-725.
Zhao, H. (2022). Asian Studies Review, 1–2.
Henry, E. (2022). Asian Ethnology, Vol. 81, No.1&2.
Vickers, E. (2022). China Information, 36(2):291-293.
Gu, JY & Shen, Q. (2021). International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, December 2021.
Krase, J. (2021). Urbanities - Journal of Urban Ethnography, Vol.11, No. 2, November 2021 .