Read this paper

More documents

Recommendations

Info

21 Briefly, the term “contrapositive” in logic can be explained as follows: for the statement “if p, then q,” the contrapositive is “if not q, then not p.” The general sociolinguistic principle states that if a woman prefers speaking the more standard linguistic form (p), she shows a tendency toward upward social mobility (q). But in the case of Qiao Qiao, who has no motivation for upward mobility (not q), she does not usually speak Putonghua Mandarin (not p). 22 The first chapter of Zhuangzi, Xiaoyao You (translated as “The Happy Excursion,” by Feng Youlan), conveys the Daoist idea that “there are varying degrees in the achievement of happiness. A free development of our natures may lead us to a relative kind of happiness; absolute happiness is achieved through higher understanding of the nature of things” (Feng 1966: 105). By contrast, Qiao Qiao is very provincial. She was dismissed from middle school when her illicit affair with her gym teacher (who later becomes her gangster boyfriend) was exposed. Although she has less education than Xiao Ji and Bin Bin, she can argue furiously in Putonghua with a doctor over the hospital’s neglect of her father’s illness. Otherwise, however, she insists on speaking the local dialect. Here, a sociolinguistic gender approach may shed some light. A widely affirmed principle of women’s linguistic conformity states that “women show a lower rate of stigmatized variants and a higher rate of prestige variants than men” (Labov 2001: 266). Women’s careful linguistic behavior, Labov (2001: 278) argues, is “a reflection of their greater assumption of responsibility for the upward mobility of their children—or at least of preparing the symbolic capital necessary for that mobility.” Yet Qiao Qiao’s use of language serves as a contrapositive example of <strong>this</strong> principle. 21 Showing a more radical attitude of nonconformity than Xiao Ji and Bin Bin, she makes no effort to reject her stigmatized local speech in favor of the more prestigious pattern. In contrast with the naïveté and awkwardness of the two young men, Qiao Qiao displays more social sophistication and ease with local practices. In the hotel scene in which the infatuated Xiao Ji finally gets a chance to touch Qiao Qiao, he is befuddled by the shower controls, which she manipulates with ease (fig. 13). Furthermore, as Labov (2001: 366) observes, “the leaders of linguistic change are often female members of the highest status local group, upwardly mobile, with dense network connections within the local neighborhood, but an even wider variety of social contacts beyond the local area.” Again, <strong>this</strong> is obviously not the case with Qiao Qiao, who shows no interest in building network connections with the outside world. Indeed, the blaring televisions of Xiao Ji and Bin Bin’s homes are absent in Qiao Qiao’s home. Her unsophisticated understanding of the Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zi’s Xiaoyao You 22 as “free to do whatever you want” comes from her gangster boyfriend. Qiao Qiao, with an almost exclusive use of the local dialect, resigns herself to the local subsociety. The gender linguistic 186 • The Rhetoric of Local Languages MCLC 18.2.indd 186 12/20/06 2:01:38 PM
Figure 13: Qiao Qiao demonstrates the use of a shower to Xiao Ji in Unknown Pleasures (2002) difference between Qiao Qiao and Xiao Ji and Bin Bin further distinguishes stratified layers of the disaffected Chinese youth. As much as Putonghua and its association with higher education facilitate the teenagers’ status seeking, the educational system, according to Bourdieu (1991: 24–25), “involves a certain kind of objectification” and becomes a “mechanism for creating and sustaining inequalities,” enabling “those who benefit most from the system to convince themselves of their own intrinsic worthiness, while preventing those who benefit least from grasping the basis of their own deprivation.” In the film, such inequality is exemplified by a minor character, Bin Bin’s girlfriend, who speaks Putonghua properly and correctly. As a studious and upright high school student, she is excited by China’s entry into the WTO and hopes to major in international trade in a Beijing university. By passing the national college entrance examination, she can leave her hometown. However, for more typical teenagers, such as Xiao Ji and Bin Bin, who fail the exam, unaccented Putonghua rather indexes a sense of “spatialized alienation and nonlocatability,” terms used in Michael Silverstein’s observation of an “accent eradication” program in mid-1980s New York. The standard Modern Chinese Literature and Culture • 187 MCLC 18.2.indd 187 12/20/06 2:01:39 PM
Page 1 and 2: The Rhetoric of Local Languages as
Page 3 and 4: languages provide unexpected, unpre
Page 5 and 6: living in small towns. Integral to
Page 7 and 8: unintelligible even to a Shanxi aud
Page 9 and 10: According to Wang, “the microphon
Page 11 and 12: Figure 5: Xiao Wu (played by Wang H
Page 13 and 14: with the diegetic silence of the pr
Page 15 and 16: Figure 7: The pair Zhang Jun (playe
Page 17 and 18: If linguistic unity can be achieved
Page 19 and 20: that the protagonists’ hybridized
Page 21 and 22: native Taiyuan Mandarin even though
Page 23: Figure 11: Xiao Ji watches news cov
Page 27 and 28: Figure 14: The closing scene in Pla
Page 29 and 30: Here, subaltern theory may be helpf
Page 31 and 32: to professional formulas. Zhu Wen,
Page 33 and 34: script suggest that the story is se
Page 35 and 36: Wang Guangli’s Heng shu heng (Go
Page 37 and 38: Haixian 海鲜 (Seafood). Dir. Zhu
Page 39 and 40: Dai, Jinhua. 2002. “A Scene in th
Page 41 and 42: Lee, Kevin. 2003. “Jia Zhangke.
Page 43 and 44: 指南 (Filmmaking guide for under
Page 45 and 46: MCLC 18.2.indd 207 12/20/06 2:01:42

Read this paper

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?