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Abstract
In 1956, the Chinese Communist state launched its official language policy, which included the promulgation of a standard spoken language, called Putonghua. Their justification for this policy and their methods for implementation were guided by intellectual and ideological frameworks that formed during decades preceding the policy's rollout. In particular, Communist language reform was predicated on the conceptualization of Putonghua as a holistic language meant to serve the national body—and of local dialects, called fangyan in Chinese, as dependent on Putonghua for their very definition. This article interrogates the history of this framework. Focusing on dialect surveys from the 1930s, Chinese interpretations of Marxist linguistic theory in the early years of the Communist state, and methods of Putonghua promulgation in the late 1950s, this article reconstructs the epistemological regimes that gave meaning to the concept of independence and autonomy as they related to language in modern China.
Acknowledgments
I thank the Fulbright-Hays commission and the staff at the Shanghai Municipal Archives, the Guangzhou Provincial Archives, and Berkeley's Bancroft library for making research for this article possible. I also thank Alan Baumler, Y. Yvon Wang, Alexander Statman, Molly Taylor-Poleski, Lisa Lynn Wilcut, Madihah Akhter, Sarah Pittock, and Thomas Mullaney for feedback on early drafts of this article, as well as two anonymous reviewers who offered suggestions on improving its scope and argument.
Notes
1 “Guowuyuan guanyu tuiguang Putonghua de zhishi” (State Council directive concerning promulgation of Mandarin), February 29, 1956, file B1-2-1901, Shanghai Municipal archives.
2 There is a lively debate about translating fangyan as dialect. The most vocal opponent is Victor Mair, who called this a mistranslation that ranges from inaccurate to “grossly inappropriate.” This paper takes no position on the accuracy of the translation; rather, it reflects the ways my historical actors viewed the term. Victor Mair, “What is a Chinese ‘Dialect/Topolect’? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms,” Sino-Platonic Papers 29 (1991): 7.
3 Xiandai Hanyu cihui (Modern Chinese lexicon) (Beijing: Beijing University Publishing, 2004), 60.
4 Cen Qixiang, Fangyan diaocha fangfa (Dialect survey methodology) (Beijing: Wenzi gaige chubanshe, 1956), 3.
5 Gao Mingkai and Shi Anshi, eds., Yuyanxue gailun (Introduction to linguistics) (Beijing: Zhonghua chubanshe, 1963), 229.
6 Yuan Jiahua, Hanyu fangyan gaiyao (Essentials of Chinese fangyan), 2nd ed. (Beijing: wenzi gaige chubanshe, 1983), 6–7.
7 Jing Tsu, Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 12.
8 Fabio Lanza, Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 115–21.
9 Chang-tai Hung, Going to the People: Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature, 1918–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).
10 Yang Xiong, Fangyan (Beijing: International Cultural Press, 1993).
11 Xu Shen, Shuowen jiezi (Explication of written characters) (Beijing: Zhonghua chubanshe, 1987).
12 Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 212–21.
13 Yuen Ren Chao, “My Fieldwork on the Chinese Dialects,” Computational Analysis of Asian and African Languages 2 (1975): 3.
14 Yuen Ren Chao diary, 11 September 1920, notebook September 11–October 7, carton 35, Yuen Ren Chao Papers, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA.
15 Yuen Ren Chao diary, September 11, 1920.
16 The movement is detailed in John Defrancis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950).
17 Zhou Youguang later summarized these problems as the “four difficulties”: character compositions are too complicated, characters are too numerous, pronunciation is not standardized, and reference materials are too difficult to use. Zhou Youguang, Zhongguo yuwen de shidai yanjin (Historical evolution of Chinese languages and scripts) (Beijing: Tsinghua chubanshe, 1997), 5.
18 Much ink has been spilled over the vernacular literature and romanization movements of the late Qing. See DeFrancis, Nationalism and Language Reform; Elisabeth Kaske, Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919 (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Frederick Masini, The Formation of the Chinese Lexicon and Its Evolution Toward a National Language: The Period from 1840–1898 (Berkeley: Project on Linguistic Analysis, University of California, 1993).
19 Li Jinxi, Guoyu yundong shigang (History of the national language movement) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934); Chow Tse-Tung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 271–88; Ni Haishu, Ladinghua xinwenzi gailun (Summary of Latinxua New Writing) (Shanghai: Shidai chubanshe, 1949); Zhou Youguang, Zhongguo pinyin wenzi yanjiu (Research on Chinese romanization) (Shanghai: Dongfang shudian chubanshe, 1952).
20 DeFrancis, Nationalism and Language Reform, 55–68; Li Jinxi, Guoyu yundong shigang, 50–8; Kaske, Politics of Language, 405–16.
21 Most notably they added the rusheng, a glottal stop at the end of syllables characteristic of southern dialects. Li Jinxi, Guoyu yundong shigang, 53–8; Kaske, Politics of Language, 413; Xing Dao, “Duyin tongyihui gongding guoyin zimu zhi gaishuo” (Summary of the collectively discussed national language script at the Conference on Language Reform), Dongfang zazhi 10, no. 8 (1914): 11–5.
22 Yuen Ren Chao, “The Problem of the Chinese Language: I. Scientific Study of Chinese Philology,” Chinese Students Monthly 11, no. 7 (1916): 438.
23 Chao's was the second recording of the national language; after the chairman of the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, Wu Zhihui (1865–1953), published Dictionary of National Phonetics in 1921, there was a demand for an oral recording to ensure correct pronunciation. The first, created by Wang Pu (1875–1929), was disregarded by Chao and his friends as inaccurate. Guoyu liushengpian (Phonographic course in the national language) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1925).
24 Oral history transcript published as Yuen Ren Chao, Yuen Ren Chao, Chinese Linguist, Phonologist, Composer and Author: An Interview Conducted by Rosemary Levenson (Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, 1977), 78.
25 Yuen Ren Chao, “What is Correct Chinese?,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 81, no. 3 (1961): 175.
26 Chao, Yuen Ren Chao, Chinese Linguist, 77–8. For an explanation of the origins of the term Shuren hui, see Qin Xianci, Xiandai wentan binfen lu: zuojia jianying pian (Rich records of modern literary circles: author essay highlights) (Taipei: Showwe Information, 2008), 7–9.
27 This happened with little fanfare. In 1926 a National Language Movement Assembly met in Beijing and announced: “We wanted to use a fangyan used in a modern society, and that is the fangyan of Beiping…. Beiping is at the center of transportation, culture, scholarship, art, and politics, and a standardized language usually needs to be connected to these various elements.” Li Jinxi, Guoyu yundong shigang, 24–5; Chao, Yuen Ren Chao, Chinese Linguist, 78.
28 Namely, he was instrumental in creating a new phonetic system to accompany it, called Gwoyeu romatzyh (Guoyu luomazi; National language romanization system).
29 Yuen Ren Chao [Jaw Yuanrenn], Shin Gwoyeu liousheng piann kehbenn (New Gwoyeu romatzyh phonographic textbook) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, n.d.).
30 Yuen Ren Chao and Li Jinxi, “Zhonghua minguo guoyu yanjiuhui shizhounian jinian ge (Quanguo guoyu yundong dahui Beijing yong)” (Republic of China's National Language Research Society 10-year anniversary commemorative song [for use at the Nationwide National Language Movement Assembly in Beijing]) Guoyu zhoukan 29 (1925): 8.
31 Yuen Ren Chao, Xiandai Wuyu de yanjiu (Studies on the modern Wu dialect) (Beijing [Beiping]: Qinghua xuexiao yanjiuyuan, 1928). The list of characters was based loosely on the Qieyun zhizhangtu, a tenth-century rhyming table. Gao Benhan [Bernhard Karlgren], Zhongguo yinyunxue de yanjiu (Études sur la phonologie chinoise), trans. Yuen Ren Chao, Li Fangkuei, and Luo Changpei (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1940). A summary of how Karlgren used the table can be found in N. G. D. Malmqvist, Bernhard Karlgren: Portrait of a Scholar (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2011), 160.
32 Yuen Ren Chao, Zhongxiang fangyan ji (Records of Zhongxiang fangyan), Institute of History and Philology Individual Publication (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1939); Yuen Ren Chao, Ding Shengshu, Yang Shifeng, et al., Hubei fangyan diaocha baogao (Report on a survey of Hubei fangyan) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1948).
33 Chao, Xiandai Wuyu, 1–4.
34 The use of initials, finals, and tones to indicate Chinese pronunciation has a history that stretches back at least to the Tang dynasty. David Prager Branner, “Introduction: What Are the Rime Tables and What Do They Mean?,” in David Prager Branner, ed., The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic Philosophy and Historical-Comparative Phonology (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006), 1–36.
35 Karlgren, Zhongguo yinyunxue, 139–45.
36 Tong Lam, A Passion for Facts: Social Surveys and the Construction of the Nation-State, 1900–1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 2–3; Grace Shen, Unearthing the Nation: Modern Geology and Nationalism in Republican China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 4–5.
37 Henry M. Hoenigswald, “On the History of the Comparative Method,” Anthropological Linguistics 5, no. 1 (1963): 1–11.
38 Yuen Ren Chao, “Nanjing yinxi” (Phonology of Nanjing's language), Kexue 13, no. 9 (1929): 1005–36.
39 While 1949 was an ideological breaking point, William Kirby reminded us that the CCP state structure was “not without heirs.” William Kirby, “Continuity and Change in Modern China: Chinese Economic Planning on the Mainland and on Taiwan, 1943–1958,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 24 (1990): 121–41.
40 Joseph Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics (New York: International Publishers, 1951).
41 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 11–4.
42 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 22–3.
43 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 15.
44 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 15.
45 This arboreal metaphor, called the stammbaum theory, has served as the foundation for comparative linguistics since the 1860s. See Frederick Newmeyer, The Politics of Linguistics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), chap. 1.
46 For Marr's biography and an explanation of his theories, see Lawrence L. Thomas, The Linguistic Theories of N. J. Marr (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957); Katerina Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 201–23; Vera Tolz, Russian Academicians and the Revolution: Combining Professionalism and Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 89–107.
47 Clark, Petersburg, 212; W. K. Matthews “The Japhetic Theory,” Slavonic and East European Review 27, no. 68 (1948): 177.
48 Clark, Petersburg, 213.
49 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 22.
50 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 10.
51 Matthews, “The Japhetic Theory,” 173.
52 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 22.
53 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 16.
54 David Brandenberger, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 2.
55 The emphasis on the top-down in historiography is similarly noted by Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 2.
56 Liu Jin, “Tan minzu gongtongyu” (On the common language of nationalities), Zhongguo yuwen (1953): 16–7; Wang Li “Lun Hanyu biaozhunyu” (On the Chinese standard language), Zhongguo yuwen (1954): 8. Zhongguo yuwen also published translated works by Soviet scholars, including Nikolai Iosifovich Konrad, Lun Hanyu (On the Chinese language), trans. Peng Chunan (Beijing: Zhonghua chubanshe, 1954).
57 According to Konrad, Chinese became a minzuyu after the 1919 May Fourth movement, which “not only overthrew foreign imperialism, but also domestic feudalism.” It was then that China entered the capitalist stage of production and began to share the four commonalities. Konrad, Lun Hanyu, 14–5.
58 Thomas Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 10–1.
59 It is certainly no accident that the concept of “national language” was given an ethnic, rather than political, connotation at the very moment that the CCP was developing its own policy for other minzu that lived within its borders. See Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation.
60 Summaries of this movement can be found in DeFrancis, Nationalism and Language Reform, 87–108; Ni, Ladinghua xinwenzi gailun; Jin Liu, Signifying the Local: Media Productions Rendered in Local Languages in Mainland China in the New Millennium (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 45–8.
61 Qu Qiubai, Zhongguo ladinghua de zimu (Chinese latinized script) (Moscow: KYTY chubanshe, 1929).
62 Jing Tsu offers an insightful interpretation of the movement as an alternative to those of DeFrancis, Jin, and Ni, by tying it to a broader push to divorce Chinese language reform from a purely nationalist perspective. She argues that, like the contemporaneous romanization of Dunganese, a Sinitic language spoken by Chinese Muslims in the Soviet Union, Latinxua represented a “globalist vision” of language, which forces us to reconsider the assumed relationship between language and place. There was much more to this process than simply the creation of a national language. Jing Tsu, “Romanization without Rome: China's Latin New Script and Soviet Central Asia,” in Eric Tagliacozzo, Helen F. Siu, and Peter C. Perdue, eds., Asia Inside Out: Connected Places (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 321–53.
63 Few scholars demonstrate this better than Guo Moruo. An outspoken leftist critic and prominent May Fourth author, Guo is best known for his contribution to the vernacular literature movement in the 1920s and 1930s. Before 1949, his support for romanization of Chinese was clearly stated, though his participation in the 1948 Cantonese literature movement also implied his support for Chinese multilingualism. His promotion to head the CAS in 1949, however, motivated a shift in rhetoric away from the celebration of diversity. See Guo Moruo, “Wei Zhongguo wenzi de genben gaige de puping daolu” (Paving the way for fundamental reform of the Chinese language), in Zhongguo wenzi gaige de diyi bu (First steps of Chinese language reform) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1954), 70; Don Snow, Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), 106–7.
64 Guo, “Wei Zhongguo wenzi,” 71.
65 Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, 16.
66 Zhou Youguang, Zhongguo pinyin, 127–9.
67 Zhou Zumo, “Genju sidalin de xueshuo lun Hanyu biaozhunyu he fangyan wenti” (Problem of Chinese standard language and dialect according to Stalin's theories), Zhongguo yuwen (1954): 20.
68 Shao Rongfen, “Tongyi minzuyu de xingcheng guocheng” (Formative process of unified languages of nationalities), Zhongguo yuwen (1952): 20–21.
69 Shao, “Tongyi minzuyu,” 21.
70 Joseph Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: The Problem of Historical Significance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).
71 “Guowuyuan guanyu tuiguang Putonghua.”
72 This was not the first time the Chinese central government had proposed such a database for language reform. The GMD government, in an eight-part plan to promulgate guoyu (national language), planned a systematic survey of China's dialects in 1948. “Guangdongsheng tuixing guoyu jiaoyu shishi jihua” (Educational implementation plan for promulgation of guoyu in Guangdong Province), in “Guangzhoushi zhengfu jiaoyuju xunling, Jiao si yi zi di wubaqiqi hao” (Order from Guangzhou Municipal Government's Education Bureau, Education Bureau Four, second notice, no. 5877), May 22, 1947, files from the Bureau of Education, Guangzhou Municipal Archives.
73 Gaodeng jiaoyubu, jiaoyubu (Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Education), Guanyu Hanyu fangyan diaocha de lianhe zhishi (Joint directive on the Chinese dialect survey), 30 March 1956, file B105-7-298-1, Shanghai Municipal Archives.
74 Most did finish within six months of the deadline. “Quanguo Hanyu fangyan chubu pucha jiben wanzheng” (Nationwide Chinese dialect preliminary survey is basically completed), Zhongguo yuwen 10 (1959): 507.
75 These schedules are summarized in “Yinfa Guangdong fangyan diaocha shidian gongzuo huibao zhaiyao” (Distributed report and summary of Guangdong dialect survey preliminary work), 2 February 1957, file 314-1-170-198-203, Guangdong Provincial Archives.
76 Guangdongsheng fangyan diaocha gongzuo zongjie (Summary of dialect survey work from Guangdong Province), September 1956–June 1957, file 314-1-170-185-190, Guangdong Provincial Archives.
77 Although this book was not published until 1957, its contents were published periodically from 1956 to 1957 in Zhongguo yuwen. Li Rong, Hanyu fangyan diaocha shouce (Chinese dialect survey handbook) (Beijing: Science Publishers, 1957).
78 Li Rong, Hanyu fangyan diaocha shouce, ix.
79 Ding Shengshu and Li Rong, Hanyu fangyan diaocha jianbiao (Chinese dialect survey simplified table) (Beijing: CAS Language Research Institute, 1956); Ding Shengshu and Li Rong, Hanyu fangyan diaocha ziyin zhengli kapian (Chinese dialect survey pronunciation organizational cards) (Beijing: CAS Language Research Institute, 1956).
80 While the books themselves list no author, they are typically attributed to Chao. They are listed as his publications in his yearbook, and he kept dozens in his personal papers. Zhao Yuanren nianpu (Yearbook of Yuen Ren Chao), in Zhao Xinna and Huang Peiyun ed. (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1998), 170; 83/30, box 31, Yuen Ren Chao Papers, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA.
81 In the first section, researchers recorded only the tones of a list of characters paired in homophonic groups. The second and third sections were similarly arranged, focusing on initials and finals, respectively.
82 These materials, and their instructions, were not simply abstract guidelines. Research notes indicate that they closely dictated how researchers conducted work on the ground. A sampling of reports from Guangzhou Province shows researchers followed the procedures. See “Shaoguanshi fangyan diaocha zongjie” (Summary of dialect survey of Shaoguan city), n.d., file 314-1-170-143-150, Guangdong Provincial Archives; “Chengmaixian fangyan diaocha shidian zongjie” (Summary of the preliminary dialect survey of Chengmai County), 23 March 1957, file 314-1-170-237-242, Guangdong Provincial Archives.
83 Jin Youjing, “Zenyang shiyong Hanyu fangyan diaocha ziyin zhengli kapian” (How to use the Chinese dialect survey pronunciation organizational cards), Zhongguo yuwen (1957): 40.
84 Jin Youjing, “Zenyang shiyong,” 40–3.
85 Some research notes demonstrate a cursory look at specialized vocabulary and folk culture, but these are absent from published conclusions. See “Chengmaixian fangyan diaocha shidian zongjie,” bullet point 2.
86 Jin Youjing, “Zenyang shiyong,” 40.
87 Although Chao was, by this time, in the United States, Li Rong and Ding Shengshu continued to be key players in development of dialectology in Maoist China; indeed, both men were associated with the CAS until their deaths.
88 Guo Moruo emphasized this, writing that an outline of the rules by which fangyan differed would make Putonghua legible to those who spoke drastically different languages. Guo, “Wei Zhongguo wenzi,” 71.
89 As of 1966, 62 of these handbooks had been formally published. Later estimates put that total over 70. See Lin Liantong, Xiandai Hanyu shiyong shouce (Modern Chinese use manual) (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2009); Qian Zengyi, Hanyu Guanhua fangyan yanjiu (Research on Chinese Guanhua dialects) (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2010), 158–9.
90 I consulted the following handbooks. “Hunan shifan xueyuan Zhongwenxi Hanyu fangyan pucha zu bian (Hunan Normal University Chinese department's Chinese dialect survey team),” Hunanren zenyang xuexi Putonghua (How Hunanese people learn to speak Putonghua) (Hunan: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1961); “Jiangsusheng Shanghaishi fangyan diaocha zhidaozu (Leader's team of the Jiangsu Province, Shanghai city's dialect survey),” Rugaoren xuexi Putonghua shouce (Handbook for the people of Rugao to study Putonghua) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1959); “Jiangsusheng Shanghaishi fangyan diaocha zhidaozu,” Nantongren xuexi Putonghua shouce (Handbook for the people of Nantong to study Putonghua) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1959); “Shandongsheng fangyan diaocha zhidaozu zhubian (Shandong Province's dialect survey leader's team),” Jiaodongren zenyang xuexi Putonghua (How the people of Jiaodong learn to speak Putonghua) (Shandong: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1960).
91 “Fangyan diaocha shishi fangan” (File on implementation of the dialect survey) in “Jiangsusheng jiaoyuting guanyu fangyan diaocha zhidaozu kaihui tongzhi” (Jiangsu Province Education Bureau notice on the meeting of the dialect survey leader's team), October 1956, file B105-7-287-1, Shanghai Municipal Archives.
92 Rugaoren xuexi Putonghua shouce, 9.
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Gina Anne Tam
Gina Anne Tam is Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Trinity University. Her dissertation, entitled “Sounding the Nation: Dialect and the Making of Modern China” and defended at Stanford University, explores the ways in which the concept of “dialect” was fundamental to the formation of Chinese nationalism and modern identity. Her research interests include the history of identity, popular culture, and education in modern China.