Discussion: The local practice of “Global Chinese”
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Jackie Jia Lou
Abstract
This special issue provides a timely and valuable contribution to our understanding of the emergence of Chinese as a global language and the entanglement of language ideologies and practice with economic incentives, political ideologies, and cultural identities behind it. Taking us from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Taiwan, and to Vancouver, Canada, each of the papers situates the discussion in diverse geopolitical contexts and offers concrete analysis of how the shift in the political and economic landscape of nation-states on the macro level impacts individual decisions and practices on the micro level. Drawing upon a range of key concepts and themes in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, this special issue also prompts us to reflect upon the parallels and divergences between Chinese as an emerging global language and the status quo of English. In this discussion, I attempt to bring together these diverse perspectives and approaches through the lens of Bourdieu’s social theory of practice, focussing particularly on the concepts of cultural capital, field, and habitus.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Thematic Section
- Chinese as a global language: Negotiating ideologies and identities
- Visualizing language ideologies and verbalizing perceived linguistic boundaries: The case of Mandarin Chinese in contemporary Taiwan
- Constructing identities and negotiating ideologies with Chinese popular culture in adult Mandarin learning
- Non-English lingua franca? Mobility, market and ideologies of the Chinese language in Nepal
- Discussion: The local practice of “Global Chinese”
- Regular articles
- Cantonese as written language in Hong Kong
- A short history of written Wu, Part I
- 世界華語區域詞語差異之成因及其相應策應之芻議
- 兩岸語詞邏輯思維差異之比較研究
- 语义韵倾向词在新马泰华语媒体语料库中的使用考察
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Thematic Section
- Chinese as a global language: Negotiating ideologies and identities
- Visualizing language ideologies and verbalizing perceived linguistic boundaries: The case of Mandarin Chinese in contemporary Taiwan
- Constructing identities and negotiating ideologies with Chinese popular culture in adult Mandarin learning
- Non-English lingua franca? Mobility, market and ideologies of the Chinese language in Nepal
- Discussion: The local practice of “Global Chinese”
- Regular articles
- Cantonese as written language in Hong Kong
- A short history of written Wu, Part I
- 世界華語區域詞語差異之成因及其相應策應之芻議
- 兩岸語詞邏輯思維差異之比較研究
- 语义韵倾向词在新马泰华语媒体语料库中的使用考察
