by Zhang, Qing
Abstracts
Recent sociolinguistic studies on style have focused much attention on the construction of social meaning in situated discursive practices. Despite a general recognition that the linguistic resources used are often already imbued with social meanings, little research has been done on what these meanings may be. Focusing on rhotacization, a sociolinguistic variable in Beijing Mandarin, this article explores its imbued social meanings and sociocultural associations. I demonstrate that rhotacization takes on semiotic saliency through co-occurrence with key Beijing cultural terms and frequent use in written representations of authentic Beijing-ness. Furthermore, this feature is associated with the 'Beijing Smooth Operator,' a salient male local character type, and is ideologically construed as reflecting its characterological attributes. The findings of this study shed light on the meaning potential of a linguistic variable, rhotacization in this case, which can enhance understanding of the possibilities and constraints for its use and meaning in new contexts.This one is from the "Put your tongue right here..." dept. My favorite bits of sociolinguistics are usually those studies that involve speakers making linguistic choices to exhibit their cultural and social identities. Here we have a perfect example.
My understanding of the situation: The upper crust socialites associate themselves with the Beijing Powerful (or Hip) by making some of their vowels a bit more r-like. I don't really know which vowels, though when I watch "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" the rhoticization that is most evident to my naive ears is that which comes after voiceless palatal fricatives. When I hear mandarin from family members, this rhotic vowel just doesn't seem to be there... ever.
So this article here attempts to discover the "meaning" of rhoticizing. Sounds awesome, but good luck with the quantitative analysis...
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