Volume: 17  Number: 1  Page: 57–77  doi:10.2167/la425.0

Research article

Language Attitudes and Gender in China: Perceptions and Reported Use of Putonghua and Cantonese in the Southern Province of Guangdong

Limei Wanga and Hans J. Ladegaardb aCollege of Foreign Languages, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China and bEnglish Department, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

This paper is concerned with young people's perceptions and reported use of the two language varieties that co-exist in the urban centre of Guangzhou in southern China, Putonghua (P) and Cantonese (C). P is a typical H-variety, promoted by the government and used as a lingua franca throughout China; C is the local L-variety but it also has some prestige and is used in all domains. The focus of our questionnaire study was twofold: to analyse possible gender differences in perceptions and reported use, and to compare results from P-speaking newcomers, who have moved to Guangzhou from other parts of China, with responses from local C-speaking adolescents. Our results suggest that Guangzhou is a reasonably stable diglossia where P and C serve different functions, for newcomers as well as locals, and therefore both varieties appear to be indispensable. However, there are also indications that P promotion is beginning to have an effect in Guangzhou; our female participants seem to be leading on in a gradual change towards increased use of P. Thus our results support the trend reported in numerous sociolinguistic studies of a female preference for the prestige standard variety of a language.

Keywords: language attitudes, perceptions, reported language use, language and gender, Putonghua and Cantonese

Copyright © 2008 L. Wang & H.J. Ladegaard

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