Doctoral Dissertation Research: Language Standardization and Modern State-Building

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1603086 John Lie Jeffrey Weng University of California, Berkeley This dissertation project examines how states shape societal language practices. The past few decades have witnessed steady growth in studies of state-formation, particularly research on the state's increasing influence on the lives of ordinary people. This research, and much of sociology in general, has tended to neglect questions of language, in spite of language's foundational role in social life. This project addresses this gap in the literature by asking: What strategies does the state employ to accumulate symbolic power in the realm of language? This project will answer this question by focusing on the case of the Chinese transition from Classical to Modern Chinese, which occurred between the 1910s and 1930s. Previously, Classical Chinese had, much like Latin in Europe, functioned as a supranational language of scholarship and government. Nationalist movements in the latter half of the 19th century spurred the rise of national vernaculars in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, as well as in China. This project's closer examination of the Chinese case will clarify the social theory of language by looking at a state that in three decades accomplished what took place in Europe over several centuries. To answer the question about how states shape language practices, this dissertation will examine Chinese government archival material located in the United States, Taiwan, and mainland China. The state-formation literature has largely been grounded in Western European cases, in which language change took place over centuries, and tends to treat non-European or postcolonial cases separately, as instances of state-led development or modernization. On the other hand, historical scholarship on China tends to look at changes in language practices as the result of various intellectual "movements," which places intellectuals in an ambivalent relationship with the state. Relying on archival documents, including bureaucratic memoranda, statutes, regulations, meeting minutes, as well as official and personal correspondence, this project seeks to clarify the relationship between language-reforming intellectuals and the state, and thus clarify the state's role in influencing language practices. In so doing, this project will contribute to contemporary debates on the social implications of government policies on language and education, particularly social stratification stemming from unequal access to cultural capital.