The conceptualization of 'mother tongue' in multilingual China: historical, ideological perspectives and identity practices

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

The status of Chinese regional dialects and the relations between these dialects and Putonghua (the standard variety) are delicate issues that can spark debate or even conflict at different levels. Controversy is often stoked in the name of defining one’s mother tongue, which is the focus of the current paper.
On the one hand, a ‘purely linguistic’ definition of ‘mother tongue’ is impossible, because the meaning of mother tongue is socially and historically constructed and highly context-dependent. Some have argued that the concept was infused with political and ideological intentions, in the name of linguistics, from the very beginning of its making (Hutton, 2012), a history that we should not “forget”. In turn, the construction and penetration of the term ‘mother tongue’ into social life changes our perceptions of language, nation and identity in profound ways that might have been thus far understated. On the other hand, ‘mother tongue’ seems to be an imported term popularized only in the past two decades or so, which is a phenomenon that has hardly been critically examined in the literature. What terms were used before the introduction of ‘mother tongue’? What terms are used currently in daily life and how do they compare to ‘mother tongue’?







This paper addresses the historical and theoretical underpinnings of the term mother tongue in general and the empirical and ideological problems of using the term in the context of contemporary China in particular. By combining theoretical, historical, and empirical perspectives in a critical discussion of the concept mother tongue, we hope to gain a better understanding of the problems surrounding the concept per se and its application in modern China as an ethnolinguistic identity marker.