SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LINGUISTIC ACCOMMODATION OF MAINLAND CHINESE IN AN URBAN AMERICAN CHINESE COMMUNITY

                         CHI, HONG; PHD

                         THE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY AND AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL COL., 1991

                         LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS (0290); SOCIOLOGY, ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES (0631)
 

                         The growing number of immigrants from both Taiwan and Mainland China have brought speakers of
                         different Mandarin varieties into contact in an American context. In the Chinese community in Los
                         Angeles, Mainland Putonghua speakers are found to accommodate their language to the local Taiwan
                         Mandarin speakers. Social network analysis, a model oriented toward the individual, is adapted here for
                         analyzing this linguistic situation. The conversation of 35 informants was recorded within a naturally
                         occurring context and their social network scores were compared with their scores for nine linguistic
                         variables selected for this study. It was found that the accommodation process among Mainland Mandarin
                         speakers is closely related to their degree of integration into the local networks. Statistical procedures
                         reveal significant correlations between the network scores and linguistic variable scores for the entire
                         sample. The network and language correlation is strongest for subgroups such as women, older
                         speakers, and speakers from Beijing and Shanghai areas. Some individual differences were observed,
                         especially among younger speakers. This study of relationship between network structure and linguistic
                         accommodation shows a complex process in which individuals' decision based on economic and political
                         considerations has an impact, which affects the kind of network structure and the subsequent linguistic
                         change. While a speaker who is marginal in the community can choose from a wide range of
                         psychological orientations during verbal interaction with others, such a choice is limited when a speaker is
                         closely tied to a particular group that has a distinctive linguistic norm. In this sense, the long-term
                         accommodation process, using Trudgill (1986)'s term, is actually a process in which speakers from other
                         communities converge under the normative pressure from the local groups with which they are closely
                         associated.

 


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