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.
Social
Systems Simulation Group
P.O. Box 6904 San Diego, CA 92166-0904 Roland Werner, Principal Phone/FAX (619) 660-1603 |