Being Chinese in a global context: Linguistic constructions of Chinese ethnicity

AbstractTo date, there has not been a large corpus of research looking at how different Chinese populations perceive language to be a part of their Chinese ethnicity. Even where this has been done, no attempts have been made to compare these perceptions across Chinese populations of different polities, to see if and how they differ. To fill this gap, this paper examines and compares the relationship between Mandarin-Chinese, “dialects”, and English, and the construction of Chinese ethnicity amongst Chinese Malaysians, Chinese Singaporeans, and Mainland Chinese. It does this through a questionnaire study employing 100 participants from each group, taking into account beliefs about the importance of these languages to the everyday experience of being Chinese, self-declared language proficiency, and self-declared language use. The results of the study suggest that “dialects” are becoming less important to Chinese ethnicity amongst all three groups, particularly amongst Chinese Singaporeans. Meanwhile, English is becoming more important amongst Chinese Malaysians and Chinese Singaporeans, once again particularly amongst the latter. While Chinese Malaysians continue to perceive Mandarin-Chinese as being the language most important to Chinese ethnicity, Chinese Singaporeans’ beliefs reflect English’s dominance over Mandarin-Chinese in nearly every aspect of everyday social life. These findings underscore how Chinese ethnicities in different parts of the world need to be understood on their own terms, and how language can be a vital clue as to how different Chinese ethnicities are constructed in the global context.