Discourse, Identity, and China's Internal Migration : The Long March to the City

Jie, Dong

ISBN 10: 1847694195 / ISBN 13: 9781847694195

Published by Multilingual Matters 2011-08, 2011

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9781847694195

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Discourse, Identity, and China's Internal Migration : The Long March to the City
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters 2011-08
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847694195
• ISBN 13: 9781847694195
• Binding: PF
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Rural-urban migration has been going on in China since the early 1980s, resulting in complicated sociolinguistic environments. Migrant workers are the backbone of China's fast growing economy, and yet little is known about their and their children's identities - who they are, who they think they are, and who they are becoming. The study of their linguistic practice can reveal a lot about their identity construction as well as about transitions in Chinese society and the (re)formation of social structure at the macro level. In this book, Dong Jie presents a wide range of ethnographic data which are organised around a scalar ramework. She argues that three scales - linguistic communication, metapragmatic discourse, and public discourse - interact in complex and multiple ways.

About the Author

Dong Jie completed her PhD at Tilburg University in 2009. She is a linguistic anthropologist at the Babylon Center and the Department of Languages and Cultures, Tilburg University. Her publications include Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner's Guide (2010, with Jan Blommaert).