The Relationship between Putonghua and Chinese Dialects

Conclusion

Starting with a brief review of the relationship between social concerns and status planning, I have examined the three stages of the evolution of the relationship between Putonghua and Chinese dialects, the initial understanding, the reconsideration, and the redefinition, in China’s language planning process.

To a large extent, the social concerns have determined how policy statements regarding the relationship between Putonghua and dialects were made and changed, rather than the policy-making process itself has in China. Initially the policy was made in a more top-down fashion, while recently the policy was made in a more bottom-up manner. The two processes might have some influences too, however. In the top-down process social concerns of the elites were more extensively represented in the policy, while in the bottom-up process social concerns of the masses were more appropriately represented. In either way, social concerns of the time have influenced how extensively the policy could accommodate the competing languages/dialects in status planning. This seems to be true in other societies too (see Kibbee, 1999; Spolsky & Shohamy, 1999; Tollefson, 2002). Language policy is a means to legalize and implement social concerns, whether those concerns are rational, ethical and moral or not. Changes to and/or adjustment of an existing language policy essentially reflect changing social concerns.