The Change of Mao Zedong's Image in Chinese Popular Culture - Centered on re-contextualization through borrowing -

The dozen chapters in this book, based on papers for a 1999 conference, comprise an interdisciplinary glimpse into the increasingly diverse and contradictory world of Chinese popular culture. A theme of Popular China is representation: most of the chapters examine the way in which group and individual identity is represented (in newspapers, magazines, popular sayings, and advertisements, and in the stories people tell about their lives). Many of the authors draw on surveys and interviews – of young basketball fans, rural women, home owners in Shanghai, migrant workers, and entrepreneurs – allowing the people of China to speak for themselves. The book contains nothing that is revelatory (especially for anyone who visits China regularly and reads Chinese), but it provides a detailed, informed look at each of several phenomena often noted only in passing.

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Constructing identities and negotiating ideologies with Chinese popular culture in adult Mandarin learning

Global Chinese ◽

10.1515/glochi-2018-0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 37-61

Author(s):

Sumin Fang ◽

Patricia A. Duff

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Language Ideologies ◽

Language Education ◽

Future Research ◽

Learner Identity ◽

Chinese Language Education ◽

Political Ideologies ◽

Adult Participants ◽

Global Language ◽

Chinese Popular Culture

AbstractDespite the emergence of Chinese as a global language, little research has been done to explore how learners of Chinese as an Additional Language (CAL), and Mandarin specifically, utilize semiotic resources in Chinese popular culture to negotiate their own and others’ language ideologies and identities. This study argues that popular culture is a rich site for ideological and identity work in which four sorts of questions can be explored: (1) Which language(s)? (2) Whose language? (3) Which texts and discourses? (4) What social implications? Employing this framework, this study draws on three focal adult participants’ reported experiences of engaging with Chinese popular culture as a means of improving their Mandarin proficiency. We discuss such themes as gender and heritage learner identity, and political ideologies and dispositions arising from the study. We conclude, briefly, with some implications for Chinese language education and for future research on this topic.

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