A Sociolinguistic Study Of Language Harmony

The coexistence of the standard discourse and the emergent discourses is the linguistic reflection of China's diversified social culture. Faced with the issue of building a harmonious society, we take the coexistence of different discourses as the starting point of our study, apply theories of sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA), and explore the significance of language harmony within the Chinese language.First of all, we have done a corpus-based study on the differences between the standard discourse (represented by the government discourse) and the emergent discourses (represented by the Super Girls discourse) through a linguistic and an ideological analysis. The major finding is that the formation of new words in the Super Girls discourse is a metaphorical mapping from the source FANS to the target FOOD. It is a "revolution" in word-formation, as well . as in people's mind. The Super Girls group achieve an identity by their discourse, which starts to influence the mind of people out of the group. The popularity of the emergent discourses has brought about people's different views on the phenomenon.Second, we have investigated people's attitudes toward the coexistence of the two kinds of discourses through a questionnaire. Statistics have shown that people tend to accept the emergent discourses in terms of their new vocabulary words, such as "PK." Although the standard discourse dominates our social life, the emergent discourses have the controlling power on informal occasions. They are mainly used and supported by young students. With regard to the view to purify the Chinese language, we suggest human concern and tolerance for the coexistence of various discourses.Third, we have proposed the significance of language harmony within the Chinese language based on the above research. Its connotation includes the tolerant and open mind of discourse users, normalization of discourses and their appropriate use, and the healthy development of different discourses. Language planning, education of national consciousness and guidance of the media are also important in the realization of language harmony.The present study enriches the connotation of language harmony, brings about a new perspective in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, and provides a linguistic exploration for the construction of our harmonious society.