The Influence Of Pidgin On Shanghai Dialect

Among all regional dialects in China, Shanghai dialect has experienced the most changes since its formation. According to Dr. Qian Nairong, Shanghai dialect, originating from Songjiang Dialect, absorbs most of its linguistic elements like vocabulary, grammar from Hangzhou dialect, Suzhou dialect and Ningbo dialect so that gradually Shanghai dialect boasts an embracing character (Qian, 2007: 19). Later during the period that Qing Government was forced to cede the sovereignty of Macao and Hong Kong to Portugal and Great Britain, five port cities, Shanghai, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xiamen and Canton, were opened to the imperialist countries. Inevitably, language and culture blending gave birth to Chinese Pidgin language.It is its embracing character and distinct geographical position that enable Shanghai dialect more inclined to be influenced by Pidgin English. With the embracing character, Shanghai dialect has absorbed many linguistic elements from foreign languages especially from English. Chinese and English belong to two different language families, so the mixture of the two can be called a miracle. Pidgin English can be mainly manifested in the aspect of transliteration, that is, phonetic imitation with the written form of Chinese characters. Some pidgin words represented distinctive local culture and events at that time, so very quickly these pidgin words were imported into Shanghai and became a distinctive character of its dialect.Based on the embracing character of Shanghai dialect, this dissertation will carry on a research on the formation of pidgin lexis in Shanghai dialect and its peculiarity from the sociolinguistic view. In spite of the disappearance of the foreign imperialism in China, Shanghai dialect still keeps some pidgin lexis which carries traces of foreign cultures. What's more, the pidgin lexis is even applied to daily speeches among Shanghai local residents.Finally, a further prospect of the development of Shanghai dialect will be described. It will continue to enjoy its embracing character in the future. The whole dissertation will use a diachronic approach in accordance with the development of both dialect and pidgin in order to analyze the influence of pidgin on Shanghai dialect.