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21
Briefly, the term “contrapositive”
in logic can be explained as follows:
for the statement “if p, then q,” the
contrapositive is “if not q, then not p.”
The general sociolinguistic principle
states that if a woman prefers speaking
the more standard linguistic form (p),
she shows a tendency toward upward
social mobility (q). But in the case of
Qiao Qiao, who has no motivation for
upward mobility (not q), she does not
usually speak Putonghua Mandarin
(not p).
22
The first chapter of Zhuangzi,
Xiaoyao You (translated as “The
Happy Excursion,” by Feng Youlan),
conveys the Daoist idea that “there are
varying degrees in the achievement of
happiness. A free development of our
natures may lead us to a relative kind
of happiness; absolute happiness is
achieved through higher understanding
of the nature of things” (Feng 1966:
105).
By contrast, Qiao Qiao is very provincial. She was dismissed from middle
school when her illicit affair with her gym teacher (who later becomes her
gangster boyfriend) was exposed. Although she has less education than
Xiao Ji and Bin Bin, she can argue furiously in Putonghua with a doctor
over the hospital’s neglect of her father’s illness. Otherwise, however,
she insists on speaking the local dialect. Here, a sociolinguistic gender
approach may shed some light. A widely affirmed principle of women’s
linguistic conformity states that “women show a lower rate of stigmatized
variants and a higher rate of prestige variants than men” (Labov 2001:
266). Women’s careful linguistic behavior, Labov (2001: 278) argues, is “a
reflection of their greater assumption of responsibility for the upward
mobility of their children—or at least of preparing the symbolic capital
necessary for that mobility.” Yet Qiao Qiao’s use of language serves as a
contrapositive example of this principle. 21 Showing a more radical attitude
of nonconformity than Xiao Ji and Bin Bin, she makes no effort to reject
her stigmatized local speech in favor of the more prestigious pattern. In
contrast with the naïveté and awkwardness of the two young men, Qiao
Qiao displays more social sophistication and ease with local practices. In the
hotel scene in which the infatuated Xiao Ji finally gets a chance to touch
Qiao Qiao, he is befuddled by the shower controls, which she manipulates
with ease (fig. 13). Furthermore, as Labov (2001: 366) observes, “the leaders
of linguistic change are often female members of the highest status local
group, upwardly mobile, with dense network connections within the local
neighborhood, but an even wider variety of social contacts beyond the local
area.” Again, this is obviously not the case with Qiao Qiao, who shows no
interest in building network connections with the outside world. Indeed,
the blaring televisions of Xiao Ji and Bin Bin’s homes are absent in Qiao
Qiao’s home. Her unsophisticated understanding of the Daoist philosopher
Zhuang Zi’s Xiaoyao You 22 as “free to do whatever you want” comes from
her gangster boyfriend. Qiao Qiao, with an almost exclusive use of the
local dialect, resigns herself to the local subsociety. The gender linguistic
186 • The Rhetoric of Local Languages
MCLC 18.2.indd 186
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