ABSTRACT
The variety of Chinese described in this chapter is known in different parts of the Chinesespeaking world as Putonghua (‘common speech’), Guoyu (‘national language’), or Huayu (‘Chinese language’), and in the English-speaking world as Mandarin. Sociolinguistically, it may be characterised as ‘Modern Standard Chinese’ (Chen 1999; Kratochvíl 1968), officially based on Beijing dialect for its pronunciation and style, as well as the classic works of modern vernacular prose for its grammatical norms (Chen 1999).
