ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the enregisterment of Putonghua as a linguistic "benchmark" and the ways in which people establish role alignments in relation to the enregistered set of linguistic norms in social encounters. Putonghua is the standard language in mainland China. In order for people to understand the enregisterment of Putonghua, it is necessary to look at its history of institutional standardisation. The historical and ideological processes of the enregisterment of Putonghua are similar to, but also remarkably different from, those for RP and Parisian French. This polycentricity is evident in modern Mandarin covering term referring to guoyu in Taiwan, Putonghua in mainland China, and huayu in Singapore. The upscaling process of Putonghua, through the diligent work of educational practitioners, is a concrete instance of enregisterment. Moreover, it has demonstrated that such deliberate institutional practices are part of a tacit and ideological process of voice enregisterment, through which the symbolic dominance of Putonghua is being accepted as natural and normative.
