ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emergence of Cosmopolitan Mandarin (CM) as linguistic enregisterment, the sociohistorical process "through which a linguistic repertoire becomes differentiable within a language as a socially recognized register of forms". The concept of enregisterment offers a dynamic, reflexive approach to style beyond a focus on co-occurrence patterns and the construction of social meanings in the immediate discursive context or the here-and-now moments of interaction. The chapter demonstrates that contesting the enregisterment of CM is fundamentally an ideologically motivated battle over the n+1st order indexical values of CM and its constitutive features. Mass-mediated (meta)semiotic events like the China Central Television (CCTV) Spring Festival Gala play a crucial role in the enregisterment process of CM. The state's campaign against Gang-Tai qiang incited heated discussions in the media and online discussion forums. Many commenters challenge the validity of the label "Gang-Tai qiang", for example, calling it "the greatest invention of the Chinese lexicon of the 21st century".
