‘What Chinese is it that you want to learn sir?’ Cenni sullo studio della lingua parlata in Cina

In the last 150 years, Chinese linguists, often backed by the Chinese governments that have succeeded in time, have put a strenuos effort in changing linguistic situation of China, with the goal of simplifying and standardizing it. In particular, after the Language Law has entered into force (2001), China has implemented a mature language policy, with the aim of popularizing putonghua. Nonetheless written language and spoken language still have relevant differences. This contribution has the goal of providing a sketch of the academic research on Chinese spoken language (kouyu), in its lexical and syntactic aspects, comparing it with Chinese written language (shumianyu).