Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One A Historical Review of the Discourse of the Local in Twentieth-Century China -- Introduction -- Late Qing: Lao Naixuan's Simplified Script and Zhang Taiyan's New Dialect -- Advocating Dialect and Dialect Literature during the May Fourth Period -- The Ambiguous Attitude towards Dialect in the Mass Language Discussion and the Latinxua New Writing Movement -- The Transcendence of the Local and the Reform of Dialect during and after the "National Forms" Debate -- Chapter Two An Overview of Television Series Productions in the 2000s -- Beijing -- Shanghai -- Chongqing and Chengdu -- Guangzhou -- Chapter Three Alternative Translation: Performativity in Dubbing Films in Local Languages -- Introduction -- Dubbing as an Alternative Translation -- Local-Language Dubbing as a Reaction to the Putonghua Dubbing Tradition -- Laughter and Local Community -- Power Reversals in Local-Language Versions of Tom and Jerry -- The Issue of Child Audiences -- Chapter Four Empowering Local Community: TV News Talk Shows in Local Languages -- Aliutou Talks News and the News Entertainmentization -- News Talks Shows and the Traditional Performing Arts -- News Talk Shows and Local Community Building -- The Emergence of the Lanmuju Genre and News Dramatization -- Chapter Five Ambivalent Laughter: Comic Sketches in CCTV's Spring Festival Eve Gala -- Bakhtin's Theory of Folk Humor -- Evolution of Xiaopin in CCTV's Spring Festival Gala -- Zhao Benshan's Comic Sketches and Northeast Errenzhuan -- Chapter Six Popular Music and Local Youth Identity in the Age of the Internet -- Xue Cun's Breakthrough and the Wave of Internet Songs in Local Languages -- An Alternative Cultural Space -- The Use of Local Languages in Rock Music in the Late 1990s -- Locality, Youth Identity, and the Internet.

A Case Study of Shanghai Rap and the SHN Website -- Chapter Seven The Rhetoric of Local Languages as the Marginal: Chinese Underground and Independent Films by Jia Zhangke and Others -- Jia's Documentary Filmmaking Style -- Private Space versus Public Space in Xiao Wu -- The Tension between Diegesis and Mimesis in Platform -- Gendered Language Use in Unknown Pleasures -- Intellectuals' Representation of the Subaltern in Underground Films in Local Languages -- Chapter Eight Multiplicity in Mainstream Studio Films in Local Languages -- Subjectivity in the Use of Language and Voice in Missing Gun -- The Language of the "Little Characters" -- Grotesque Realism in Crazy Stone and the New Development of the Comedy Genre -- Chapter Nine The Unassimilated Voice in Recent Fiction in Local Languages -- Rural Local Languages in Nativist Fiction -- Local Languages in Zhiqing Fiction and Their Film Adaptations -- Conclusion -- Film, Video, and Audio Sources -- Bibliography -- Index.