Migrating meanings: Language (re)valuation in a two-way parallel migration context

Abstract This article examines how the socio-indexical meanings of dialects/style are reconfigured through two-way parallel migration in Ningbo-Fenghua, China, focusing on the socio-indexical (re)valuation of Putonghua, Ningbonese, and Fenghuanese. Using two-phase matched-guise experiments and interviews, the study traces how mobility patterns and generational positioning mediate these meanings. Results show that, while Putonghua retains institutional prestige, it is often regarded affectively empty. In contrast, Fenghuanese and Ningbonese carry ambivalent, shifting values. Fenghua-born migrants reframe Fenghuanese as a resource for expressing intimacy, trust, and regionalism, while non-migrants view it as outdated. Ningbonese occupies a middle-ground, indexing familiarity, respectability, or obsolescence depending on context. Notably, younger speakers collapse dialectal distinctions, reframing both as ‘old speech’ tied to generation rather than place. These findings challenge Global North models that link indexical revaluation to elite cosmopolitanism, showing instead how meaning-making in the Global South can also emerge through administrative restructuring, regional absorption, and long-standing mobility patterns. (Indexicality, social meaning, Ningbo-Fenghua, migration and language, language attitudes).