Li Zhuqing specializes in the study of Fuzhou dialect, one of the southeastern Chinese dialects that preserves different ancient layers of the Chinese language: it calls cooking wok a “tripod”, it rhymes Tang dynasty poetry that no longer rhyme in modern mandarin, and it preserves words that predate Han arrival. But the most challenging feature to the modern linguists is the dialect’s complicated sandhi: situations in which when particular words come together in speech, their tones change, and when the tones change, other parts of the word – vowels and consonants – also change accordingly. Li Zhuqing’s research demonstrates that there are actually two systems of sandhi in Fuzhou dialect: one is purely phonological (involving mandatory changes in a given sound combination), while the other is linked to grammatical and semantic needs in speech (i.e., the need to distinguish different meanings of the same word combination). The research argues that Fuzhou’s sandhi system, prohibitively difficult to study for non-native speakers, offers much promise in understanding the interactions between different aspects of Chinese language: phonology, semantics, and grammar.
Li Zhuqing’s major linguistic publications include three books: two bilingual dictionaries (Fuzhou-English; Minnan-English; Dunwoody Press 1998, 2008), and the first and only comprehensive study of Fuzhou dialect to date, Fuzhou Phonology and Grammar (Dunwoody Press 2002). Her latest research has been presented and published in articles in the emerging field of prosodic grammar, a branch that studies how sound change in speech is tied to shifts in the language’s grammatical structure.
Just as her native Fuzhou dialect has informed her linguistic research, Li Zhuqing’s own bi-cultural background as a Chinese American has inspired her to try to understand the Chinese experience in cultural dislocation. One aspect of this exploration is presented in her first non-linguistics-related book, Reinventing China (Bridge 21 2016), which examines American-educated Chinese citizens who have chosen to return to China to make a difference in their home country, often leaving behind their initial successes in America. Other aspects of this exploration can be found in her newest book, the forthcoming Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated by China's Civil War (Norton 2022), which recounts the story of two women, Li Zhuqing’s maternal aunts, who were separated by China’s civil war.
Li Zhuqing’s research demonstrates that the study of language is inseparable from the human experience. In her new course on translation, she attempts to share with the students how different languages use different mechanisms to encode and express meaning from the speakers’ different perceptions of the shared human world. This comparative study may very well be her next major project.
Beginning in 2019, Li Zhuqing took on an additional role as a faculty curator at Brown’s Rockefeller library. As a faculty curator, she has identified in the Library’s collection a group of rare, never-before-studied objects from the late-Qing Dynasty. To better understand these objects, she initiated and directed a four-part digital humanities project, “Depicting Glory,” which presents the various objects and artifacts through high-resolution digital images and accompanying scholarly articles written by a variety of academic commentators, ranging from Brown students to senior scholars in the field.
