The Role of English in China’s Matchmaking Market

Abstract

Plain Language Summary
Purpose: This article investigates how English competence is perceived and valued in China’s matchmaking market, paying special attention to how English proficiency is mentioned on matrimonial posters publicly displayed in the market. Methods: The study is qualitative by nature. Fieldwork was conducted in the market to obtain information such as the size, layout, opening time etc., and pictures of dating adverts were taken. Information regarding candidates’ English competence on the adverts was collected and subject to further thematic analysis. Conclusions: Qualitative analysis of the dating adverts showed that English competence is generally perceived as a valuable attribute, a type of institutionalized cultural capital in the market. It is also regarded as a gatekeeper of marriage opportunities, meaning that it is used by candidates to seek potential partners with similar socioeconomic status, and to weed out “disqualified bidders.” Implications: The findings highlight the discrepancy between official ideology of English and ideology of English held by the general public. Marriage candidates have their own ways of making sense of official ideology of English based on their private agenda, and use it as a stepping stone to maximize the symbolic and material profit of the marriage transaction.

Full text

Original Research
SAGE Open
April-June 2024: 1–12
ÓThe Author(s) 2024
DOI: 10.1177/21582440241241376
journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo
The Role of English in China’s
Matchmaking Market
Dan Zhao
1
and Qi Shen
1
Abstract
Research has focused on how English proficiency influences Chinese people’s education and occupational opportunities and
choices. However, little is known about how it impacts the matchmaking practice in such context. Drawing on Bourdieu’s the-
ory of capital, this study examines the role of English in the biggest matchmaking market in Shanghai, China. Field study was
conducted in People’s park in Shanghai. Information regarding marriage candidates’ English competence as presented on matri-
monial posters was collected and subjected to further grounded-theory based thematic analysis. The results reveal that English
competence is primarily advertised as a form of institutionalized cultural capital (e.g., the possession of particular jobs, certifi-
cates, degrees, or citizenship) to boost candidates’ socioeconomic status, and used as a gatekeeper to weed out ‘‘disqualified’’
candidates, meaning that non-English speaking candidates may be rejected as ineligible for matchmaking opportunities. Issues
related to the commodification of English competence in the matchmaking context are discussed at the end of the paper.
Plain Language Summary
Purpose: This article investigates how English competence is perceived and valued in China’s matchmaking market, paying
special attention to how English proficiency is mentioned on matrimonial posters publicly displayed in the market.
Methods: The study is qualitative by nature. Fieldwork was conducted in the market to obtain information such as the size,
layout, opening time etc., and pictures of dating adverts were taken. Information regarding candidates’ English competence
on the adverts was collected and subject to further thematic analysis. Conclusions: Qualitative analysis of the dating
adverts showed that English competence is generally perceived as a valuable attribute, a type of institutionalized cultural
capital in the market. It is also regarded as a gatekeeper of marriage opportunities, meaning that it is used by candidates to
seek potential partners with similar socioeconomic status, and to weed out ‘‘disqualified bidders.’’ Implications: The findings
highlight the discrepancy between official ideology of English and ideology of English held by the general public. Marriage
candidates have their own ways of making sense of official ideology of English based on their private agenda, and use it as a
stepping stone to maximize the symbolic and material profit of the marriage transaction.
Keywords
English proficiency, cultural capital, matchmaking market, matrimonial poster, commodification of English
Introduction
Research has often noted the significance of English as a
tool for global communication, motivating countries like
China to promote it as the key to modernization and
nation-building. For this reason, English has been idea-
lized as ‘‘the language of social and economic prestige’’
by the general public in China, where a conservative esti-
mate of 280 million people is English speakers (Bolton &
Bacon-Shone, 2020). The prestige of English in China is
further boosted by its status as a mandatory subject from
primary education all the way up to postgraduate educa-
tion (Hu & Alsagoff, 2010).
On the one hand, research has noted that English lan-
guage proficiency is increasingly perceived as a form of
1
Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Corresponding Author:
Qi Shen, School of Foreign Languages, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road,
Yangpu District, Shanghai 200092, China.
Email: qishen@tongji.edu.cn
Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of
the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

linguistic cultural capital in China (Bourdieu, 1986a),
which possesses the symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1991) to
signify one’s intelligence and education background, and
serves as a gatekeeper of opportunities for educational,
professional, and social upward mobility (Bolton, 2006;
Hu, 2008; Jiang, 2003). On the other hand, there are
voices and advocates in the ‘‘Two Sessions’’
1
calling for a
reduction in the status of English as a main subject of
study in primary and secondary education and the
removal of English as a mandatory subject in the
national college entrance exams, claiming that English in
China only has limited usefulness when students enter
society nowadays (Ye, 2021; Zhou, 2017).
While previous debates have focused on how English
proficiency influences Chinese people’s education and
occupational opportunities and choices, however, we
were interested in to discovering the ways in which
English impacts people’s everyday lives. In particular, we
focused on the role of English in one of the most impor-
tant social reproduction processes, that is, matchmaking.
We situate our inquiry in a culturally unique site, that
is, China’s matchmaking markets in major Chinese
metropolises such as Shanghai, where unmarried men
and women promote themselves as suitable partners in a
public matchmaking process. It must be noted that
Chinese citizens have been enjoying unprecedented inde-
pendence and freedom in choosing their own partners
since the drastic changes that took place in marriage
practice after the open-door policy in 1978. However, a
series of economic and social reforms have also led to
increased stratification in Chinese citizens’ socioeco-
nomic status and the occupational hierarchy (Davis &
Wang, 2008), which have intensified parental involve-
ment and sociocultural influences in the matchmaking
process once again.
This situation is particularly significant for women,
who are often pressurized by their parents to choose
socially and economically advantageous marriage part-
ners (Gui, 2017; Zhang & Sun, 2014). This is exemplified
by parental matchmaking markets in Shanghai, where
retired parents voluntarily attend the venue in order to
‘‘help’’ their single adult offspring to find spouses.
Personal information about their sons and daughters is
written on pieces of laminated paper that serve as matri-
monial posters. These attributes are usually related to
age, height, job, income, education, etc., and these quali-
ties, either concrete or intangible, serve as tradable com-
modities among the unmarried candidates. Since
marriage itself is arguably a system in which resources
are exchanged between rational actors with differential
comparative advantage in the household and the labor
market (Raymo & Iwasawa, 2005; Yu & Xie, 2015), an
examination of the role of English competence in the
matchmaking market may help to reveal how English
proficiency continues to influence individuals’ everyday
lives. For this reason, our inquiry addresses the following
question:
What role does English proficiency play in China’s match-
making market?
Literature Review
The Commodification of English
English competence is widely regarded as a desirable cul-
tural capital for both enterprises and individuals in many
contexts (Bourdieu, 1986a), and is undergoing a dramatic
process of commodification (Cameron, 2012; Heller,
2010) as economic and cultural globalization continues
to impact all aspects of our lives. Individuals’ original
motives for learning English (e.g., to symbolize identity
or to acquire ‘‘high culture’’) are witnessing an ongoing
shift, turning to a more calculating economic rationalism
(Heller, 2003). The commodification of English is hence
considered to be the process of transforming English as a
marker of one’s identity into English as an exchangeable
economic resource to be offered on the market (Heller,
2003; Urciuoli, 2008).
The study of English as an economic resource and a
marketable commodity has been pursued for many
years. Early researchers worked under the frame of lan-
guage economics, attempting to establish a link between
English competence and earnings (Grin, 2001). More
recent research has tended to expand beyond language
economics, shifting the paradigm toward a sociological/
anthropological orientation. Studies were conducted
through the lens of language planning and sociolinguis-
tics, with attempts to reveal how English competence is
commodified in domains such as national language plan-
ning (Cameron, 2012), marketing and advertising (Kelly-
Holmes, 2005), language teaching (Block & Cameron,
2001), job-hunting (Bolton, 2006), alternative tourism
(Muth, 2018; Stainton, 2018) and call center service
(Cameron, 2000; Cowie, 2007; Ducheˆ ne, 2009; Rahman,
2009). This research largely concluded that English has
played and will continue to play an indispensable part in
the new capitalism that has emerged in the global era,
and its status as the single most valuable commodity in
the global linguistic market will likely continue to be
reinforced, creating incentives for individuals, families,
companies, and nations to invest their resources in it
(Cameron, 2012).
The Role of English as a Foreign Language in Marriage
and Matchmaking
As discussed above, the commodification of English is
becoming increasingly ubiquitous around the globe and
2SAGE Open

has become a well-established area for academic study.
However, the role of English as a foreign language in
intimate scenarios against the backdrop of globalization
is relatively under-explored, and has not been made the
explicit subject of much research (Piller & Pavlenko,
2007). Nevertheless, traces can still be discovered with
regard to how English ability plays out in these crucial
processes of social reproduction. In the following para-
graphs the roles of English in mail-order marriage, inter-
cultural romance, and matchmaking in non-English
speaking contexts are reviewed, since they are highly rel-
evant to the current study.
Mail-order marriage is a sector where English ability
has a significant impact, especially for the bride. The
English competence of the bride is usually promoted as a
‘‘selling point’’ by mail-order marriage agencies
(Cameron, 2012, p. 4). For example, in the US mail-
order marriage industry it has been reported that
Filipina women’s English proficiency is particularly
advertised by agencies, who believe that English-speak-
ing Filipina women will gain a competitive edge over
their counterparts from other Asian countries in the
mail-order marriage market (Piller, 2008). After all, lim-
ited proficiency in English may impede communication
between the bride and her prospective monolingual
English-speaking American husband, which may not
only bring about the failure of the marriage, but could
also lead to disastrous consequences in extreme cases.
For women with dependent immigration status in the
US, language barriers are seen as one of the major fac-
tors contributing to their vulnerability to family violence
and difficulty in gaining social support, which is particu-
larly relevant for Chinese and Latino mail-order brides
in America (Narayan, 1995). That is probably also a rea-
son why Russian matchmaking agencies specializing in
intercultural marriage provide English preparatory les-
sons for Russian brides who plan to move abroad
(Luehrmann, 2004).
When it comes to intercultural courtship and dating,
English has also been shown to play a unique role as an
intermediary in facilitating non-English speaking women,
in this case Japanese women, in pursuit of a Caucasian
boyfriend and a desirable Western lifestyle (Piller &
Takahashi, 2006). The role of English as the language of
romance is not only represented in pop songs, women’s
magazines, and media discourse, but also in English
teaching materials compiled for the purpose of helping
learners to conduct romantic relationships (Piller &
Pavlenko, 2007, p. 24). The role of English became even
more obvious in an ethnographic study of Japanese
women during their study abroad experience in Australia
(Takahashi, 2013), in which their desire to learn English
was intimately associated with their passion for hand-
some white male English-speakers. This result was
echoed by a study conducted by Kubota (2011), in which
the researcher highlighted English learning in Japan as
an approach to fulfill Japanese women’s desire for
English, Western culture and white men.
In contrast to mail-order marriage and intercultural
romance settings, in which users and learners of English
mostly perceive it as an facilitator in achieving their per-
sonal goals, candidates and their parents in matchmak-
ing activities seek to address an ambivalent relationship
to English. On the one hand, English is widely regarded
by women globally as a way of ‘‘liberating themselves
from the confines of gender patriarchy’’ (Kobayashi,
2002). English teaching and translation offer women a
socially sanctioned occupational choice that is consid-
ered socially acceptable by their prospective marriage
partners (Haghighi & Norton, 2017; Miyamoto, 2021).
Accordingly, women with greater English competence
prefer their prospective partners to be more highly edu-
cated during the process of mate selection (Yang et al.,
2021). On the other hand, English proficiency has also
been reported as an undesirable factor, a sign of disloy-
alty (W. Liu, 2020). One mother’s account of her daugh-
ter’s dating experiences reported that her daughter’s ex-
boyfriend, who was an English major and capable of
speaking fluent English, was caught dating her daughter
and another woman at the same time. This led to a deep
conviction on the part of both the mother and the
daughter that male marriage candidates from an arts
and humanities background, particularly those majoring
in English, are more likely to be disloyal and untrust-
worthy than those with science and engineering back-
grounds, and should therefore be weeded out in the
initial stages of mate selection. Although this was
reported as an isolated incident, the case suggests that in
order to understand the role of English in matchmaking
practices, we need to examine how English competence
plays out in specific matchmaking contexts.
As reviewed in the above section, previous studies
have clearly demonstrated that the English language is
gaining increasing momentum in the face of economic
and cultural globalization. English competence is gener-
ally seen as a desirable attribute in most intimate scenar-
ios, although it may be rejected in specific circumstance.
To a certain degree the above findings contribute to a
growing understanding of the role of English as a
context-specific construct which is constantly under the
influence of global, national, institutional, and individual
factors (Muth, 2018). To our knowledge, however, little
is known about the role of English in matchmaking mar-
kets in China, despite the fact that parental matchmak-
ing markets are a linguistically and culturally unique
phenomenon that is well worth investigating (Sun, 2012).
Therefore, an examination of the role of English in the
biggest parental matchmaking market in Shanghai may
Zhao and Shen 3

provide useful insights with regard to how the accelerat-
ing globalization of English has impacted local match-
making activities. To achieve this, our inquiry examines
the matrimonial posters publicly displayed at the market
with a focus on how English competence is mentioned
by bachelors/spinsters in their dating adverts.
Theoretical Framework
English has maintained its unique value in China because
it is widely accepted as a language of social and economic
prestige at the individual level (Hu, 2005). Bourdieu’s
theory of capital is relevant to understand the role of
English in Chinese matchmaking settings. According to
Bourdieu (1986a), social stratification can be interpreted
and determined by one’s possession of various forms of
capital, including social capital (social relationships and
contacts), economic capital (wealth), and cultural capital
(cultural competence). A fourth type of capital, namely
symbolic capital (related to honor and prestige) was also
proposed, which puts the stress on the ‘‘symbolic’’
dimensions of social life. Symbolic capital, according to
Bourdieu (1986a), is not a different form of capital work-
ing alongside the other three types of cultural; rather, it
should be understood as the outcome of the conversion
of the other types of capital once they reach a degree of
officialness and legitimacy. Figure 1 exhibits how differ-
ent forms of capital are intricately interconnected
(Raabe, 2018).
Among these various types of capital, cultural capital,
including English competence, is commonly used to rein-
force class differences through the accumulation of
knowledge and exercise of skills (Bourdieu, 1986b).
Bourdieu (1986a) further divides cultural capital into
three forms, namely embodied, objectified, and
institutionalized cultural capital. As shown in Table 1,
embodied cultural capital refers to the knowledge and
skills that people acquire over time through socialization
and education, such as an individual’s high proficiency in
English as a foreign language. Objectified cultural capital
suggests material objects that people own which might be
related to their educational pursuits, such as a compre-
hensive collection of English movies and novels. Finally,
institutionalized cultural capital indicates an institution’s
formal recognition of one’s cultural capital, such as a
English major college degree, a professional qualification
as an English teacher, or a job title as a senior manager
in a multinational company. Although cultural capital
and economic capital are mutually convertible and trans-
ferable, the former is usually acquired and accumulated
in a more disguised manner, often at the expense of one’s
accumulation of the latter (Bourdieu, 1977).
Another important theory put forward by Bourdieu is
marriage strategies. He pointed out that in order to win
the ‘‘best possible match’’ in the game of matchmaking,
good players are ‘‘continually doing what needs to be
done, what the game demands and requires.’’ This
involves using appropriate strategies for this ‘‘social
game’’—that is, a conscious and rational calculation of
the ‘‘trump cards’’ in their hands (i.e., the various types
of capital they preserve) in order to ‘‘maximize the mate-
rial and symbolic profit to be derived from the matrimo-
nial transaction’’ (Bourdieu, 2002, pp. 551). This cannot
be achieved by merely mechanically obeying ‘‘the expli-
cit, codified rules’’,’’ but ‘‘presupposes a constant inven-
tion, an improvisation that is absolutely necessary in
order for one to adapt to situations that are infinitely
varied’’ (Lamaison & Bourdieu, 1986, pp. 112–113). As
previous research has suggested that English proficiency
is regarded as a ‘‘trump card’’ for individuals in
Figure 1. The relationship between various types of capital (Bourdieu, 1986a; Raabe, 2018).
4SAGE Open

educational and occupational settings in China, we were
curious to examine the role of English for candidates in
the field of matchmaking.
The Inquiry
In order to explore the role of English for unmarried sin-
gles and examine how they used English competence stra-
tegically to promote themselves, we chose the parental
matchmaking market in People’s Park in Shanghai as our
exclusive research site. The site was deliberately selected
due to its reputation, history, considerable size, and its
representativeness of the rest of China. For one thing, the
matchmaking market in People’s Park was one of the first
parent-organized matchmaking markets established in
China since 2004 (Zhang & Sun, 2014); and for another,
it is the largest in terms of size and influence in Shanghai,
which is one of the most populous cities across the globe.
With its prohibitive cost of living and growing financial
and work pressures for individuals, Shanghai has become
an increasingly capitalized city, which has resulted in an
intensified marketization of its matchmaking activities
and marriage practices. Thus, its biggest matchmaking
market is likely to be reasonably representative of match-
making markets in general in China.
To explore the role of English language proficiency in
matchmaking activities, an ideal data source was the
matrimonial posters that are publicly displayed in the
matchmaking market, as they are central in witnessing
the textual construction of self- and other-identities in
the service of developing relationships (Coupland, 1996).
We attended the matchmaking market during October
and November 2019 and conducted a field study, focus-
ing on English competence as mentioned on the posters.
Our research methods included non-participant observa-
tion (Liu & Maitlis, 2010) and constructivist grounded
theory-based thematic analysis (Charmaz, 2014).
First, we briefly explored the People’s Park in
Shanghai to familiarize ourselves with the location, size,
layout, opening hours, and organization of the match-
making market. Second, we visited the market three
times for fieldwork, each time staying for approximately
4 hr in order to collect data. Pictures of the matrimonial
adverts were taken using mobile phone cameras. When
taking pictures, we only photographed those posters that
included mentions of the candidate’s English proficiency.
We not only took into account adverts explicitly men-
tioning English skills (e.g., high proficiency in English),
but also sampled those that included an implicit mention
of English competence (e.g., CET-6
2
qualification,
Masters in Economics acquired from UC Berkeley etc.).
In short, we sampled any posters that contained men-
tions of factors relevant to English competence.
Due to the high mobility of the matchmaking market
participants, it was virtually impossible to avoid taking
repeated pictures of the same posters. Therefore, our pic-
tures were screened for repetition and relevance. We
eventually acquired a final sample of 114 photos of dis-
tinct matrimonial adverts.
In the next step we read all the sampled posters for
the first time, looking for information about English
competence without any attempt to put this into distinct
categories. Following that, we reviewed the information
about English competence again in an attempt to cate-
gorize the instances in terms of how English competence
was mentioned. We assigned a descriptive category to
each type of mention, summarizing the key ideas in the
relevant information on the posters. For example, a piece
of information that read ‘‘obtained Master’s in a US uni-
versity’’ would be coded with a category of DEGREE,
whereas mentions about one’s ‘‘passing CET-6 test’’
would fall into the category of CERTIFICATE.
Subsequently, we developed a transparent coding scheme
consisting of five thematic categories including DIRECT
MENTION, JOB, DEGREE, CITIZENSHIP, and
CERTIFICATE.
Next, the two researchers manually coded all the rele-
vant information separately and discussed any discre-
pancies until a consensus was reached. Finally, drawing
on the aforementioned theoretical framework on cultural
capital, we further classified the five thematic categories
into the three forms of cultural capital previously
described. Information was coded strictly based on the
presence and absence of a mention of English
Table 1. Forms of Cultural Capital.
Form of cultural capital Detailed explanation Example from posters
Embodied cultural capital The knowledge and skills people acquire over
time through socialization and education
High competence in English as a foreign language
Objectified cultural capital The material objects people own that might be
related to their educational pursuits
A complete collection of The Beatles’ albums or
Shakespeare’s literary works
Institutionalized cultural capital An institution’s formal recognition of one’s
cultural capital
English major college degrees; a professional
qualification as an English teacher; a job title as
a senior manager in a multinational company
Zhao and Shen 5

competence, in order to increase reliability. Figure 2
demonstrates how a poster was coded during the devel-
opment of the coding scheme.
The poster above may be divided into two sections,
namely the self-introduction and looking for. Information
related to English competence were spotted, underlined,
and marked with corresponding codes. As can be seen
from the translation, the total count of mentions concern-
ing the candidate’s English proficiency in this poster was 5.
The Role of English Competence in China’s
Matchmaking Market
On the whole, the analysis of the sampled posters
revealed that English proficiency in the matchmaking
market is much more frequently regarded as institutiona-
lized cultural capital by marriage candidates than as
embodied cultural capital (205 mentions vs. 7 mentions),
but none of the candidates viewed English as objectified
cultural capital. In addition, English also serves as a
gatekeeper of matchmaking opportunities.
English as a Form of Institutionalized Cultural Capital
According to the statistics in Table 2, English compe-
tence mostly functions as a form of institutionalized cul-
tural capital in the matchmaking market in People’s Park
(n= 205, 96.7%). As shown in Table 2, the largest pro-
portion of mentions seemed to stress the role of English
through candidates’jobs (n= 105, 49.5%). This includes
posters advertising candidates’ work experience in
English-speaking countries (n= 58), as employees of
multinational companies in Shanghai (n= 42), and as
teachers of English and English-Chinese translators
(n= 5). In the second place were mentions of candidates’
English proficiency by advertising his or her degrees
(n= 55, 26%), including those obtained from academic
institutions in English-speaking countries (n= 51), and
those in English and translation studies acquired from
universities in China (n=4). A considerably smaller per-
centage of the mentions concerned the candidates’ attain-
ment of citizenship of English-speaking countries (n= 28,
13.2%), such as permanent residence in Australia or New
Zealand, green cards in the USA, and so on. Also men-
tioned were the candidates’ acquisition of English-related
certificates including CET-6,
2
TEM-8,
3
SIA-advanced,
4
and CFA, although these mentions were relatively fewer
in number and proportion in relation to the citizenship
category (n= 17, 8%).
In addition, there were other features worth noticing
apart from the above statistics. First, in the sampled pos-
ters the mentions of certificates for high-stakes English
Figure 2. Example of how the poster is coded (photo taken and translated by the authors).
Table 2. Types of Mention of English Competence in the
Matchmaking Market.
Form of cultural
capital
Types of mention
of English
competence
Number of
occurrences Percentage
Embodied cultural
capital
Direct mention 7 3.3
Objectified cultural
capital
n/a 0 0
Institutionalized
cultural capital
Job 105 49.5
Degree 55 26.0
Citizenship 28 13.2
Certificate 17 8.0
Total = 212 100
6SAGE Open

tests such as the TEM-8 significantly outnumbered men-
tions of low-stakes tests like the CET-6 (9 mentions of
TEM-8 vs. 3 mentions of CET-6). Second, marriage can-
didates frequently incorporated more than one type of
mention in their posters. In fact, 47 out of the 114 posters
included at least two types of mention of English compe-
tence in a single poster, accounting for 41.2% of the sam-
ple in this study. There were many instances where the
candidate’s English-related jobs, degrees, certificates,
and citizenship were promoted together. Figure 3 is a
typical example of how several types of mention were
used simultaneously.
As shown above, three types of mention of English
competence may be identified in this poster: degree
(Master’s from University of Sydney), job (currently
working as an accountant in Australia), and citizenship
(Australian PR holder). These may all be regarded as a
demonstration of this candidate’s English competence.
It is not surprising that most candidates chose to
advertise their English as a form of institutionalized cul-
tural capital, since this is the form of cultural capital with
the most reliable and measurable value by which a
‘‘seller’’ can demonstrate worth to the ‘‘buyer’’ in market
exchanges. It can also be compared against the measures
of cultural capital advertised by other people (Bourdieu,
1986a). In addition, an institution’s recognition of one’s
cultural capital actually legitimizes its value and facili-
tates its conversion into economic capital (Bourdieu,
1986a). Since marriage itself is arguably a resource
exchange practice, by advertising English-related jobs,
degrees, certificates, and citizenship in a combined man-
ner the marriage candidates are able to describe their
cultural capital gains in quantitative terms and ‘‘sell’’
themselves to potential ‘‘buyers.’’
Another reason for the candidates’ preference for insti-
tutionalized cultural capital over the other two forms is
probably due to its symbolic effect. The institutionalized
form of cultural capital, when compared with the objecti-
fied or embodied forms, is marked by its officialness and
legitimacy. Since ‘‘symbolic capital is nothing but eco-
nomic or cultural capital as soon as they are known and
recognized’’ according to particular ‘‘schemes’’ (Lebaron,
2014, p. 6538), the aggregate measure of one’s institutio-
nalized cultural capital contributes to the ‘‘symbolic
strength relations that reproduce and reinforce the
strength relations which constitute the structure of the
social space’’ (Bourdieu, 1987). That is to say, for those
advertising their success in high-stakes English tests such
as TEM-8, English perhaps serves as a symbol of their
intelligence, learning capability, and education back-
ground. On the other hand, for those mentioning work
experience, citizenship and degrees gained in native
English-speaking countries, English may symbolize an in-
depth understanding of sociocultural life in the ‘‘West,’’ a
competence that facilitates their access to educational,
vocational, and social opportunities and resources in such
countries, which are usually valorized by Chinese as
being more ‘‘developed’’ (Goodman, 2004).
English as a Form of Embodied Cultural Capital
Alongside the dominant presentation of institutionalized
cultural capital in the marriage market, a much smaller
category was the direct mention of the candidate’s
Figure 3. Poster showing multiple types of mention of English competence (photo taken and translated by the authors).
Zhao and Shen 7

English competence (n= 7, 3.3%), suggesting that
English proficiency was more infrequently presented as a
form of embodied cultural capital. Specifically, two pos-
ters mentioned that the candidates were ‘‘excellent in
English’’ with another two looking for ‘‘someone with
English skills,’’ while a further three posters came with
an English translation. Figure 4 is an example of a matri-
monial poster written in both Chinese and English.
A text analysis of this poster reveals several indirect
mentions of the candidate’s English proficiency, that is,
English as an institutional form of cultural capital, such
as ‘‘Australian citizenship,’’ ‘‘hold Australian CPA,’’
‘‘TEM-8,’’ and ‘‘Master’s at Melbourne University,’’ but
the fact that it is translated into English could also be
seen an direct presentation of the candidate’s English
competence, stressing the role of English as a form of
embodied cultural capital for this unmarried single.
English as a Gatekeeper of Matchmaking
Opportunities
One of the most significant findings emerging from the
analysis related to the gatekeeping effect of English profi-
ciency in the matchmaking market. Many posters speci-
fied an English requirement for prospective partners,
either implicitly or explicitly (n= 27, 23.7%). A number
of candidates with life experience in English-speaking
countries expressed their preference for somebody with a
similar education and work experience (n= 25, 21.9%).
This preference for similarity is probably not surprising,
since people with cultural similarities, including similarity
in English proficiency, are more likely to come from the
same social class (Bourdieu & Randal, 1993), leading to a
mutual confirmation of each other’s worldviews, life-
styles, and tastes and thereby facilitating the establish-
ment of a long-term relationship. What did surprise us,
however, was that a small number of candidates (n=2,
1.7%) made no mention of their own English competence
in their self-introduction, but still expected their prospec-
tive partners to have English skills. A typical example is
presented below in Figure 5.
The above poster shows that this male candidate did
not include any information concerning his own English
competence in his self-introduction, but nevertheless he
specified that he was looked for someone with English
skills. This may be regarded as an intensification of the
gatekeeping effect of English proficiency in the match-
making setting.
The above findings clearly demonstrate the fact that
people who lack English competence may be deprived of
the opportunity to form a match with those who are
seeking a partner with such proficiency, whereas candi-
dates possessing this kind of linguistic cultural capital
might gain access for further contact. Cases like this
exemplify the role of English as a gatekeeper for match-
making opportunities, or possibly as a means to judge
and differentiate people in terms of their socioeconomic
status, which is a serious consideration when it comes to
matchmaking and marriage practice (Sun, 2012). This
partially echoes previous studies in China (Bolton, 2006),
Figure 4. Bilingual poster (photo taken by the authors).
8SAGE Open

which discovered the gatekeeping effect of English for
individuals wishing to gain access to various educational,
economic, and professional opportunities and resources.
English is regarded as a compulsory skill for talents in
the 21
st
century, is seen a sign of an individual’s distinc-
tion, and is viewed as a powerful and magical tool that
may bring greater opportunities for those who have it
(Hu & Alsagoff, 2010).
Discussion and Conclusion
This paper presents an investigation of the role of English
competence in the matchmaking market in People’s Park
in Shanghai. It attempts to sketch the ways in which
English is advertised and required by marriage candidates
through an examination of matrimonial posters. Based
on qualitative data and categorization, English compe-
tence was found to be mentioned in five thematic cate-
gories, namely JOB, DEGREE, CERTIFICATE,
CITIZENSHIP, and DIRECT MENTION. In analyzing
these categories, the study places emphasis on how
English is transformed into different types of cultural cap-
ital to facilitate candidates’ negotiations of their social
class and positions in the matchmaking market.
Our study has revealed how candidates perceive
English competence in the matchmaking market. We
found that a substantial majority of candidates in the
market considered English as a form of institutionalized
cultural capital, while a small number valued English as
embodied cultural capital, although none regarded it as
objectified cultural capital. Furthermore, bachelors/
spinsters also used English as a gatekeeper to seek poten-
tial partners with similar socioeconomic status, and to
exclude ‘‘disqualified’’ matches from establishing further
contact; this echoes other findings related to the gate-
keeping effects of English in education, job hunting, and
promotion in China (Bolton, 2006; Hu & Alsagoff,
2010). These popular beliefs and practices in the match-
making market to a large extent contribute to the glorifi-
cation of English, promoting it from a mere tool of
communication to an indicator of individual prestige, a
demonstration of professional ability, and a proxy for
the potential for upward social mobility.
The mentions of English proficiency on the matrimo-
nial posters reflect the ideology of English held by the
general public in China. Although at the macro level
English is idealized as an indispensable resource to facili-
tate the country’s modernization, to enable international
communication, and to tell China’s story well, popular
ideology at the micro level seems to deviate from the offi-
cial ideological characterization associated with nation
building. Members of the public, as individual language
planners, have their own way of making sense of the offi-
cial ideology in accordance with their private agendas,
turning English into a stepping-stone to maximize the
symbolic and material profit of the marriage transaction
(Wang & Fang, 2019).
This study also contributes to the understanding of
the commodified nature of English proficiency in the
Chinese matchmaking context. It seems that English
competence, along with a candidate’s age, income, occu-
pation, and so on, has already become a commodity
Figure 5. Poster that shows the gatekeeping effect of English (photo taken and translated by the authors).
Zhao and Shen 9

tagged with a purchase price, that may be advertised and
traded in the marriage market. Candidates are ranked
based on their price value, and only those with ‘‘money’’
and realistic marriage strategies can really afford to play
this social game (Bourdieu, 1977). However, we cannot
help but wonder what marriage and matchmaking prac-
tice should really involve. While this is a philosophical
question awaiting an answer, we believe that marriage
and matchmaking should certainly involve much more
than the candidates’ age, height, income, occupation and,
most of all, English language proficiency. The marriage
market in People’s Park shows us a matchmaking culture
that objectifies the bachelors/spinsters, treating them as
products and properties while neglecting their role as
actors with personal agency. This is probably one of the
reasons why the success rate of matchmaking in this and
similar markets is very low (Zhang & Sun, 2014).
Due to time and resource constraints, the present
study is limited in two aspects. First, the only source of
data for this research came from matrimonial posters,
with a lack of data elicited from other sources for evalua-
tion and comparison. This would allow a more compre-
hensive understanding of the research question. Second,
matrimonial posters, as a form of linguistic landscape in
a public space, could also be approached from a social
semiotic perspective (Kress, 2010). Future research into
the role of English in the Chinese marriage market could
elicit data from multiple sources in order to strengthen
the validity and reliability of the findings (Creswell &
Poth, 2016), and a social semiotic analysis of posters in
addition to text and thematic analyses could be incorpo-
rated in order to address how English is really perceived
and valued in the marriage market in China.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support from the Centre for
Language Planning and Global Governance at Tongji
University, Shanghai, China. We would like to thank the anon-
ymous reviewers and the editor for their comments and sugges-
tions during the peer review process. Any remaining errors are
our own.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethic Statement
Not applicable
ORCID iD
Dan Zhao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6370-748X
Notes
1. Two sessions: In China the Two Sessions (Chinese: )is
the collective term for the annual plenary sessions of the
National People’s Congress (NPC: the national legislature)
and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC: the national political advisory body), which are
both held at around the same time every spring at the Great
Hall of the People in Beijing. The CPPCC is an advisory
body, and the 3,000-member NPC is the Chinese commu-
nist party’s legislative body. Its members include business
executives, celebrities, and celebrated individuals, and each
ethnic group is represented by at least one NPC deputy.
2. CET-6: The College English Test Band 6 is a national
English proficiency test for non-English major college stu-
dents in the People’s Republic of China. Another less chal-
lenging version of the test is CET-4.
3. TEM-8: The Test for English Majors Band 8 is a test mea-
suring the English proficiency of Chinese university under-
graduates majoring in English language and literature.
Another version of the test is TEM-4, which is less challen-
ging compared to TEM-8.
4. SIA-Advanced: The Shanghai Interpretation Accreditation-
Advanced is a test aimed at selecting intellectuals who are
skilled in interpretation in the People’s Republic of China.
This test also has a less challenging version, the SIA-
intermediate.
5. Hukou: Hukou is a system of household registration in
China. It also determines access to housing, education, and
medical treatment, among other social and welfare provi-
sions. Each city in China administers its own Hukou policy.
Shanghai Hukou is highly valued because of the various
exclusive privileges it entails for the holder.
Data Availability Statement
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the cur-
rent study are available from the corresponding author on rea-
sonable request.
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