Shanghai Dialect Research Articles

The Negative Transfer of Shanghai Dialect on English Vowel Phonology Acquisition of Shanghai High School Students

With the accerleration of globalisation, the importance of English as an international common language has become more and more prominent. This study investigated the negative transfer effect of Shanghai dialect on English vowel acquisition in Shanghai high school students. Through the analysis of formant data of English vowel pronunciation in 49 Shanghai high school students, it is found that there is no significant change in tongue position when students pronounce some long and short vowels, the overall tongue position is low, and the distinction between long and short vowels is not obvious. The results show that the specific vowel phonemes in Shanghai dialect have a negative transfer effect on English pronunciation, which affects the accuracy of students' English pronunciation. Based on this, this study puts forward a variety of methods to improve English pronunciation teaching, including strengthening tongue position and oral shape training, using multimedia technology to assist teaching and providing personalized tutoring to help students overcome pronunciation barriers caused by dialects.

The interactive relationship between prosody and respiration of computer BIOPAC systems: Shanghai dialect and mandarin

This paper uses the computer BIOPAC Systems tool to analyze Shanghai dialect and Mandarin which refers to the relationship between prosody and respiration in reading fable, the conclusion are as follows: 1) the mean of respiratory parameters and respiratory units was positively related, and respiration curve on Shanghai dialect which shows the characteristics of small ups and downs is different from the Mandarin curve; 2) the reset of respiration has relationship with mute segment, and the occurrence of reset breathing place must have a quiet period, while the opposite does not happen; 3) on the situation of fable literary style with flexible feature, the text of the proficiency can significantly increase the complexity of the respiration curve, showing a more special features such as “breathless” pronunciation.

Study on the transfer effect of Wu dialect on the acquisition of English vowels by primary school students and countermeasures

Second-language learners tend to confuse English with the dialect they used when learning English. This leads to difficulties for second language learners in the Wu dialect area when learning English. So the purpose of this paper is to compare the differences in English vowel pronunciation between Shanghai dialect speakers and Received Pronunciation English speakers, and to summarize the errors and causes of the errors in English vowel pronunciation of second language learners experience an offset in tongue position. Secondly, Shanghai dialect speakers speak English for a longer period of time than the standard pronunciation. Thirdly, there is an error in the degree of opening of Shanghai dialect speakers compared to the Received Pronunciation pronouncers. Eventually, Shanghai dialect speakers confuse monophthongs with diphthongs. In response to the above issues, the following countermeasures are proposed from both students and teachers. It is hoped that it will provide an experimental model and pedagogical reference for the transfer effects and countermeasures of other local dialects in Wu Di on the acquisition of English vowels by primary school students.

A Brief Introduction to the Generation, Characteristics, and Influence of Shanghai Pidgin on Language and Society

Language contact refers to a specific but universal linguistic phenomenon that almost anyone encounters, in the process of language contact. Language contact occurs not only between languages, but also between common languages and dialects, and between dialects and dialects. This paper focuses on the emergence, characteristics, and influence of Pidgin on society and language. The paper uses documentary analysis and case studies by finding linguistic examples. Based on previous research, it is concluded that Pidgin has a profound influence on the pronunciation and grammar of the Shanghai dialect, and on this basis, this paper concludes that "Pidgin" is a kind of deformed English produced in the old Chinese coastal trading ports. As a general language, it became a necessary tool for communication with foreigners at that time. Many of these words have survived and are still used in everyday conversation.

The Heritage Language Protection and Teaching in the Yangtze River Delta - Take the Shanghai Dialect as an Example

Concerns about the vitality of the heritage language have been rising in society. In more than 20 years of observation, researchers found that the 2001 Law of Common Language and Writing led to the marginalization of dialects in social life. This essay is mainly based on a large number of literature reviews, news and existing research, standing in the macro perspective of pedagogy, and analyzes the protection and teaching of the Shanghai dialect as a heritage language in the Yangtze River Delta, especially in Shanghai. Meanwhile, a case study is conducted to analyze the background, measures and significance of the Shanghai dialect protection movement. Therefore, the analysis of this essay was carried out based on China's current education system before reasonable suggestions were made to all relevant participants, mainly on the improvement of their actions and attitudes. The future planning of the Shanghai dialect will be a dynamic process, which needs to go through a repetitive process of proposal practice modification to respond to the changing reality.

Multilingualism of Shanghai Indigenous Residents

This assignment analyses and researches the multilingual characteristics of Shanghai’s local residents because of the controversial definitions of multi-lingualism. Under national language policy of Mandarin promotion, Shanghai dialect is in danger and should be cared for. It is a qualitative research based on the data from literature. From historical perspective, three languages frequently used in Shanghai are discussed and it turns out their connection of coexistence rather than competition. It also reveals that Shanghai indigenous residents are multilingual among Mandarin, Chinese and English.

A Review on the Studies of Shanghai Pragmatic Prosody

The unique charm of the study on Shanghai pragmatic prosody lies both in the fact that Shanghai culture is a melting pot culture where maritime and immigrant cultures meet and rub shoulders, and in the prosodic variation in the rapid development of the city. The following features of Shanghai pragmatic prosody research are evident: 1) The predominance of individual pragmatic prosody. The study of Shanghai pragmatic prosody focuses on individual linguistic phenomena, and does not systematically investigate pragmatic prosody as a single object. 2) The pragmatic prosody contexts are usually divided into greetings and farewells, invitations, suggestions, refusals, and complaints. 3) Mostly descriptive. That is, the existing Shanghai dialect pragmatics research is dominated by descriptive pragmatics and focuses on recording pragmatic phenomena.

Eileen Chang’s Creation and Self-Translation of The Rice-Sprout Song

Eileen Chang, aka 张爱玲 Zhang Ailing, is one of the most illustrious writers of modern Chinese literature. During her sojourn in Hong Kong in the 1950s, she composed the debut English novel entitled The Rice-Sprout Song, which has been self-translated into a Chinese version, viz. 秧歌 Yangge. The English version of The Rice-Sprout Song abounds with culture-loaded words, which embody ecological, material, social, religious and linguistic culture under the framework of equivalence (Nida 1945). As a consequence, the original narrative is analogous to a translation work, and Chang’s rendering of culturally-enriched expressions is characterised by the strategy of foreignization. In terms of the Chinese version, by virtue of its salient cultural and linguistic adaptations, it should be regarded as covert translation in the sense of House (1977). The translation of The Rice-Sprout Song is featured by addition of culture-loaded words in Chinese as well as omission of politically-sensitive plots and depictions censuring the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, in the Chinese version, Chang has employed expressions derived from Shanghai dialect.

The Phonetic Features of the Shanghai Dialect, as Gleaned from the 1874 <i>Yingzi Rumen</i>

Yingzi Rumen by Cao Xiang, a native of Shanghai in the late Qing era, was one of the earliest textbooks to record the pronunciation of English using the Shanghai dialect. This was a landmark publication in the history of English-language education, but little attention has been paid to its utility in the study of Shanghai dialect. This paper explores the phonetic correspondences between English and Chinese characters to ascertain the phonetic features of the Shanghai dialect, and then by comparing the ones of which presented in European materials, it sheds new light on the significance of paired speech materials.

유형론 시각에서의 명사 분류사 및 복수 표지 의미 기능 대조연구 - 상하이 방언, 표준 중국어와 한국어를 대상으로 -

This paper studies the semantic functions of noun classifiers and plural markers in Shanghai dialect, Mandarin and Korean. In the inventory of Shanghai dialect, noun classifiers’ mighty degree is high. The expansion of semantic functions is also obvious. However, plural markers in Shanghai dialect can only represent the meaning of associative plural. In some cases, noun classifiers can be omitted in Mandarin. Noun Classifiers in Mandarin only have one expanded function which is indefinite demonstration. Plural markers in Mandarin can represent the meaning of collective plural and associative plural. It can also raise the objectivity of a speech. When people talk about the amount of something, noun classifier is not a must in Korean. Its function expansion is also weak. In contrast, Korean plural markers have a wide range of usage and a variety of semantic functions. The mighty degree of noun classifiers is Shanghai dialect＞Mandarin＞Korean while that of plural markers is in a reversed way. From the perspective of language inventory typology, noun classifiers’ great mighty degree implies the syntactic and semantic constrains of plural markers.

Types of Lexicalization in Motion Events in Early Ningpo Dialect

Our statistical work on data in early Ningpo dialect shows us that Ningpo dialect is a kind of typical satellite-framed language in motion events. Non-agentive motion events and agentive motion events are more likely to encode the information of motion events as satellite-framed languages than self-agentive motion events. Although self-agentive motion events can encode it according as verb-framed and satellite-framed languages, compared to early Shanghai dialect and Mandarin, self-agentive motion events are less likely to encode it in the way of verb-framed languages. There is a strong correlation between the type of lexicalization in motion events in early Ningpo dialect and its topicalization, which prove that topicalization plays a critical role in evolution of motion events in Chinese from a verb-framed language and an equipollently-framed language to a satellite-framed language.

Individual agency in language acquisition planning for multi-dialectism: A Shanghai story

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the individual agency exercised by different actors in the process of language planning for multi-dialectism in Shanghai, China. Language acquisition planning is adopted as the analytical framework to identify the multiple roles individual actors have played in promoting the use and learning of the Shanghai dialect. Drawing on in-depth interviews and document analysis, this paper interprets 18 local actors’ roles in relation to preservation of the Shanghai dialect. Qualitative analysis of the data reveals that these actors exercised agency in different aspects of language acquisition planning and thus exerted different influences on the planning process. The paper concludes with a discussion of the need to give individual actors more room to exercise their agency without predefined policy constraints in the language acquisition planning process. The relevant findings have implications for other multilingual/multidialectal contexts with similar constraints where linguistic diversity needs to be sustained by bottom-up efforts. In addition, this study captures various individual actors’ agency to help these actors’ influences on language acquisition planning.

Comparison of Modern Chinese Adverb ‘dou (都)/quan (全)’ and Shanghai Dialect Adverb ‘ze (儕)’

Comparison of Modern Chinese Adverb ‘dou (都)/quan (全)’ and Shanghai Dialect Adverb ‘ze (儕)’

Priming the representation of left-dominant sandhi words: A Shanghai dialect case study

This study examines how the acoustic input (the surface form) and the abstract linguistic representation (the underlying representation) interact during spoken word recognition by investigating left-dominant tone sandhi, a tonal alternation in which the underlying tone of the first syllable spreads to the sandhi domain. We conducted an auditory-auditory priming lexical decision experiment on Shanghai left-dominant sandhi words, in which each disyllabic target ([tɕi55 dɛ31] “egg”) was preceded by monosyllabic primes either sharing the same underlying tone ([tɕi55]), surface tone ([tɕi53] “machine”), or being unrelated to the tone of the first syllable of the sandhi targets ([tɕi24] “to remember”). Results showed a surface priming effect, but not an underlying priming effect. Moreover, the surface priming did not interact with speakers’ familiarity ratings to the sandhi targets. The results are discussed in the context of how phonological opacity, productivity, and the directionality of tone sandhi patterns influence the representation of tone sandhi words as well as how the lexicality of the primes and the participants’ usage pattern of Shanghai may have influenced the results.

언어접촉의 관점에서 본 상하이 방언의 상 표지(aspectual markers) 변화 연구

언어접촉의 관점에서 본 상하이 방언의 상 표지(aspectual markers) 변화 연구

АНАЛИЗ ОСОБЕННОСТЕЙ ФОНЕТИЧЕСКОГО АКЦЕНТА В РУССКОЙ РЕЧИ КИТАЙЦЕВ - НОСИТЕЛЕЙ ШАНХАЙСКОГО ДИАЛЕКТА

The article analyzes the peculiarities of phonetic accent in the Russian speech of the Chinese - bearers of the Shanghai dialect. As it is known, foreign accent manifests itself when differences exist in the phonetic systems of the target and native languages. An accent analysis was performed on the basis of comparison of the “contact” phonetic systems in two aspects: 1) proper systemic differences in the phonetic structure of the Russian language and the Shanghai dialect; 2) differences in the sphere of functioning of Russian and Shanghainese phonemes. The results of the comparative study can be used to develop and improve Russian audio courses addressed to Chinese students from Shanghai.

China's Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces by Xu Zhuodai

Reviewed by: China's Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces by Xu Zhuodai Zheyu Wei (bio) Xu Zhuodai. China's Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces by Xu Zhuodai. Translated and with an Introduction by Christopher Rea. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2019. 263 pp. Paperback $65.00, isbn 978-1-939161-94-9. The studies on literature of Republican China had been much focused on the activists of the New Culture Movement until in the 1980s Chih-Tsing Hsia, followed by other literary critics, drew people's attention to non-revolutionary writers. Since then the significance of the popular literature of the Republican era has eventually been recognized in the field of modern Chinese literary studies. The Mandarin-Butterfly School 鸳鸯蝴蝶派 of the period, once popular for their romantic portrayal of the petty bourgeoisie in the colonial city of Shanghai, also became appreciated by the public again. Nonetheless, the width of the relevant research is comparably narrow, which makes Christopher Rea's new book timely and inspiring. In China's Chaplin Rea introduces the ingenious writer Xu Zhuodai 徐卓呆 (1880–1958) and offers the translation of five stories and six farces by Xu. Rea has been working on modern Chinese literature for a long time. And in [End Page 69] recent years, with his monograph The Age of Irreverance: A New History of Laughter in China (2015), Rea focused on the idea of humor 幽 默 and how it evolved from the 1890s to the 1930s in Chinese society. Rea's research recognizes the significance of Xu as a writer and a practitioner. Usually in modern Chinese literary history research, Xu Zhuodai is considered as one of the representative figures of the Mandarin-Butterfly School, but he was much more than that. A distinctive Shanghai-style 海派 intellectual, Xu was multitalented and productive: Xu wrote novellas, jokes and even advice columns for the general public. He wrote for the stage (for both spoken drama and the traditional comedy form huajixi 滑稽戏) and the screen, and he acted in and directed plays and films. He translated Japanese stories and plays. He ran film companies and also the first physical education school in China. Xu's life and achievements in Republican and World-War-II Shanghai reflect the dynamics of urban China in the first half of the twentieth century. Rea has put his appreciation and understanding of Xu into informative writings and sparkling translations in China's Chaplin. Rea offers the reader a general introduction to Xu Zhuodai, summarizing Xu's life story and the reasons why this man was so talented and funny. Rea highlights great success in Xu's writing, theatre, film and other creative careers and critically evaluates Xu's contribution to the those fields. Rea sharply notices Xu's endeavor to portray the rapidly growing cosmopolitan city of Shanghai as a "funny" place, a stage where people from different social classes and cultural backgrounds met and interacted. However, this funny place was full of trickery, and therefore everyone was urged to adapt to the changing and conflicting world so as to laugh at others rather than be laughed at. Following the introduction, Rea translates five stories by Xu, showing the richness and cleverness of Xu's comic imagination. For instance, "Plagarist in Western Dress" and "Appendum: Expose Plagarism!", in which Xu ingeniously appropriates an excerpt from Dream of the Red Chamber into an American slavery story, show Xu's satire of Shanghai's cultural production. Meanwhile by "The Unofficial Story of Li Ah Mao," from which the character became not only a fiction series but also a film franchise, Xu illustrates his creativity and vigorous ethos in making jokes about marketing, the excessive enthusiasm of the commercial city. In general, Rea's mastery of Chinese language and knowledge of slang in Shanghai dialect helped him finish the high-quality translation. For clarification, in the appendix Rea attaches a list of joke names, offering the translator's notes including the original names by Xu and the possible implications (puns, equivocation, etc.). The six farces, selected and beautifully rendered in dramatic language by Rea, not only showcase Xu's talents in creating funny and sarcastic moments on the stage, but also offer the...

Saving Shanghai Dialect: A Case for Bottom-Up Language Planning in China

This paper examines the dynamic interplay between language policy and local stakeholders in the process of dialect planning in the city of Shanghai, in the context of social tensions surrounding the decline of Shanghai dialect in mainland China. A process-oriented Language Management Theory (LMT) model is adopted as the analytical framework to reveal the interactive facet of micro language planning. Drawing on in-depth interviews and document analysis, the paper analyzes and interprets ten key players’ perceptions and experiences in relation to the ‘saving Shanghai dialect’ movement. Qualitative data analysis demonstrates five stages in the dialect planning process and reveals how individuals’ agency, when struggling and striving for local language rights, exert bottom-up influence upon language policy-making. The findings also unravel the social political duality between macro structure and individual agency. The paper ends with a discussion on the need to negotiate the individual agency in a more interactive and democratic dialog with predefined policy constraints. This study may have implications for multilingual/multidialectal contexts in other geographical locations where linguistic diversity in the local contexts is encountering shifts in language use and language changes. Besides, this study may also enrich applicability of the LMT framework which reveals the interactive and dynamic process by unbundling individual responses and influences on language planning.

Multilingual creativity on China's Internet

ABSTRACTPrevious research in China has shown that Chinese‐English code‐mixing is gaining popularity on China's online social network sites. This study investigates the practice of multilingual language play onShanghai Release, an official microblog account set up by the municipal government of Shanghai. Based on the observation of the day‐to‐day weather messages onShanghai Release, as well as the comments posted by the participating netizens over a period of two years, the study reports on a range of strategies employed in the practice of multilingual language play, that involves bending, breaking, and blending the conventional ‘rules’ of Putonghua, English, and Shanghai dialect usage. The findings suggest that through such practices the municipal government web microbloggers posting onShanghai Releasehave constructed a distinct new professional identity, which aims to establish rapport with its audience, through the ludic construction of mixed‐code messages to its Internet public.

Returns to dialect: Identity exposure through language in the Chinese labor market

Though Mandarin is China's common language, each region/city has its own dialect. Using a unique self-collected dataset, this paper estimates returns to dialect familiarity in China's largest and most developed city, Shanghai. We evaluate migrant workers' comprehension and fluency of the Shanghai dialect, and instrument their dialect fluency by determining whether the workers' hometowns were located in the Wu dialect region and the distance between those hometowns and Shanghai. We determined that in OLS regressions, the returns to dialect are a consequence of endogeneity bias. After using IV (instrumental variable), dialect fluency was shown to significantly impact one's income in the service industry, in particular affecting sales jobs. In manufacturing and construction jobs, migrants with higher dialect fluency tended to be self-employed in order to earn more income. By distinguishing between listening and speaking abilities, we found that auditory comprehension does not significantly increase one's earning, while oral fluency does. Since local residents in Shanghai can understand Mandarin, migrants who can understand Shanghainese won't have difficulty in the information exchange. Therefore, our results confirm that dialect is a channel through which people expose their identity. Speaking the local dialect is a way for migrant workers to integrate into the local society and also to reduce transaction costs in the labor market.