Standard Chinese Research Articles

Two Beijing Spoken Drama Comedies Featuring Social Critique Seen in the Summer of 2014

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: TWO BEIJING SPOKEN DRAMA COMEDIES FEATURING SOCIAL CRITIQUE SEEN IN THE SUMMER OF 2014 JING SHEN Eckerd College, USA In the summer of 2014 I had the chance to see performances of two spoken drama (huaju 話劇) comedies in Beijing: Zhao ge laopo xian yaohao 找個老婆先搖號 (To find a wife, first draw lots), staged by Leizile Xiaogongchang 雷子樂笑工廠 (Leizile laugh factory; a.k.a. Alan’s Studio),1 and Yangtai 陽台 (Balcony), staged by DaDao Wenhua 大道文化 (DaDao culture).2 Although the two plays used different types of stagecraft and actors, they both investigate similar social issues in contemporary China at the same time that they provide entertainment. Zhao ge laopo xian yaohao can be read as an irreverent parody of Lao She’s 老舍 (1899–1966) Beijing-flavored classic Luotuo Xiangzi 駱駝祥子 (Rickshaw Boy).3 In the play a migrant worker named Bei Shangguang 北上廣,4 riding a bicycle absentmindedly , runs into a car driven by a huge Beijing girl, Gong Linna 宫臨娜.5 She develops a crush on this migrant worker at first sight, although he is not interested in her at all. As if destined, they encounter again in a library in which he is hiding from his fiancée’s family, and meet a third time yet when they happen to sit next 1 This performance group was founded in 2007. In the introduction on their official website (http://news.cuctv.com/news_9485.html; accessed March 3, 2016), there is the claim that they have produced 46 works with a total of over 2,000 performances. A list of municipal grants they have won is also given. 2 They were founded in 1994. For an official introduction to the company, see the three postings at http://www.dadaowh.com/about/ (accessed March 3, 2016), where the claim is made that their eight comedies and one musical have had a total of more than 600 performances. You can also see that Yangtai premiered in 2005 and that there have been three different editions distinguished by the version of Chinese used (Standard Chinese, Sichuanese, Yunnanese), a pedagogical (jiaoxue 教學) edition, a youth (qingchun 青春) edition, and an invited stars (mingxing jiameng 明 星加盟) edition. A separate posting on Yangtai performances in 2013 (http://www.dadaowh.com/ view.asp?/661.html; accessed March 3, 2016) also mentions a new luxury (haohua 豪華) edition. Lectures about performing the play have been posted online (http://open.163.com/movie/2012/ 10/8/K/M8DJ5DLTB_M8DJ5J38K.html; accessed March 3, 2016). 3 Interestingly, that summer also saw the premiere of a western opera version of Luotuo Xiangzi. See Xiong Yuqing, “‘Rickshaw Boy’: Classic Chinese novel gets opera adaptation,” Global Times, May 21, 2014 (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/861512.shtml; accessed March 3, 2016). 4 These three characters are commonly used to represent the three biggest, most commercial cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. 5 Gong is a fairly rare surname and literally means “palace.” Na connotes feminine charm, but lin, although it means “approach,” might stress how far she is from having feminine charm. CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.1 (July 2016): 70–74© The Permanent Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. 2016 DOI 10.1080/01937774.2016.1183328 to each other on a flight. Gong Linna, whose deceased father bequeathed her a generous legacy, owns a big rental company, in which Dou Wentao 豆文濤6 is an administrative manager (xingzheng zhuguan 行政主管). Dou claims that Gong’s father had agreed to let him marry her, but she only has eyes for Bei Shangguang, who looks for a job and ends up working in her company. She tries hard to seduce Bei and is successful, but he regrets having sex with her. She then feigns pregnancy to pressure him to marry her. Unlike Xiangzi, however, he runs away, and she is lovesick . In the end, touched by her devotion, Bei agrees to marry her, although he is still not attracted to her. This might sound like a pretty serious story, but absurd touches, such as random characters played by the same actor doing odd things (e.g., burns his own hand with a cigarette, mimes riding a bike), keep the tone from getting too serious. Yangtai, directed and co...

Prosodic Transcription of Standard Chinese and its Use in Teaching

The present paper’s main aim is to introduce a method of prosodic transcription (PTR) of Standard Chinese established by Oldřich Švarný in the background of the Czech Republic. It is used to describe suprasegmental features of Standard Chinese: stress prominence and linear segmentation of sentences. PTR is applied in teaching Chinese prosody in courses in the Czech Republic. This paper also contains a short sample text, students’ opinion on PTR and an outline of the use of PTR in academic research.

Indefinite markers, grammaticalization, and language contact phenomena in Chinese

Grammaticalization and language contact are often treated separately, suggesting that these are two distinct, divergent phenomena (Heine & Kuteva, 2003). This however, is known not to be the case. The grammaticalization of an indefinite marker, for instance, can occur due to language contact or be hastened by it (Moravcsik, 2013:200). Contrary to assumptions of many grammarians working in Chinese linguistics, recent work on Standard Chinese (e.g. Chen 2003, Huang 1999) argues that Chinese makes use of determiners. However, few explanations have been given as to why this development has taken place. I suggest that contact with English has encouraged the grammaticalization of the indefinite marker, yi ‘one’ + CLASSIFIER. More specifically, the translation of English texts into Chinese has contributed to the development of an indefinite marker in Chinese (Hsu 1994).

Attitude, maintenance, and use of Beijing dialect and Putonghua among younger generation Beijing-born residents

In this study, 269 Beijing born respondents were interviewed and asked questions about their language attitude and language behavior. Research categories, apart from ‘attitude’, were ‘accent maintenance’, ‘accent selection’, and ‘code-switching’, whereas the variables employed were ‘gender’, ‘age group’, ‘origin’ of parents, ‘district’ grown-up, ‘spouse’ background, ‘education’ level, ‘job profile’, and ‘network density’. We found that Beijing dialect in Beijing’s central city districts, coexists with the national language Putonghua, or, Standard Chinese, has high language status among native young people in Beijing and a wide range of uses. The main factors which effect respondents’ language behavior are ‘network density’, ‘place-of-origin’, and ‘occupation’. We also determined a high level of confusion between Beijing dialect accent and Putonghua accent, which we related to the mode of Putonghua teaching and Putonghua promotion. We conclude that Beijing dialect and Putonghua will form two functional varieties, playing different roles in different language environments.

Interlingual two-to-one mapping of tonal categories

Both Standard Chinese (SC) high- and low-rising tones sound like the rising tone in Jinan Mandarin (JM) Chinese. Acoustically (Experiment 1), the JM rising tone overlaps with both SC rising tones, but more with the high-rising tone than with the low-rising tone. Perceptually (Experiment 2), the JM rising tone was more likely identified as the SC high-rising tone by SC monolinguals. Experiment 3 examined the role of this two-to-one interlingual tonal mapping in bilingual lexical access. Final high-rising SC pseudo-words were more frequently and more quickly accepted as JM real words than final low-rising SC pseudo-words were. However, both high- and low-rising SC pseudo-words triggered equivalent facilitatory semantic priming on JM real-word targets. The results suggest that different tones are represented in the bilinguals’ mental lexicon in terms of fine-grained and sometimes overlapping acoustic specifications. Lexical activation and semantic activation are partially independent.

Spectral moment analysis of affricates produced by Mandarin-speaking pre-adolescents with repaired cleft palate

ObjectiveTo explore the spectral differences in frication noise between aspirated and unaspirated affricates in typical Putonghua (standard Mandarin Chinese) pre-adolescent speakers, and to compare the spectral characteristics of affricate production between speakers with repaired cleft palate and their non-cleft peers. Participants and interventionSpectral moment analysis, a quantitative approach to capture the contour of speech spectra, was carried out on speech samples produced by two groups of speakers: (a) speakers with repaired cleft palate (n=14, mean age=11.7 years) and (b) typical speakers (n=10, mean age=11.0 years). ResultsData from typical speakers showed that the unaspirated affricates had significantly higher first spectral moment (M1) than their aspirated counterparts. Compared with typical speakers, individuals with repaired cleft palate exhibited a lower first moment for the four affricates /ts, tʂ, tɕh, tɕ/. ConclusionThe results revealed important acoustical differences between aspirated and unaspirated affricates for typical speakers. The trend of spectral deviation may have contributed to the difficulty in producing unaspirated affricates found in Putonghua-speaking individuals with speech disorders related to cleft palate.

Some Statistical Properties of Phonemes in Standard Chinese

This paper reports on a study of statistical properties of phonemes in Standard Chinese in terms of frequency of occurrences, statistical models for frequency distribution and synergetic relations. The results indicate that vowels and nasals are used most frequently but un-aspirated consonants and sounds articulated at the back of the mouth are pervasive in Standard Chinese. The vowels with the falling pitch are significantly more frequent than those with the other tones and the phonemes /i4/, /a4/ and /ə2/ are the top three vowels in the speeches. The usages of phonemes are relatively stable across 20 years. The Cocho/Beta function has a best fit to the ranked frequency distribution of phonemes. The synergetic analysis reveals a strong dependence of phoneme frequency on phoneme complexity and word frequency. The more complex a phoneme is, the less frequently it is used, but the more frequently a word is used, the more it is composed of frequent phonemes.

Representation and Processing of Lexical Tone and Tonal Variants: Evidence from the Mismatch Negativity.

Pronunciation variation is ubiquitous in the speech signal. Different models of lexical representation have been put forward to deal with speech variability, which differ in the level as well as the nature of mental representation. We present the first mismatch negativity (MMN) study investigating the effect of allophonic variation on the mental representation and neural processing of lexical tones. Native speakers of Standard Chinese (SC) participated in an oddball electroencephalography (EEG) experiment. All stimuli have the same segments (ma) but different lexical tones: level [T1], rising [T2], and dipping [T3]. In connected speech with a T3T3 sequence, the first T3 may undergo allophonic change and is produced with a rising pitch contour (T3V), similar to the lexical T2 pitch contour. Four oddball conditions were constructed (T1/T3, T3/T1, T2/T3, T3/T2; standard/deviant). All four conditions elicited MMN effects, with the T1–T3 pair eliciting comparable MMNs, but the T2–T3 pair asymmetrical MMN effects. There were significantly greater and earlier MMN effects in the T2/T3 condition than that in the reversed T3/T2 condition. Furthermore, the T3/T2 condition showed more rightward MMN effects than the T2/T3 condition and the T1–T3 pair. Such asymmetries suggest co-activation of long-term memory representations of both T3 and T3V when T3 serves as the standard. The acoustic similarity between the activated T3V (by the standard T3) and the incoming deviant stimulus T2 induces acoustic processing of the tonal contrast in the T3/T2 condition, similar to that of within-category lexical tone processing, which is in contrast to the processing of between-category lexical tones observed in the T2/T3, T1/T3, and T3/T1 conditions.

Shanghai Chinese

Shanghai Chinese (Shanghainese; 上海话) is a Wu dialect (ISO 639-3; code: wuu) spoken in the city of Shanghai (CN-31), one of the four municipalities in the People's Republic of China. Over the last century, the dialect has been heavily influenced by neighbouring dialects spoken in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, such as Jianghuai Mandarin (江淮官话), the Suzhou Wu dialect (吴语苏州话), and the Ningbo Wu dialect (吴语宁波话), in addition to two other, more distant dialects, Cantonese (广东话) and Northern Mandarin (北方官话). Most native speakers of Shanghai Chinese are in fact descendants of immigrants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces who moved to Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. More recently, the position of Shanghai Chinese has been eroded with the influx of immigrants from other parts of the country and the widespread adoption of Standard Chinese.

Predicting tonal realizations in one Chinese dialect from another

Pronunciation dictionaries are usually expensive and time-consuming to prepare for the computational modeling of human languages, especially when the target language is under-resourced. Northern Chinese dialects are often under-resourced but used by a significant number of speakers. They share the basic sound inventories with Standard Chinese (SC). Also, their words usually share the segmental realizations and logographic written forms with the SC translation equivalents. Hence the pronunciation dictionaries of northern Chinese dialects could be easily available if we were able to predict the tonal realizations of the dialect words from the tonal information of their SC counterparts. This paper applies statistical modeling to investigate the tonal aspect of the related words between a northern dialect, i.e. Jinan Mandarin (JM), and Standard Chinese (SC). Multi-linear regression models were built with between-word pitch distance of JM words as the dependent variable and the following were included as the predictors: SC tonal relations, between-dialect tonal identity, and individual backgrounds. The results showed that tonal relations in SC and between-dialect identity, as predictors featuring the relation between the JM and SC tonal systems, are significant and robust predictors of JM tonal realizations. The speakers’ sociolinguistic and cognitive backgrounds, together with the tonal merge and neutral tone information within JM, are important for the prediction of JM tonal realizations and affect the way that between-language predictors take effect.

The productivity of variable disyllabic tone sandhi in Tianjin Chinese

Tianjin Chinese has one of the more complex tone sandhi systems in Northern Chinese dialects. Due to its close contact with Standard Chinese, many of its tone sandhi patterns are also variable. This article first reports a detailed acoustic study of tone sandhi patterns in both real lexical items and novel words in Tianjin. The data were collected from 48 speakers of Tianjin, who were instructed to pronounce disyllabic sequences as real words based on voice prompts. The results showed that the productivity of the sandhis in novel words varied depending on the sandhi—some were less productive than in real words, and some were more productive, indicating a combination of underlearning, overlearning, and proper learning of the sandhis from the lexicon. A theoretical model that predicts the productivity patterns based on the phonetic properties of the sandhis and statistical generalizations about the sandhis over the lexicon is then proposed.

Modals and negation: A semantic explanation of the modal suppletion strategy in Chinese

Abstract This paper aims at providing a semantic account of the mechanism informing the use of negative modals in standard Chinese. Based on the notion of modal suppletion and negation placement strategies (de Haan 1997), it will be shown that: (i) in the negative form each modal takes on its prominent value; (ii) this prominent modal value displays the normative source orientation (Hsieh 2005), where the Situation-oriented normative source can include the Speaker-oriented normative source and, in particular cases in the domain of Possibility, also the Subject-oriented one; (iii) a negative modal admits different modal meanings only if there is no pragmatic conflict between them, as in the case of epistemic and non-epistemic modalities. Moreover, I will show that in non-epistemic modalities the suppletion mechanism is related to the need for normative disambiguation and is characterized by pragmatic exclusion and semantic inclusion (respectively in the Necessity and Possibility domains). In the epistemic area, on the other hand, the mandatory suppletion of the Speaker-oriented adverbs fulfills the condition of semantic well-formedness of the sentence and, for the other epistemic items, a major role is played by the strategy of negation placement (with the result that the syntactic negation mirrors the semantic property of this modality).

A local voice of Macau: Traditional Characters, code-switching and Written Cantonese in an internet forum

Abstract Macau is geographically small but it has a large and complex population with various sub-groups from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Against a backdrop of multilingualism and multiculturalism, questions arise as to whether there is a local Macau Chinese identity and, if yes, how this identity is constructed via language. From a set of language data collected from an internet forum, where university students and their peers have been expressing themselves under minimal censorship, a vernacular “voice” does seem to emerge with the pervasiveness of Traditional Characters and Written Cantonese, demarcating local students and mainland students. Whereas Written Cantonese, often interspersed with English words and phrases, has long been in use in Hong Kong and Macau, the data do show many creative expressions or literacy practices that depart further from the more (quasi-)standard Written Cantonese characters. This creativity is appropriately described as “translanguaging”, and yet “translanguaging” is nothing new in Cantonese-speaking communities; that is, at its outset, Written Cantonese is a “translanguaging” practice in the sense that it challenges the literary norm that “Chinese should always be written in Modern Standard Chinese” and problematizes the language ideology that “a dialect, such as Cantonese, cannot be written”. In addition, these literacy practices, though fluid and creative, are largely based on spoken Cantonese, and hence they can be seen as a way of making the forum even more exclusive to mainland students.

Syllabic tone articulation influences the identification and use of words during Chinese sentence reading: Evidence from ERP and eye movement recordings.

In two experiments, we examined the contribution of articulation-specific features to visual word recognition during the reading of Chinese. In spoken Standard Chinese, a syllable with a full tone can be tone-neutralized through sound weakening and pitch contour change, and there are two types of two-character compound words with respect to their articulation variation. One type requires articulation of a full tone for each constituent character, and the other requires a full- and a neutral-tone articulation for the first and second characters, respectively. Words of these two types with identical first characters were selected and embedded in sentences. Native speakers of Standard Chinese were recruited to read the sentences. In Experiment 1, the individual words of a sentence were presented serially at a fixed pace while event-related potentials were recorded. This resulted in less-negative N100 and anterior N250 amplitudes and in more-negative N400 amplitudes when targets contained a neutral tone. Complete sentences were visible in Experiment 2, and eye movements were recorded while participants read. Analyses of oculomotor activity revealed shorter viewing durations and fewer refixations on-and fewer regressive saccades to-target words when their second syllable was articulated with a neutral rather than a full tone. Together, the results indicate that readers represent articulation-specific word properties, that these representations are routinely activated early during the silent reading of Chinese sentences, and that the representations are also used during later stages of word processing.

‘Chinese English or English Chinese?’

AbstractA question which is frequently asked in discussions about the future roles of English and Chinese (Modern Standard Chinese or Putonghua and often also referred to as Mandarin) in the Asia-Pacific region is whether Chinese will replace English as the primary regional language or lingua franca. In this article, I shall first consider the roles that each language is playing in China itself and within the Asia-Pacific region. I shall argue that it is important to take these languages together, as the combination of Modern Standard Chinese and English is threatening regional languages, including other major Chinese languages such as Cantonese. In dealing with these two major languages in combination, I shall also consider how each language has influenced and continues to influence the other linguistically, illustrating this with examples at the levels of lexis, syntax, rhetoric and pragmatic norms. I shall conclude by tentatively suggesting how the roles of these two languages may develop in future, and the potential sociolinguistic consequences of this.

Speech-reading performance of hearing-impaired students in China

This study investigated speech-reading performance of hearing-impaired (HI) students in China. Eighteen students [mean age = 16;4 (age;month)] with HI (averages of 89.5 dB, SD = 13.21) in primarily oral-teaching classrooms and 47 students (mean age = 15;6) with HI (averages of 92 dB, SD = 16.77) from primarily sign-teaching classrooms were asked to identify initials (consonants), simplex finals (monophthongs), and complex finals in standard Chinese (the common language) via speech reading. Both accuracy rate and response time data were collected. Results show that in comparison to students instructed in the sign-based approach, students from oral approach classrooms showed more accurate identification of vowels, but not of consonants. However, the two groups of students did not differ in their speed of identification. In addition, the overall levels of identification accuracy rose, whereas the response times fell, for simplex finals, complex finals, and initial consonants. These results suggest that oral approaches to education for hearing-impaired children facilitate their speech-reading performance for vowels but not for consonants, providing initial evidence from a non-European language for vowel-based visual speech perception training protocols.

Prosodic boundaries effect on segment articulation in standard Chinese: An articulatory and acoustic study

This paper presents an electropalatographic (EPG) and acoustic study of prosodic boundaries effect on the domain-initial segments in Standard Chinese. Two speech sounds, namely, the voiceless unaspirated alveolar stop /t/ and the high front vowel /i/, were studied to examine the domain-initial strengthening in both spatial and temporal dimensions. The articulatory and acoustic parameters of the speech sounds were compared in initial positions of five prosodic constituents in Standard Chinese, namely, a Syllable, a Foot, an Immediate Phrase, an Intonational Phrase, and an Utterance. The results show that: (1) the production of the domain-initial consonantal gesture was prosodically encoded. The linguopalatal contact and the seal duration varied as a function of the prosodic boundary strength. The linguopalatal contact was dependent on the seal duration in a nonlinear fashion. Of the acoustic properties of the domain-initial stop, the total voiceless interval and voicing during closure were found to be reliable acoustic correlates that mark the hierarchical structure of the prosody. (2) At the release moment of the domain-initial stop, no consistent pattern was found to support the domain-initial strengthening. The linguopalatal contact of the vowel immediately following the domain-initial consonant did not show a clear trend of domain-initial strengthening; however, the phonatory features of vowels were indicative of pitch reset at major prosodic boundaries. These indicate that the domain-initial strengthening is restricted on the segment immediately following the boundary. In conclusion Standard Chinese strengthens the phonetic features of the domain-initial segments as a function of boundary strength, which serves as an important way to mark prosodic structure in Standard Chinese.

An articulatory model of standard Chinese using MRI and X-ray movie

To better understand speech production from the phonological inputs to articulatory movements and then to acoustic outputs, it is important to establish an elaborate articulatory model of the vocal tract. This paper has explored the articulatory mechanism of speech production in Standard Chinese and developed a geometric articulatory model in both the visual and acoustic modalities. This model was based on the data of MRI images and X-ray movie, with the former providing detailed volumetric information of the vocal tract, and the latter the dynamic information of articulation. In this model, the seven articulators have been studied and modeled, including the hard palate, pharynx, jaw, lips, velum, tongue, and larynx. The tongue is modeled as two parts: tongue tip and tongue body, thus reducing the necessary number of parameters. The relation between larynx height and fundamental frequency in regard to the four tones is also modeled. These two improvements on tongue and larynx modeling have contributed new ideas to the articulatory modeling of Standard Chinese. This model can serve as a research tool for linguists, phoneticians, and speech engineers, and can be used in parameter speech synthesis, virtual speaker, and visual assistant speech training of Standard Chinese. 提要: 爲了更好地理解言語的產生過程,即如何從音位輸入到調音器官的動 作、再到聲學輸出,需要建立詳盡的聲道調音模型。本文是對漢語普 通話言語產生中調音機制的探索與研究,建立了一個具有視覺和聲學 輸出的幾何調音模型。該調音模型的數據源自於聲道的磁共振圖像和 X 光錄影,前者主要提供聲道的立體形狀,後者提供調音的動態過程。 在這個模型中,聲道被分解為七個調音部位進行研究:硬齶、喉腔後 壁、下頜、雙唇、軟齶、舌頭和喉管。其中創新性地,舌頭又被分為 舌體(相對簡單)和舌尖(更為靈活)兩部份,從而簡化所需要的參 數;另外,普通話四聲中基頻高低與喉管上下高度的關係也加入到模 型中。該模型可以作為研究工具服務於語言學、語音學和言語工程, 並可用於語音參數合成、虛擬說話人、普通話輔助教學等領域。

Predicting NP forms in vernacular written Cantonese

Cantonese contains a range of NP forms which are ambiguous with respect to referentiality and definiteness (e.g., go yahn ‘a/the man’). Accessibility theory (Ariel 2001) predicts that entities which are salient in the discourse will be introduced using forms with more linguistic material, and referred back to using forms with less linguistic material. Previous studies of Standard Written Chinese have found that more topical entities are introduced using fuller NP forms (Sun 1988; Li 2000). A study of online love-advice narratives reveals that, in the case of new items, fuller NP forms in Vernacular Written Cantonese are more frequently used for more topical, referential, and plural entities. For given items, however, contrary to the predictions of accessibility theory, topical entities and those with a previous reference using a longer NP form are associated with fuller, rather than more abbreviated, NP forms. These findings suggest that the desire to highlight topical entities may override the principle of accessibility in choice of NP form for given items in certain genres.

Spectral features and perceptual judgment of place of affricate in Putonghua-speaking pre-adolescents with normal and cleft palate

PurposeThe aim of the study was to examine the relationship between the spectral features and perceptual judgments of places of affricate in Putonghua (standard Mandarin Chinese), and to explore the possible contribution of different spectral moments on correct perception of place of articulation information by typical pre-adolescent speakers and those with cleft palate. MethodA total of 139 affricates produced by 10 normal pre-adolescent speakers and 14 speakers with repaired cleft palate (distorted articulation) were presented to 12 listeners tasked with making a judgment of the accuracy of place of articulation using a visual analog scale. ResultsStatistical analysis showed a significant relationship between the third spectral moment (L3) and listeners’ perceptual judgment of typical alveolar and retroflex affricates. For productions by pre-adolescents with cleft palate, the first spectral moment (M1) was significantly correlated with listener perceptual scaling of retroflex affricates, but not for the alveolar affricates. ConclusionSpectral features were associated with the perception of place of affricate in Putonghua. Different spectral moment characteristics might be used by listeners when perceiving speech from individuals with cleft palate.