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- Volume 1, Issue, 2010
Chinese Language and Discourse - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010
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Conversation, grammar, and fixedness: Adjectives in Mandarin revisited
Author(s): Sandra A. Thompson and Hongyin Taopp.: 3–30 (28)More LessThe categoriality of ‘adjectives’ has been a favorite topic of discussion in functional Chinese linguistics. However, the literature leaves us with no clear picture of the ‘adjective’ category for Mandarin. In this paper, we take a usage-based approach to revisit the issue of adjectives in Mandarin. Our investigation of a corpus of face-to-face conversations shows that conversational Mandarin favors Predicate Adjectives over Attributive Adjectives. This pattern is explained by two facts: people primarily use Predicate Adjectives in conversation to assess the world around them, and these assessments (including reactive tokens) are a primary way for people to negotiate stance, alignment, and perspective, while Attributive Adjectives are used to introduce new participants into the discourse, which is a less prominent function in everyday conversation. We also argue that whether predicative or attributive, an understanding of adjectives in everyday Mandarin talk involves various facets of fixedness. This is substantiated by the fact that predicate vs. attributive positions attract different types of adjectives, kinds of collocation patterns, kinds of constructions, and pathways to lexicalization. Thus, this paper demonstrates that (1) interactional data can tell us much about the ‘psychological reality’ of the category ‘adjective’ for speakers; and (2) frequency and ongoing prefab creation are crucial to characterizing the categoriality and mental representation of ‘adjectives’ in Mandarin.
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From language structures to language use: A case from Mandarin motion expression classification
Author(s): Liang Chen and Jiansheng Guopp.: 31–65 (35)More LessThe place of Mandarin Chinese in Talmy’s two-way typology of motion expressions has been a focus of debate. Based primarily on linguistic intuition, some researchers consider Mandarin a Satellite-framed language, and some others consider it a Verb-framed language. This paper reports results from analyses of three different types of data from speakers’ actual language use in narrative discourse (one from elicited adults’ spoken narratives, one from written narratives in nine contemporary novels, and one from elicited children’s spoken narratives from ages 3 to 9) that suggest otherwise. Specifically, Mandarin shows a unique discourse style that matches neither Satellite-framed nor Verb-framed languages. The data provide evidence for categorizing Mandarin Chinese as the third language type: an equipollently-framed language. It is argued that examination of language use in discourse can provide insights for solving nutty problems that may not be resolved by merely looking at static linguistic structures.
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From positivity to possibility, propriety and necessity: Semantic change in culture
Author(s): Zhuo Jing-Schmidtpp.: 66–92 (27)More LessThis paper addresses the development of construction-specific modal uses of hao ‘good’ in Mandarin discourse. My focus is the cultural relevancy of the pathway of change: an expression of value judgment gives rise to deontic modality in recurring discourse contexts. Mandarin is contrasted with Germanic languages with regard to lexical sources of change towards deontic modals. It is suggested that social interdependence of individuals and the cultural preference of collective agency are the driving forces behind the change of the Mandarin hao constructions as opposed to personal agency and autonomy which underlies the semantic development in Germanic.
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Dialectal and normative registers in Yangzhou storytelling
Author(s): Vibeke Børdahlpp.: 94–123 (30)More LessChinese storytelling is inseparably bound up with local dialect. However, normative language also plays a distinctive role in many performance arts. In this paper the interplay of dialectal and normative registers in Yangzhou storytelling (Yangzhou pinghua) is analysed. Audio recordings of storytellers born during the late Qing and Republic demonstrate their subtle handling of linguistic registers: dialogue and narrative are regularly rendered in alternating registers, reflecting local Yangzhou dialect (Yangzhou fangyan), local Mandarin (difang guanhua) and Northern Mandarin (Beifang guanhua). The usage of storytelling registers provides new source material on the Yangzhou variety of difang guanhua. On this background the paper raises the question of the linguistic habits of former storytellers and — tentatively — offers a key to the riddle of the famous Liu Jingting’s (1592–1674) spoken language-in-performance.
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Understanding memes on Chinese social media
Author(s): Lu Ying and Jan Blommaert
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