Chinese Language and Discourse - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2012

While the study of Mandarin Chinese intensifiers has been prolific, the methodologies used have been limited to comparative and grammaticalization studies, revealing little about the discourse-pragmatic usages of individual intensifiers. Utilizing a balanced corpus composed of 15 different prototypical genres, the associative strength of 12 commonly used intensifiers in each genre was statistically determined based on their frequency distribution. The results reveal a clear preference pattern of intensifiers across a range of “written” and “spoken”-based genres. Upon the premise that the genre preferences of intensifiers stem from matching dimensions of communicative intent/discourse context between genre and intensifier, genre-analysis was conducted to unveil the core “stances” each intensifier might possibly project. In conclusion, it is argued that genre-analysis based on empirical corpus data provides a valid alternative means to uncover seemingly “covert” aspects of language use.

This study fills a gap in the literature on the polyfunctional nature of the Chinese ditransitive verb gěi ‘to give’, which has undergone semantic and functional extensions. Our approach differs from previous studies by focusing on a narrowly defined location in time and space, i.e. contemporary Beijing oral language, and by basing our linguistic analysis on data obtained through the systematic sampling of a corpus of spontaneous casual discourse. Based on the existing literature we produce a taxonomy of five extended functions and structures 1) causative verb, 2) passive marker, 3) benefactive/malefactive/dative marker, 4) disposal marker and 5) ditransitive suffix. Of these, the first four share the common linear structure [NP1 gěi NP2 V]. Applying this taxonomy to our data we identified the relative productivity of each of these functions and created a synchronic constructional network of gěi, revealing its complex network of connections.

Focusing on openings of telephone service encounters, this study utilizes two sets of comparable discourse data in Chinese collected in the same linguistic community more than a decade apart to explore discoursal style changes over time. The comparative analysis examines forms, tasks and discursive interaction of the opening phase oftelephone service encounters in Shanghai, China.Differences in opening routines over time are observed, which include the adoption of institutionalized, more elaborative expressions as well as increased range of interactional tasks performed (including greeting and business self-identification) in more recent data. The findings indicate that a shift may have taken place in business discursive practices in China; it is also suggested that the style of answering telephone calls by businesses or services, or first turn of Chinese telephone service encounters, may have been in the process of being reshaped, gaining certain distinctive institutional markers, thus making such interactions somewhat distinguishable from the pick-up style for non-institutional telephone interactions at home.

The term maidan has become a common way of asking for the bill in Putonghua. In this paper we investigate whether this is the transfer of a Cantonese expression which has been re-interpreted as a Putonghua expression, and thus an example of language change being caused by a mistake or mishearing. The study surveyed Mainland Chinese in a number of settings to elicit their preferred way of asking for the bill. By asking them to write the characters, we were also able to determine whether those whose preferred way of asking for the bill was to say maidan were using the Cantonese or the Putonghua expression. We conclude that, in many contexts, maidan has indeed become the preferred way of calling for the bill, and that the majority of those who use this expression are using the Putonghua ‘buy the bill’ rather than the original Cantonese expression.

Based on twelve celebrity interviews in Mandarin Chinese and American English, broadcast in a range of talk-radio/television programs in the U.S. and China, the current study is a comparative analysis of interviewers’ questioning practices and the cultural underpinnings of those questions. The analysis focuses on the interviewers’ question-word interrogatives in the discourse context of multiple Turn Construction Units (multi-TCUs). The study demonstrates similar interviewing strategies between two datasets including couching queries in partial knowledge of the guest’s “celebrity-induced experiences,” and using the presupposition function of question-word interrogatives to “control” responses. Significant differences exist: The English interviews primarily reference the guest’s behaviors/activities as context for query, and frame the interviewee’s first-person accounts as particularizations of commonly shared ‘tellables.’ The Chinese interviews tend to use external reference-points, particularly the behavior and sentiments of others, thus constructing a comparative/contrastive angle from which the guest relays first-person accounts.