Chinese Language and Discourse - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2013

In this study I examine a large number of verbalizations in the Chinese Pear narratives and find that for each scene examined there is usually one or at most two favored and stabilized verbalizations, with variability around the stabilized forms. These favored verbalizations are the preferred states of the system for expressing concurrent events, transfer of objects, perfectivity in event construal etc., and they may be thought of as strong attractors in the behavior space in terms of complexity theory. These attractors exert a force on the grammatical system, and impose a frame on them and model the development of new forms. Further research in Chinese grammar into the wide ranging, dynamic and systematic variability as well as stability within and across individuals is urged.

This paper investigates the functions of a previously neglected collocation, the nominalizer 的 de and the noun 樣子 yàngzi ‘appearance’ (DYZ) in colloquial Mandarin discourse. DYZ is shown to be either denotational or non-denotational. In the denotational use, yàngzi denotes various entity concepts, including bodily appearances, behavioral demeanor, and visual percepts of an event. In the non-denotational use, however, yàngzi does not denote, but instead, in tandem with the nominalizer de, functions as an inferential marker, meaning a grammatical device that indicates inference or assumption on the part of the speaker while at the same time signaling the speaker’s medium epistemic certainty about a statement. The underlying mechanism of recruiting the noun for “appearance” to mark inferentials may be attributable to the widespread conceptualization of basing the epistemology of perception on “how things look” (Lyons 2005).

Recent corpus studies have shown that differences in subjectivity − the degree to which speakers express themselves in an utterance − can account for the usage of causal connectives (because, so) in major European languages. If the notion of subjectivity is a basic cognitive principle, it ought to play a role in the description of connectives in other languages. In this paper, we present a corpus analysis of five Mandarin result connectives, kĕjiàn, suŏyĭ, yīncĭ, yīn’ér, and yúshì. We used four subjectivity indicators: modality, domain (following Sweetser 1990), and the presence and identity of a Subject of Consciousness – the person responsible for constructing the causal relation. Results show that kĕjiàn, suŏyĭ, yīncĭ, yīn’ér, and yúshì display different degrees of subjectivity. To a large degree, our findings corroborate previous observations in the literature (e.g. the ones in Xing 2001). However, our analysis also shows that while kĕjiàn, yúshì, and yīn’ér have robust profiles across genres, the subjective meanings of suŏyĭ and yīncĭ, two common connectors, are genre sensitive.

Like many other countries, Singapore has seen some public tension fermenting over what is sometimes perceived as the government’s generous open-door immigration policy. Some Singaporeans appear to have taken to regarding themselves as rightful “natives” by distinguishing between local and foreign accents (see Jacobs 2012; Oon 2012). With a sizeable number of foreigners hailing from China, do Singaporeans have negative attitudes toward non-local Chinese accents because of these ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiments? This paper examines the language attitudes of Chinese Singaporeans towards speakers of Mandarin from three locales: Beijing, Taiwan and Singapore. It describes an attitudinal test using the verbal guise technique, comparing the attitudes of 100 Singaporean Chinese youths toward the Beijing, Taiwanese and Singaporean accents of Mandarin along the dimensions of prestige and solidarity. This study shows that there are distinct differences in the ways in which the three accents are perceived by Singaporeans. However, contrary to expectations, the foreign accents are not discriminated against, but are in fact ranked more favourably as compared to the local accent. Ultimately, functionality and economic goals of advancement seem to override other socio-cultural aims of the nation as Singaporeans focus on the prestige that the foreign Chinese accents can bring them.