Chinese Language and Discourse - Current Issue

Abstract

This study examines tone mergers in Hong Kong Cantonese from the perspective of variationist sociolinguistics. It approaches the issue of whether Cantonese has six or nine tones by focusing on two ongoing tone mergers: (1) the merger of yin qu T3 and yang qu T6, and (2) the merger of lower yin ru T8 and yang ru T9. Speech data from fifty native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong were collected and analyzed. The change routes and constraint patterns of the two mergers were compared and found to be similar. The results support the six-tone system for Hong Kong Cantonese. This study serves as an example of how the variationist approach can be used in phonological debates.

抽象

“真的（吗/啊）？”是一般疑问句的形式，但是在自然口语会话中并不只是因怀疑对方所说信息真假而表达疑问，而是回应标记。本文从互动交际的角度出发，论述了“真的（吗/啊）”在会话序列中的功能。“真的（吗/啊）”在会话中表示得到的完全是新信息或者信息与自己的背景知识有差异，表达意外、惊讶等情感。在会话结构上，“真的（吗/啊）”与主要讲述者结构一致，即不与之抢夺说话权，请对方继续说下去。

Abstract

This study draws on a conversational analysis (CA)-oriented micro-analytical approach and examines the form, placement and function of interviewer (IR) questions prefaced by turn-initial 所以suoyi ‘so’ and 但(是) dan(shi) ‘but’ in Chinese TV news interviews. It is found that IRs often employ the resultative connective suoyi as the first item of their turn immediately after a question-answer (QA) sequence. They do so to preface a declarative, alone or followed by a question tag that invokes an interviewee (IE) opinion on, or the gist of, IE prior talk. While such a design can be a device that IRs use to signal the closing of the ongoing topic, the recipient may orient to it as eliciting confirmation or agreement. By contrast, the adversative connective dan(shi) in the turn-initial position prefaces either a wh-question or a yes/no question and brings forth a point of contrast and transition for questioning. As a practice with which IRs re-direct the IE’s response to a previous unaddressed concern with the agenda tightened, the dan(shi)-prefaced questions do not convey opposition or disagreement. Rather, they function to deal with the resumption in a way that renders it unproblematic. I argue that both types of connective-prefaced questions together with the responses they elicit demonstrate a particular kind of alignment between IRs and IEs in Chinese TV news interviews.

Abstract

Square dancing, guangchangwu in Chinese, is a kind of physical activity practiced in flat public spaces for fitness and entertainment. Despite its popularity all over China, there have been news reports on conflicts caused by it, such as noise pollution or use of a public square. This study collects 150 news articles published between May 2016 and May 2018 containing the keyword guangchangwu from the People’s Daily, one of the most influential official newspapers owned by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The purpose of the study is to investigate the government’s attitudes towards square dancing through an analysis of the official media discourse, using word frequency of occurrence and multimodal discourse analysis. Both the word count and the co-deployment of visual and linguistic resources indicate that square dancing is perceived as an integral part of promoting the national fitness agenda. While the discourse demonstrates awareness of square dancing in the context of an aging society and a shortage of public space, general approval for it is still quite evident in the frequent positive descriptions in the text and presentations in the images. The use of the word dama ‘big mama’ in the official media discourse reveals gender inequality in contemporary China.

Abstract

The Chinese language has encouraged the paradigm shift in linguistics away from Chomsky-style sentence-internal rules toward usage-based discourse. Analysts have debated two possibilities: is Chinese an allegedly ‘inferior’ and ambiguous language because it rests on the ‘three zeros’: zero subjects, zero anaphora, and zero tense? Or does Chinese use ‘hidden complexity’ (Bisang 2009) to make reference clear by discourse marking? Chinese pressure points on linguistic theory center on these ‘three zeros’. Zero subjects have influenced a broader research category of topic-centered languages. Zero anaphora influenced reference tracking beyond the sentence. Zero tense expanded understanding of time and aspect. The process of the shift comes from international networks of multilingual scholars of Chinese. They have collaborated to form a critical mass of explicitly comparative, empirical research. Chinese interdisciplinary research has been especially influential in typology, child language, cross-cultural communications, translation and artificial intelligence. Fifty years ago, mainstream conferences, textbooks, books, and journals almost never featured Chinese. Now they routinely do.

This article reviews Theoretical Construction and Empirical Research in Global Chinese978-7-5138-1525-3

This article reviews Language Policy: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach