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- Volume 50, Issue 1, 2024
Concentric - Volume 50, Issue 1, 2024
Volume 50, Issue 1, 2024
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Acoustic and articulatory variation of Mandarin diphthong /ou/
Author(s): Yung-hsiang Shawn Changpp.: 1–19 (19)More LessAbstractThis study compared dynamic formant trajectories and corresponding ultrasound tongue data of the diphthong /ou/ in Taiwan Mandarin and Beijing Mandarin speakers. Results of the Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMM) analyses showed that both groups of speakers produced a clearly diphthongal /ou/, which contrasts with previous auditory-based accounts that /ou/ in Taiwan Mandarin may be monophthongal. The two dialects, however, had rather different phonetic realizations: Taiwan Mandarin had a significantly lower realization for the nucleus of /ou/ than its Beijing counterpart; Taiwan Mandarin also had a significantly more fronted realization for the offglide than Beijing Mandarin. The articulatory patterns mostly corresponded to the acoustic results, in that while tongue dorsum raising was found for all speakers in this study, an additional tongue dorsum fronting gesture was observed for the majority of the Taiwan Mandarin speakers. Together, the results suggest that the less studied dialectal variation in Mandarin vowels may be a promising line of investigation, particularly with parallel acoustic and articulatory data collection.
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On a dichotomy of question types
Author(s): Po-Hsuan Huang and One-Soon Herpp.: 20–56 (37)More LessAbstractThis paper reexamines the conventional classification of questions in the Formosan language Paiwan: polar, disjunctive, and wh-questions and seeks to rectify some previous observations and offer a more insightful taxonomy. Specifically, we support the position in Egli (1990) and Huang et al. (1999) and demonstrate that polar questions are formed by a rising intonation alone and that the putative polar question particles (ui) dri, (ui) pai, na, and ui lja are in fact polar question tags, while a and ayau are non-interrogative interjection particles. There are thus no morphosyntactically formed polar questions in Paiwan. Crucially, questions formed with the sentence-initial tuki and its variants aki, ki, and tui are disjunctive questions, not polar questions. We argue that manu, previously seen as a disjunctive interrogative conjunction, is actually an emphatic adverbial instead, meaning ‘in the end,’ which can thus appear in all types of questions and declaratives. Disjunctive questions, in either A-or-B or A-not-A form, can also be formed with a silent disjunctive interrogative conjunction. Finally, we demonstrate that disjunctive and wh-questions share fundamental properties and should be recognized as two subcategories of constituent questions, as opposed to polar questions. A two-way distinction is thus obtained for questions in Paiwan.
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Dialectal distinctions in Plngawan Atayal
Author(s): Andre Goderichpp.: 57–88 (32)More LessAbstractPlngawan Atayal can be subdivided into two varieties: Sami’uɹ and Macagis. This subdialectal distinction went mostly unnoticed in linguistic publications barring a short mention by Chen (2012). Despite living in the same village since 1938, elderly speakers of both varieties have retained a number of unique phonological features. These features not only allow us to distinguish contemporary varieties, but also let us identify data from older publications. An examination of works by Ferrell (1969) and Li (1981, 1985) has revealed a prevalence of Sami’uɹ data, with a small number of Macagis lexemes.
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Power, solidarity, and sajiao in dementia care
Author(s): Shumin Linpp.: 89–111 (23)More LessAbstractWhile scholars in the sociolinguistics of aging have shown that communication in eldercare is characterized by the predominance of infantilizing speech or elderspeak, sajiao, a self-infantilizing speech, has not been examined in this context. Further, current research on sajiao has focused primarily on young women. How sajiao is used in intergenerational communication involving adults and older adults is rarely examined. Drawing on two years of ethnography in two adult day centers in Taiwan, this paper examines the negotiation of power and solidarity through sajiao in dementia care. Sajiao is used for both task-oriented/transactional goals and interpersonal/relational goals and often serves multifunctional purposes to influence and to connect simultaneously. The intent and effect of sajiao as strategies of persuasion and influence (that is, power) and/or strategies of engagement and connection (that is, solidarity) is jointly constructed and negotiated. The multiple data sources of this longitudinal study—including ethnographic observations, interviews, and video-recordings—allow for richly contextualized interpretations of interactional episodes and reflective accounts, revealing a complex picture of power and solidarity negotiated through sajiao. This study contributes to research on eldercare communication by demonstrating the ambiguity and polysemy of discursive strategies in eldercare communication with regard to power and solidarity.
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