Voices from the diaspora: changing hierarchies and dynamics of Chinese multilingualism

The so-called Chinese diasporas, i.e. Chinese communities outside Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), have traditionally been dialect dominant; that is, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants are speakers of (especially Southern) dialects. Cantonese and Hokkien are two of the most prominent dialects. With globalization and the rise of China as a world politico-economic power, the national, standardized variety, Putonghua, is gaining particular prestige amongst the Chinese diasporas. For example, all the Cantonese schools for British Chinese children in the UK now also teach Putonghua, but none of the Putonghua schools teach Cantonese. Using ethnographic interviews with and participant observation of Chinese people of different generations in various diasporic communities, this paper examines the changing hierarchies of varieties of Chinese, the implications of such changes for the education and identity development of the young, and the constitution of a (speech) community in the post-modern era. It focuses on language attitude and linguistic practices (including literacy practices). It also investigates the tensions between the competing ideologies and discourses on national and ethnic identities, nationalism, community relations and cultural values

Reflections on Mother Tongue Education in National and Provincial Policies in Mainland China

China, as a culturally and linguistically diversified country, has 56 official recognized ethnicities and languages from six different language families. Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the right for people of different ethnicities to receive education in their mother tongues has been guaranteed by the Constitution. However, due to the strong support from the central government, Mandarin gradually gains its official status and influence in the field of public service, mass media, and education. Not only regional varieties of Chinese language has been replaced by Mandarin in all the formal education, but ethnic languages have also shifted from the teaching languages to an independent subject. Therefore, this study tries to reflect the mother tongue education (MTE) among speakers of Chinese languages and non-Chinese languages by analyzing the national and provincial policies in depth. The main focuses are how MTE is regulated and organized in both national and provincial policies and how national and provincial policies correspond to each other. Since the education systems in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are under the supervision of separate governments, this study will only focus on the national and provincial policies from Mainland China. The structure of this thesis is as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the previous research on language education policies in Mainland China and Chapter 2 to 4 present the basic information of languages and MTE in Mainland China. Chapter 5 explains the research method in detail and introduces the cases chosen for this study. The analysis of the national and local level policies will be presented in Chapter 6, and the reflections on MOI policies in educational, political and social-economic sphere will be discussed in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 8 will serve as concluding part to summarize the findings

Language-specificity in auditory perception of Chinese tones

PL1213, LoC Subject Headings: Auditory perception, Chinese language--Tone, Chinese language--Phonolog

Variation, norms and prescribed standard in the Mandarin Chinese spoken in Singapore

Relatório de estágio do mestrado em Economia, apresentado à Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra, sob a orientação de Carlos Carreira e Edgar Silva.No decorrer do estágio curricular, verificou-se o incremento do número de processos de insolvência de empresas-clientes da My Business, a entidade de acolhimento do presente estágio curricular. A recessão económica de 2008-2012 teve um grande impacto na economia portuguesa, refletindo-se na dinâmica das empresas, onde se observam variações significativas das taxas de entrada e saída de empresas e de criação e destruição de emprego nos diversos sectores. Este trabalho tem um duplo objetivo: primeiro, apresentar e enquadrar sectorialmente e regionalmente a entidade de acolhimento; segundo, analisar os efeitos da crise económica na dinâmica da indústria transformadora portuguesa. Na sua concretização adotou-se uma abordagem não experimental, delineando uma via descritiva e exploratória. Entre 2008 e 2012, observou-se um aumento substancial na destruição de emprego relativamente ao período de pré-crise e um pico na taxa de saída de empresas do mercado em 2011, coincidindo com a aplicação do Memorando de Entendimento. A saída de empresas parece ser influenciada negativamente por variáveis como o nível de produtividade e a dimensão da empresa. A entrada de empresas não apresenta qualquer impacto estatisticamente significativo na taxa de risco de saída das empresas. Durante o período de crise, as restrições financeiras das empresas são preponderantes sobre a produtividade no risco de saída

A Study on the Social Practice Teaching of College Students Going to Rural Areas and Training Mandarin in Guanghui Village of the Yi Nationality in Mabian

With the deepening of rural revitalization, “Language Poverty Alleviation” is the cultural dilemma facing China’s three continents and three regions. Popularization of Putonghua concerns ethnic unity, social stability and the construction and development of socialist cause. The subject of this survey is the “Survey Report on the Status of National Common Languages and Characters in Guanghui Village of the Yi Nationality in Mabian”. Based on the social situation and the present situation of learning in Mabian County, this social practice selects 15 volunteers who majored in primary school education (undergraduate) of Geely College to go to Mabian to help the primary school students in Guanghui Village of Mabian Yi Autonomous County to carry out the teaching practice of pushing and popularizing, such as game teaching，questionnaire survey, Interviews, On-the-spot investigation, To fully understand the current situation of the left-behind children of Yi nationality in the village using the national common language. Mastering and accumulating questionnaire data and first-line sample information. analyzing the learning effect and influencing factors of the research object, which it helps the work of “village revitalization” has put forward practical improvement programmes

A preliminary report on the English phonology of typically developing English-Mandarin bilingual preschool Singaporean children

Background: There are no published data on typical phonological development for Singaporean children. There is therefore the risk that children's speech in Singapore may be misdiagnosed or that clinicians may set goals erroneously. Aims This paper reports a preliminary study on the English phonology of typically developing 4;0–4;5-year-old Chinese Singaporean children who speak English and Mandarin. Method & Procedures Seventy children were recruited throughout Singapore, and speech samples were collected in English using the Phonology Assessment of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP). The participants were divided equally into two groups: English-dominant and Mandarin-dominant. Their speech samples were compared with British English targets (BT) and Singapore English targets (ST) in terms of phonological accuracy and types of phonological processes used. Outcomes & Results The results showed that Singaporean children's phonological accuracy scores increased significantly when scored against ST instead of BT. When scored against ST, English-dominant children were found to perform similarly to their DEAP counterparts. However, Mandarin-dominant children had significantly less accurate consonant production in English and exhibited more interference effects from Mandarin phonology than English-dominant children. Conclusions & Implications In this preliminary study, the results highlight the importance of speech and language therapists using local dialect pronunciations to be the target of speech assessments so as to provide appropriate assessment and intervention. It is also essential to account for the language background and language dominance of the children. More local normative data are needed for the typical acquisition of Singapore English in children, especially for children whose dominant language is not English

Linguistic Variation in Contact: the Use of erhua and rusheng in the Xianggang Community in China

This study considers dialect variation by young and middle-aged speakers in the Xianggang community in China. The Xianggang community is located at the southern part of China, but it used to be composed of northern people. The contact between northern and southern dialects has given birth to a dialect mixed situation. With the attempt to know the driving force of language change within this speech community, both social factors and linguistic factors have been taken into consideration. In this study, Erhua is chosen as the representation of northern dialects and rusheng is chosen on behalf of the southern dialects. Linguistically, erhua has two environments: post-vocalic and post-nasal. Against the background of Chinese education, social factors such as age, gender, and period of residence as well as the division of northern and southern characteristics have been studied. This study suggests that there is dialect variation within the speech community, while more evidence is needed to support the assumption of dialect acquisition. Age and the division between northern and southern characteristics play significant roles on the use of rusheng and erhua within the speech community. Period of residence has effect on the use of erhua but not on rusheng. Influenced by Putonghua education, young speakers have less variation in their use of these two linguistic variables than middle-aged speakers do. Within the social context of a steel company, the use of rusheng is lexically conditioned because both northern and southern-characterized speakers choose to apply this tone to similar characters. Post-vocalic erhua is a significant linguistic environment for the use of erhua of the northerners. This is changing tendency towards the use of Putonghua within the speech community