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

Transnational experience, aspiration and family language policy

Transnational and multilingual families have become commonplace in the 21st century. Yet relatively few attempts have been made from applied and socio-linguistics perspectives to understand what is going on within such families; how their transnational and multilingual experiences impact on the family dynamics and their everyday life; how they cope with the new and ever-changing environment, and how they construct their identities and build social relations. In this article we start from the premise that bilingualism and multilingualism mean different things to different generations and individuals within the same family. Additive Bilingualism, which is often celebrated for the positive benefits of adding a second language and culture without replacing or displacing the first, cannot be taken for granted as a common experience of the individuals in transnational families. Using data gathered from a sociolinguistic ethnography of three multilingual and transnational families from China in Britain, we discuss the experiences of different generations and individuals in dealing with bilingualism and multilingualism and how their experiences affect the way individual family members perceive social relations and social structures and construct and present their own identities. The key argument we wish to put forward is that more attention needs to be paid to the diverse experiences of the individuals and to the `strategies they use to deal with the challenges of multilingualism, rather than the overall patterns of language maintenance and language shift

“Where are you really from?”: nationality and ethnicity talk (NET) in everyday interactions

The article examines the significance of questions such as “where are you really from?” in everyday conversational interactions. Defining this kind of talk as nationality and ethnicity talk (NET), i.e. discourse that either explicitly or inexplicitly evokes one’s nationality or ethnicity in everyday conversation, the paper discusses what constitutes NET, how it works through symbolic and indexical cues and strategic emphasis, and why it matters in the wider context of identity, race, intercultural contact and power relations. The discussion draws on social media data including videos, blogs, on-line comments and the authors’ observations, and focuses on NET around Asian people living outside Asia. It argues that the question “where are you really from” itself does not per se contest immigrants’ entitlement. However, what makes a difference to the perception of whether one is an “interloper” - someone who is not wanted - is the “tangled” history, memory and expectation imbued and fuelled by power inequality

Translanguaging in performance or performance in translanguaging

This article approaches translanguaging from the perspective of performance as theorised in anthropological and sociological studies. Drawing on the key argument that every facet of social reality is a performance, and social interaction is based on tacit agreement among all the participants, the article aims to make sense of a key participant’s making sense of her social world, based on an ethnographic investigation into the work and life of a multilingual, London-based artist of Polish origin. It discusses the creative and critical interpretative potentials that break down the boundaries of performance vs. everyday life, the observer vs. the observed, and the researcher vs. the researched. It also calls for further attention to the performative aspects of translanguaging

The hidden-charm pentaquark and tetraquark states

In the past decade many charmonium-like states were observed experimentally. Especially those charged charmonium-like $Z_c$ states and bottomonium-like $Z_b$ states can not be accommodated within the naive quark model. These charged $Z_c$ states are good candidates of either the hidden-charm tetraquark states or molecules composed of a pair of charmed mesons. Recently, the LHCb Collaboration discovered two hidden-charm pentaquark states, which are also beyond the quark model. In this work, we review the current experimental progress and investigate various theoretical interpretations of these candidates of the multiquark states. We list the puzzles and theoretical challenges of these models when confronted with the experimental data. We also discuss possible future measurements which may distinguish the theoretical schemes on the underlying structures of the hidden-charm multiquark states.Comment: Review accepted by Physics Reports, 152 pages, 66 figures, and 29 table

Mass spectra of Zc and Zb exotic states as hadron molecules

We construct charmonium-like and bottomonium-like molecular interpolating currents with quantum numbers J(PC)=1(+-) in a systematic way, including both color singlet-singlet and color octet-octet structures. Using these interpolating currents, we calculate two-point correlation functions and perform QCD sum rule analyses to obtain mass spectra of the charmonium-like and bottomonium-like molecular states. Masses of the charmonium-like q_bar c c_bar q molecular states for these various currents are extracted in the range 3.85-4.22 GeV, which are in good agreement with observed masses of the Zc resonances. Our numerical results suggest a possible landscape of hadronic molecule interpretations of the newly-observed Zc states. Mass spectra of the bottomonium-like q_bar b b_bar q molecular states are similarly obtained in the range 9.92-10.48 GeV, which support the interpretation of the Zb(10610) meson as a molecular state within theoretical uncertainties. Possible decay channels of these molecular states are also discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted by PR

The Possible J^{PC}=0^{--} Exotic State

In order to explore the possible existence of the exotic $0^{--}$ state, we have constructed the tetraquark interpolating operators systematically. As a byproduct, we notice the $0^{+-}$ tetraquark operators without derivatives do not exist. The special Lorentz structure of the $0^{--}$ currents forbids the four-quark correction to the spectral density. Now the gluon condensate is the dominant power correction. Within the framework of the finite energy sum rule, none of the seven interpolating currents supports a resonant signal. Therefore we conclude that the exotic $0^{--}$ state does not exist below 2 GeV, which is consistent with the current experimental observations.Comment: 12 pages, 27 figure

Neural Natural Language Inference Models Enhanced with External Knowledge

Modeling natural language inference is a very challenging task. With the availability of large annotated data, it has recently become feasible to train complex models such as neural-network-based inference models, which have shown to achieve the state-of-the-art performance. Although there exist relatively large annotated data, can machines learn all knowledge needed to perform natural language inference (NLI) from these data? If not, how can neural-network-based NLI models benefit from external knowledge and how to build NLI models to leverage it? In this paper, we enrich the state-of-the-art neural natural language inference models with external knowledge. We demonstrate that the proposed models improve neural NLI models to achieve the state-of-the-art performance on the SNLI and MultiNLI datasets.Comment: Accepted by ACL 201

Advantages of the multinucleon transfer reactions based on 238U target for producing neutron-rich isotopes around N = 126

The mechanism of multinucleon transfer (MNT) reactions for producing neutron-rich heavy nuclei around N = 126 is investigated within two different theoretical frameworks: dinuclear system (DNS) model and isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamics (IQMD) model. The effects of mass asymmetry relaxation, N=Z equilibration, and shell closures on production cross sections of neutron-rich heavy nuclei are investigated. For the first time, the advantages for producing neutron-rich heavy nuclei around N = 126 is found in MNT reactions based on 238U target. We propose the reactions with 238U target for producing unknown neutron-rich heavy nuclei around N = 126 in the future.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure