Personality expression in Chinese language use

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 463-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Qiu ◽  
Jiahui Lu ◽  
Jonathan Ramsay ◽  
Shanshan Yang ◽  
Weina Qu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Chinese Language

A Demographic Profile of the Chinese in Singapore

1981 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warwick Neville
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Chinese Community ◽  
Demographic Profile ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Similar Elements

This paper attempts to appraise just one facet of the Chinese community in Singapore — its demographic character and the degree to which this is distinctive within the broader setting of Singapore society at large. The information available as the basis for such an analysis is limited and more definitive statements on trends and differences will be possible as the statistics compiled from the 1980 census become available.Important changes are occurring within the Chinese community which have considerable significance for the republic but for which there is no direct basis of comparison with other ethnic communities. These considerations have not been examined here but include the changing behaviour in matters of kinship, associations and societies, marriage, religion, and similar elements central to the Chinese community. Perhaps the most significant of these currently is the issue of language and the active promotion by government of Mandarin not only as the official Chinese language but as a substitute for dialects in circumstances where, until now, they have been dominant. Although surveys of language use have been carried out recently, these have been too small and too specialized to provide a basis for general conclusions, and again it is to be hoped that the 1980 census data will provide an updated benchmark for this parameter comparable to that of earlier censuses.

scholarly journals A Contrastive Analysis of Explicit Cohesion in English Advertising Texts and Their Chinese Consecutive Interpretation Versions

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Lan Zhou ◽  
Qiang Sun
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Cohesive Devices

Although much research has been conducted on language features of advertising, little has been reported on the contrast between language use in advertisements, particularly advertisements in English and those in Chinese. Drawing on Halliday and Hasan’s theory about cohesion in text, this paper reports on the explicit cohesion devices used in advertising texts in English and Chinese. The data were derived from Singapore, a multilingual country where English and Chinese are two important languages. A total of thirty advertisements in English and their Chinese versions were analyzed for the distribution of explicit cohesive devices, i.e., lexical cohesion and grammatical cohesion. The study reveals that advertisements in English used more reference and conjunction devices than those in Chinese, whereas Chinese language advertisements employed more ellipsis devices than English language advertisements. It also finds that there were no differences in the use of substitution and lexical devices in English or Chinese language advertisements. The conclusion of the study is finally drawn and the further study is suggested.

Chinese Language Maintenance: A Study of Chinese-American Parental Perceptions and Activities

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenzhong Eric Yang
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Parental Perceptions ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
Bivariate Correlation ◽  
Talented Students

AbstractThis study focuses on Chinese-American parents' perceptions of their children's Chinese language use and proficiency. The sites for this study were weekend Chinese schools in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. A self-administered survey was conducted by using a random sample of 209 parents from different backgrounds. Results have indicated that these Chinese-American parents had high expectations of their children's Chinese language proficiency and tried to maintain their unique Chinese heritage and culture. When comparing parental perceptions of different groups, significant differences were found between parents of different income levels. Significant differences were also found in parental activities related to Chinese language proficiency between parents of gifted/talented students and those of average students. No significant differences were found in other groups. Bivariate Correlation analyses indicated that parental perceptions and activities were highly positively-correlated.

The rise of catchword “被 bei-XX”

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97
Author(s):  
Yun Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Internet Communication ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Alternative Analysis ◽  
Word Families ◽  
The Media

Recent studies on Chinese language use show that the rapid development of Internet communication in China has created a new linguistic variety, Chinese Internet language (CIL). Marked with innovations and catch words, CIL is officially branded as 平民化 pingminhua (‘grassroots,’ ‘ordinary’), 低门槛 dimenkan (‘low-standard,’ ‘vulgar’) (Language Situation in China 2012: 205). Nevertheless, the new usages in CIL have attracted tremendous attention; prominent among them is the usage of 被 bei- XX. In Modern Chinese grammar, bei is a preposition followed by an agent (bei + agent + verb) in passive sentences. However, since the news broke out that Prisoner Li Guofu died in a prison hospital and was announced as “a suicide” by the administration in 2008, the usage of 被自杀 bei zisha (to be presumably murdered) started to appear in the Internet and was soon analogized; consequently, numerous new usages of bei-XX swept through the media like wildfire. Taking the grammaticalization approach (Hopper and Traugott 2003), this study intends to explore the semantic changes, linguistic features, and grammatical role of bei in the bei-XX construction. It examines the historical development of bei in the grammaticalization process and evaluates previous and recent analyses associated with it. Drawing on data from China’s national annual reports entitled 《中国语言生活状况报告》 Language Situation in China (2005 to 2013) and online CIL publications, the study proposes an alternative analysis of bei in the bei-XX construction and predicts that this new bei will become an established prefix in the Chinese language and, further, create large word families with bei-XX as the blueprint.

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