scholarly journals Inter-lingual Homophony: Neige as a Demonstrative/Filler in Mandarin Chinese

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
Aiqing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Verbal Communication ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
Racial Slur

The demonstrative/filler neige in Mandarin Chinese is potentially contentious outside that language,as it bears resemblance in terms of pronunciation with a racial slur in English. Nonetheless, neigedoes not possess any racist connotation in Mandarin Chinese, and its analysis needs to take intoconsideration historical and contextual information. The form neige is a colloquialism of its formalequivalent nage, which has functioned as a demonstrative determiner/pronoun or a discoursemarker in verbal communication since ancient periods. The derivation of nei from na is realisedvia suppression of the demonstrative with the numeral yi ‘one’, and this phenomenon occurredeven before Mandarin was invented as a national lingua franca. Differently from languages suchas English in which the number of homophones is limited, Chinese contains an enormous amountof syllables with myriads of homophones, owing to the fact that Chinese is a tone language thatdepends on tone implications to differentiate meanings and syllables/words are hence predominantlymono- or bi-morphemic. As a consequence, homophones pertaining to Chinese aboundboth language-internally and cross-linguistically. Among the repercussions of homophony are theliterary inquisitions during the Qing era that sabotaged freedom of creation. Therefore, the interpretationand comprehension of neige need to be objective and impartial.

Migrating Meanings

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Underhill ◽  
Mariarosaria Gianninoto ◽  
Mariarosaria Gianninoto
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Broad View ◽  
European Languages ◽  
The People ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Historical Accounts

Exploring the roots of four keywords for our times: Europe, the citizen, the individual, and the people, Mariarosaria Gianninoto’s and James Underhill’s Migrating Meanings (2019) takes a broad view of conceptualization by taking on board various forms of English, (Scottish, American, and English), as well as other European languages (German, French, Spanish & Czech), and incorporating in-depth contemporary and historical accounts of Mandarin Chinese. The corpus-based research leads the authors to conclude that the English keywords are European concepts with roots in French and parallel traditions in German. But what happens to Chinese words when they come into contact with migrating meanings from Europe? How are existing concepts like the people transformed? This book goes beyond the cold analysis of concepts to scrutinize the keywords that move people and get them excited about individual rights and personal destinies. With economic, political and cultural globalisation, our world is inseparable from the fates of other nations and peoples. But how far can we trust English to provide us with a reliable lingua franca to speak about our world? If our keywords reflect our cultures and form parts of specific cultural and historical narratives, they may well trace the paths we take together into the future. This book helps us to understand how other languages are adapting to English words, and how their worldviews resist ‘anglo-concepts’ through their own traditions, stories and worldviews.

Influence of Musical Expertise on Segmental and Tonal Processing in Mandarin Chinese

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2701-2715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Marie ◽  
Franco Delogu ◽  
Giulia Lampis ◽  
Marta Olivetti Belardinelli ◽  
Mireille Besson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Error Rate ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Transfer Effects ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Musical Expertise ◽  
Tonal Processing

A same–different task was used to test the hypothesis that musical expertise improves the discrimination of tonal and segmental (consonant, vowel) variations in a tone language, Mandarin Chinese. Two four-word sequences (prime and target) were presented to French musicians and nonmusicians unfamiliar with Mandarin, and event-related brain potentials were recorded. Musicians detected both tonal and segmental variations more accurately than nonmusicians. Moreover, tonal variations were associated with higher error rate than segmental variations and elicited an increased N2/N3 component that developed 100 msec earlier in musicians than in nonmusicians. Finally, musicians also showed enhanced P3b components to both tonal and segmental variations. These results clearly show that musical expertise influenced the perceptual processing as well as the categorization of linguistic contrasts in a foreign language. They show positive music-to-language transfer effects and open new perspectives for the learning of tone languages.

Stop Laryngeal Distinctions Driven by Contrastive Effects of Neighboring Tones

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092092289
Author(s):  
Sang-Im Lee-Kim
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Target Tone ◽  
High Tone ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Tonal Context

This study examined contrastive effects of neighboring tones that give rise to a systematic asymmetry in stop perception. Korean-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese and naïve listeners labeled voiceless unaspirated stops preceded or followed by low or high extrinsic tonal context (e.g., maLO.pa vs. maHI.pa) either as lenis (associated with a low F0 at the vowel onset) or as fortis stops (with a high F0). Further, the target tone itself varied between level and rising (e.g., maLO.paLEV vs. maLO.paRIS). Both groups of listeners showed significant contrastive effects of extrinsic context. Specifically, more lenis responses were elicited in a high tone context than in a low one, and vice versa. This indicates that the onset F0 of a stop is perceived lower in a high tone context, which, in turn, provides positive evidence for lenis stops. This effect was more clearly pronounced for the level than for the contour tone target and also for the preceding than for the following context irrespective of linguistic experience. Despite qualitative similarities, learners showed larger effects for all F0 variables, indicating that the degree of context effects may be enhanced by one’s phonetic knowledge, namely sensitivity to F0 cues along with the processing of consecutive tones acquired through learning a tone language.

Tone Ranges in a Two-Tone Language (Lingala)

1940 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 469-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Common Factor ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Congo River ◽  
System A

The language on which this short study is based is Lingala, the very interesting lingua franca spoken along the vast stretch of the central part of the main Congo River. The language is spoken almost entirely by Bantu tribes, all of whom have also their own tribal languages. Naturally there is considerable affinity between these languages, and in some senses Lingala may be said to represent the Highest Common Factor of them. Phonetically they are almost identical, and so Lingala has preserved a clearly marked phonetic system, a brief account of which should not be out of place here.

scholarly journals Focus-marking in a tone language: Prosodic cues in Mandarin Chinese

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Iris Chuoying Ouyang ◽  
Elsi Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Focus Marking

No abstract.

scholarly journals Non-verbal Communication Used by Parents to Their Children in Presence of Visitors in Ovoko

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-542
Author(s):  
Bestman Esegbuyiota Odeh ◽  
Linda, Abugu ◽  
Jacinta Ukamaka Eze ◽  
Juliana Ginika Mamah ◽  
Augustina Ngozi Eze
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Verbal Communication ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Primary Methods ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Enugu State ◽  
The Right ◽  
Body Expression

This study examines the use of non-verbal communication by parents to their children in presence of visitors in Ovoko speech community, Enugu state, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study are: to identify various body communication signs used by parents to their children in presence of visitors and to provide the interpretations in the speech community under study. Primary methods of data collection are adopted which is observation and interview. From the pictures gathered from the field, a total of ten (10) facial and body expressions are selected for analysis in this study. The study adopts the social semiotic theory as a theoretical framework for its analysis. The study identifies various body signs used by parents to their children. It further reveals that all expressions used by the population have meanings attached to them. The study therefore, recommends that a study of the children’s interpretation and opinion of the parents’ body expression is a worthwhile academic undertaking in other to ascertain if the right perlocutionary response to the sign is always achieved.

Contributions of the Fundamental, Resolved Harmonics, and Unresolved Harmonics in Tone-Phoneme Identification

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1406-1409 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Stagray ◽  
David Downs ◽  
Ronald K. Sommers
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Lower Intensity ◽  
Higher Harmonics ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Phoneme Identification

Researchers describe Mandarin Chinese tone phonemes by their fundamental frequency (Fo) contours. However, tone phonemes are also comprised of higher harmonics that also may cue tone phonemes. We measured identification thresholds of acoustically filtered tone phonemes and found that higher harmonics, including resolved harmonics above the Fo and unresolved harmonics, cued tone phonemes. Resolved harmonics cued tone phonemes at lower intensity levels suggesting they are more practical tone-phoneme cues in everyday speech. The clear implication is that researchers should use the Fo only as a benchmark when describing tone-phoneme contours, recognizing that higher harmonics also cue tone phonemes. These results also help explain why tone-language speakers can identify tone phonemes over a telephone that attenuates selective frequencies, and suggests that hearing-impaired tone-language speakers may still identify tone phonemes when their hearing loss attenuates selective frequencies.

scholarly journals On the Possibility of Mandarin Chinese as a Lingua Franca

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Plumb
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
East Asian Region ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Global Language ◽  
Do So

<p>Recently there has been an increase in the number of students learning Mandarin Chinese (in mainland China and internationally). This increase has led to speculation that Mandarin Chinese is becoming a mainstream global language to the point of becoming a <em>lingua franca</em>. This paper utilizes research findings from different regions and focal points and argues that Mandarin Chinese could be accepted as a <em>lingua franca </em>within some contexts, but is unlikely to do so in others. It argues that Mandarin Chinese is generally accepted as the <em>lingua franca</em> of China and a possible <em>lingua franca</em> within the East Asian region, while unlikely to become a <em>lingua franca</em> globally. The paper compares a number of different reasons for studying Mandarin Chinese by different stakeholders (i.e. governments, school boards, individual students) as well as comparative numbers of language learners. This paper also examines if Mandarin is the dominant and undisputed form of global Chinese. It concludes by demonstrating that there is a greater need for further research into Mandarin Chinese as a <em>lingua franca</em>.</p>

scholarly journals Redundancy in the verbal communication of teachers in primary education

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-107
Author(s):  
Kinga Horváthová
Keyword(s):  
Primary Education ◽  
Direct Observation ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Verbal Communication ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
The Third ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Abstract On a theoretical level with the support of literature, we offer some definitions of the concept of redundancy, point to the similarities and differences in the perception of this phenomenon in technical, social and pedagogical communication. We point out the positive and negative aspects of redundancy in the teacher's language. The research part is aimed at mapping the presence of redundancy in the language of primary education teachers. We were interested in which grade in the subject of mathematics is redundancy the most represented and whether it may be considered positive or unnecessary. The research was conducted at five primary schools on a sample of twenty teachers. The method of the research was the direct observation of lessons. The accuracy of the observation was ensured by audio recording and its analysis. We have found that redundancy is most often present in the third grade.

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