Cover not available
Article published In:
Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 3:2 (2017) ► pp.160–199

The sociolinguistic meanings of syllable contraction in Chinese

A study using perceptual maps

| Michigan State University
| Nanjing Forestry University
Syllable contraction has been observed in many modern Chinese varieties, including Mandarin. Public opinion of syllable contraction, especially some stereotyped contracted words, tends to associate it with a southern (especially Taiwanese) accent. Gendered social meanings are often attached to it as well. This paper investigates Mandarin syllable contraction using Prestonian perceptual mapping techniques, graphical aggregation, and quantitative comparisons. The results of the mapping tasks suggest that participants’ beliefs about the location and gender of contraction users are generally in line with the public opinions observed in qualitative analyses of media discourses. However, an analysis of map responses in terms of respondents’ region of origin and gender uncovers nuanced contrasts along gendered and regional lines. Northern respondents (judges) had a negative attitude toward southern contraction but a positive opinion toward northern contraction, while southern judges viewed syllable contraction positively regardless of region. Female judges viewed female contraction users positively and male users negatively, but male judges had a strongly negative opinion of only the male users. Region and gender intertwine with each other and constitute the sociolinguistic meanings of Chinese syllable contraction that involve both the user and perceiver. In this way, the study uncovers new perceptual perspectives on the sociolinguistic meaning of a less commonly studied variable in a less commonly studied language.
Keywords: syllable contraction, Chinese, perceptual mapping, region, gender, stereotype
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Public discourse about syllable contraction
  • 3.Perceptual maps of Mandarin varieties and syllable contraction
    • 3.1Perceptual dialectology and perceptual mapping
    • 3.2Mapping tasks
      • 3.2.1Respondents
      • 3.2.2Perceptual map of Mandarin varieties
      • 3.2.3Procedure
  • 4.Results of the Mandarin variation mapping task
    • 4.1Perceptual regions of Mandarin varieties
    • 4.2The north versus the south
      • 4.2.1North-south boundary
      • 4.2.2A difference between the northern and southern listeners
  • 5.Results of the syllable contraction mapping task
    • 5.1Where are syllable contraction users from?
    • 5.2Attitudes toward syllable contraction
      • 5.2.1A semi-uniform attitude
      • 5.2.2North versus south
      • 5.2.3Gender contrasts
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 January 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.16004.xu
References (56)
References
Agha, Asif (2003). The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication, 23(3), 231–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bai, Hongying, Ma, Xinping, Gao, Xiang, & Hou, Qinlei (2012). Variations in January Temperature and 0°C Isothermal Curve in Qinling Mountains Based on DEM. Acta Geographica Sinica, 67(11), 1443–1450.Google Scholar
Beijingren shuohua weihe ai chizi [Why do Beijing people like to “eat” words when talking]. (2010, April 19). Wangyi xinwen [NetEase News]. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from [URL]
Beijinghua tongyang xuyao baohu [Beijing dialect also needs protection]. (2012, Feburary). Ifeng City. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from [URL]; Also available from [URL]
Boughton, Zoë (2006). When perception isn’t reality: Accent identification and perceptual dialectology in French. Journal of French Language Studies, 16(3), 277–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuen-Ren (1930). A system of tone letters. Le Maitre Phonetique, 451, 24–27.Google Scholar
(1927). Lia, sa, si’e, ba’e [Two, three, four and eight]. Dongfang Zazhi, 241, 12.Google Scholar
Cheng, Chierh, & Xu, Yi (2009). Extreme reductions: Contraction of disyllables into monosyllables in Taiwan Mandarin. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Brighton, UK, 456–459.Google Scholar
Chung, Raung-Fu (1996). The segmental phonology of Southern Min in Taiwan. Crane Publishing Company.Google Scholar
(1997). Syllable contraction in Chinese. In Feng-fu Tsao & H. Samuel Wang (Eds.), Chinese languages and linguistics III: Morphology and lexicon (pp. 199–235). Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
Cukor-Avila, Patricia, Jeon, Lisa, Rector, Patricia. C., Tiwari, Chetan, & Shelton, Zak (2012). “Texas – It’s Like a Whole Nuther Country”: Mapping Texans’ Perceptions of Dialect Variation in the Lone Star State. Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Symposium About Language and Society, Austin, Texas, 10rrr–19.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of sociolinguistics, 12(4), 453–476. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
ESRI (2011). ArcGIS Desktop: Release 10. [Computer software]. Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute.Google Scholar
Evans, Betsy E. (2002). Attitudes of Montreal students towards varieties of French. In Daniel Long & Dennis R. Preston (Eds.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, volume 21 (pp. 71–93). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gao, Liwei (2012). Synchronic variation or diachronic change: A sociolinguistic study of Chinese Internet language. In Jin Liu & Hongyin Tao (Eds.), Chinese under globalization: Emerging trends in language use in China (pp. 7–28). Singapore: World Scientific Publishing DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Peter, Williams, Angie, & Evans, Betsy (2005). Attitudinal data from New Zealand, Australia, the USA and UK about each other’s Englishes: Recent changes or onsequences of methodologies? Multilingua, 24(3), 211–235. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hardeman-Guthrie, Kate (2016). Gender and second language style: American learner perceptions of Mandarin sajiao . Asia-Pacific Language Variation, 2(2), 157–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hsu, Hui-chuan (2003). A sonority model of syllable contraction in Taiwanese Southern Min. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 12(4), 349–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iannaccaro, Gabriele, & Dell’Aquila, Vittorio (2001). Mapping Languages from Inside: Notes on Perceptual Dialectology. Social & Cultural Geography, 2(3), 265–280. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jeon, Lisa (2012). Drawing boundaries and revealing language attitudes: Mapping perceptions of dialects in Korea. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of North Texas.Google Scholar
Jin, Liwei (2012). Naxie taiwanqiang de numingxing [Those female celebrities who have Taiwanese accent]. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from [URL]
Kuo, Grace (2010). WPP, No. 108: Production and Perception of Taiwan Mandarin Syllable Contraction. UCLA Working Papers on Phonetics, N. 108, 1–34.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
(2001). Principles of linguistic change. Volume 2: Social factors. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Li, Charles N., & Thompson, Sandra. A. (1989). Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkley; Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lianyin tunyin haoxiang buzhi Beijinghua li you [Connected or swallowed sounds seem to exist beyond Beijing dialect]. (2013). Baidu tieba [Beidu BBS]. Retrieved on September 21, 2016, from [URL].
Lin, Yen-Hwei (2007). The sounds of Chinese. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2014). Alternative voice and local youth identity in Chinese local-language rap music. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 221, 263–292. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lü, Shuxiang (1984). Hanyu yufa lunwenji [Papers of Chinese grammar]. The Commercial Press: Beijing.Google Scholar
Moore, Emma, & Podesva, Robert (2009). Style, indexicality, and the social meaning of tag questions. Language in Society, 38(4), 447–485. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nanpengyou Putonghua bu biaozhun, wo xiang bang ta gaijin, nandaoshi wo tai keke? [Boyfriend doesn’t speak standard Mandarin; I want to help him improve. Am I too picky?]. (2013, March). Tianya shequ [Tianya BBS]. Retrieved December 20, 2016, from [URL]
Ni zui jieyi xiangqin shi nüfang zhuang shenme [What concerns you the most about what a woman pretends to be in a blind date?]. (2013, March). Retrieved December 7, 2017, from [URL].
Niedzielski, Nancy A., & Preston, Dennis R. (2000). Folk linguistics. Volume 1221. Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis (1986). Five visions of America. Language in Society, 15(2), 221–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1989). Perceptual Dialectology. Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(Ed.) (1999a). Handbook of perceptual dialectology: Volume 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1999b). A language attitude approach to the perception of regional variety. In Dennis Preston (Ed.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology: Volume 1 (pp. 359–373). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Development Core Team (2008). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available from [URL].
Schilling-Estes, Natalie (2002). Investigating Stylistic Variation. In Peter Trudgill, Jack Chambers, & Natalie Schilling (Eds.), The handbook of language variation and change (pp. 375–401). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Micheal (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication, 23(3), 193–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taiwan-qiang mijue [Strategies for a Taiwanese accent]. (2012, May), Douban xiaozu [Douban Group]. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from [URL]
Tseng, Shu-Chuan (2005a). Syllable contractions in a Mandarin conversational dialogue corpus. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10(1), 63–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005b). Contracted syllables in Mandarin: Evidence from spontaneous conversations. Language and Linguistics, 6.11, 153–180.Google Scholar
Wee, Lian-Hee, Yan, Xiuhong, & Lu, Jilun (2005). Tianjin fangyan de tunyin xianxiang [Swallowing sounds in Tianjin]. Linguistic Sciences, 171, 66–75.Google Scholar
Wei, Chunliang (2014). Dilinghua yuyan maiming bishaji [Strategies of being cute using language of the young]. Ifeng News. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from [URL].
Wong, Wai Yi Peggy (2006). Syllable fusion in Hong Kong Cantonese connected speech. Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Wurm, Stephen A., Li, Rong, & Baumann, Theo (1987). Language atlas of China. Australian Academy of the Humanities: Longman Group (Far East).Google Scholar
Xu, Chenchen (2014). An OT analysis on syllable contraction in Jianghuai Chinese. Paper presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the IACL & the 26th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, University of Maryland-College Park, MD.
(2017). Prominence of stereotypes shapes listeners’ attitude towards Mandarin syllable contraction. Paper presented at the 91th Annual Meeting of Linguistics Society of America, Austin, Texas.
Yan, Qingyang (2015). The perceptual categorization of Enshi Mandarin regional varieties. Journal of Linguistic Geography, 3(1), 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yip, Moira (1988). Template morphology and the direction of association. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 6(4), 551–577. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Niina Ning (2013). Classifier structures in Mandarin Chinese. Volume 2631. Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Qing (2005). A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological variation and the construction of a new professional identity. Language in Society, 34(3), 431–466. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008). Rhotacization and the “Beijing Smooth Operator”: The social meaning of a linguistic variable. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(2), 201–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhengzong de Jingpianzi, shuohua quanshi zhege wei’er [Authentic Beijing dialect has such an accent]. (June 24, 2016). Jinri toutiao [Top news today]. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from [URL].
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Gao, Feier & Jon Forrest
2023. Indexical meaning of Mandarin full tone in the construction of femininity: Evidence from social perceptual data. Language & Communication 91 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Lin, Yuhan
2023. Towards a comprehensive model of style-shifting: Evidence from sibilant variation in Mandarin. Language & Communication 89 ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.