Social identity in prosody:
An introduction to Plastic Mandarin
Chenzi Xu
MPhil DPhil (Oxon)
University of Oxford
May 29, 2024
About me
Dr Chenzi Xu
DPhil, MPhil (Oxon)
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
University of Oxford
The rise and fall of a tone
Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of York
Person-specific Automatic Speaker Recognition: Understanding the behaviour of individuals for applications of ASR
Outline
- What is Plastic Mandarin?
- Data and Method
- Plastic Mandarin Tones
- Tones in Changsha
- Possible accounts of the tone change
What is Plastic Mandarin?
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It is …
- An inauthentic Mandarin. (The origin of the name)
- A crystallised urban youth variety. (Domains and speakers)
- A new Mandarin dialect. (Contact and acquisition)
- A Changsha/Xiang Mandarin. (Attitudes)
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An inauthentic Mandarin
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Plastic Mandarin: (originally) an umbrella term covering various kinds of Mandarin-vernacular-hybrid varieties including L2 Mandarin accents
“A variety that combines the features of the local Changsha dialect with features of Standard Mandarin” Y. Wu (2005, p.22)
An inauthentic Mandarin
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Plastic Mandarin: a particular non-standard Mandarin with distinct and consistent tonal patterns spoken by the young generations in Changsha
90% of 104 survey respondents in Changsha correctly identified Plastic Mandarin among recordings of Standard Mandarin, Plastic Mandarin, Changsha-accented L2 Mandarin, and Changsha X. Xu et al. (2012)
55.8% of them differentiated Plastic Mandarin from Changsha-accented L2 Mandarin, and some considered Changsha-accented L2 Mandarin as a variant of Plastic Mandarin Ibid
Most Plastic Mandarin speakers were below 30 years old, and those with high academic qualifications were capable of and inclined to code-switching between Standard Mandarin, Plastic Mandarin, and Changsha. Jing and Niu (2010)
An inauthentic Mandarin
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A crystallised urban youth variety
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Schools
Plastic Mandarin is the de facto lingua franca
Speaking Plastic Mandarin serves as a covert legitimised professional conduct in schools
Classmates and friends: 20 / 21 (95%)
Teachers after classes: 16 / 21 (76%)
Teachers during classes: 13 / 21 (62%)
36 out of 37 subjects attended secondary schools where the major medium of communication was Plastic Mandarin Y. Wang (2018)
Home and public spaces
Plastic Mandarin is the sociolect of the young
Speaking Plastic Mandarin is increasingly popular in public spaces
- Parents: 8 / 21 (38%)
- Grandparents: 3 / 21 (14%)
- Outside schools : 11/21 (52%)
In high-end department stores, restaurants, hotels, post offices, banks, airports, and train stations, over 3/4 of 42 competent ‘trilinguals’ preferred to communicate in Plastic Mandarin. Jing and Niu (2010)
A crystallised urban youth variety
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From adolescents to wider age groups
Plastic Mandarin is first discernible in the speech of adolescents and young adults.
Less than 30% of 104 Changsha residents aged from 15 to 55 years used Plastic Mandarin in various context. X. Xu (2012)
- Only one secondary school student participant!
Millenials proficient in Plastic Mandarin may have been reshaping the linguistic landscape of urban Changsha when they entered the workplace and started families.
A new Mandarin dialect
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A fossilised interlanguage
Language acquisition
A structurally intermediate status between the native language and the target language Selinker (1972)
Permeability, dynamism, and systematicity
NOT persistent errors or failed approximations
Awareness of the Standard-Plastic mismatch and capability of producing more standard forms
A contact-induced new variety
Contact and new dialect formation
Language contact accompanied acquisition, and was accelerated in the digital space.
The lack of continuity between generations serves as a marker of a new dialect Kerswill (2020)
Diglossia with bilingualism Fishman (1967): Standard Mandarin (H) and Changsha (L)
Plastic Mandarin complicates the functional distribution of varieties
A new Mandarin dialect
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A Changsha/Xiang Mandarin
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Solidarity
Amiability
Easiness
Cultural identity
“Plastic Mandarin brings us closer, reducing our social distance.”
“It is a friendly and pleasant gesture to speak Plastic Mandarin.”
“I feel relaxed and unconcerned when I speak Plastic Mandarin.”
“Plastic Mandarin represents Changsha….is characteristic of Hunan.”
Data and Method
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- Fieldwork and recording
- Procedure
- Speech materials
- Analysis methods
Fieldwork and recording
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Changsha Nanya Middle School
- Boarding school:
- Dense and multiplex social networks
- High frequencies of interaction
- Exact context where Plastic Mandarin predominates
- Premises: Music room
- Participants: 21 in total
- 16 females and 5 males
- Age: 17.24 ± 0.7 years
- On average 15.71 years in Changsha
Fieldwork and recording
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Phonetics Laboratory, University of Oxford
- Premises: Audio Studio
- Participants: 14 in total
- 9 females and 5 males
- Age: 24 ± 1.96 years
- Mandarin Chinese region in northern China
- Eight spent more than 10 years in Beijing
- None of them claimed to speak or frequently use another Chinese variety or Mandarin dialect
Procedure
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Speech Materials
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Methods
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Plastic Mandarin Tones
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Plastic Mandarin citation tones
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Tones in Changsha
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Standard Mandarin and Changsha tones
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Tonal variation and change
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Tone 4
Tonal variation and change
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Tone 1
Three varieties in the parameter space
Possible accounts of the tone change
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- Phonetic biases in contour changes
- Identity marking in prosody
- A potential sound change mechanism
Phonetic biases in contour changes
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Crosslinguistic tendencies in tone change:
“clockwise, leveling, and regress to mid patterns” Yang and Xu (2019)
Identity marking in prosody
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The high-rising Tone 4: A signature Xiang tone?
- Perceptually salient change
- The most frequent tone in Standard Mandarin Wu et al. (2020)
- The most prominent in both prosodically strong and weak positions Deng (2010)
- Shared tone feature among many Xiang varieties in Hunan province.
Potential sound change mechanism
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Thank you!
Q & A
Social identity in prosody: An introduction to Plastic Mandarin Chenzi Xu MPhil DPhil (Oxon) University of Oxford May 29, 2024