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


  1. What is Plastic Mandarin?
  2. Data and Method
  3. Plastic Mandarin Tones
  4. Tones in Changsha
  5. Possible accounts of the tone change

What is Plastic Mandarin?

1 2 3 4 5

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)

1 2 3 4 5


An inauthentic Mandarin

1 2 3 4 5


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

1 2 3 4 5


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

1 2 3 4 5

A crystallised urban youth variety

1 2 3 4 5

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

1 2 3 4 5


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.

Reality television show Grade One produced by Hunan Broadcasting System, aired in 2014. The show featured seven students, aged 5 and 6, as they embarked on their first semester in a Changsha elementary boarding school.

A new Mandarin dialect

1 2 3 4 5


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

1 2 3 4 5

A Changsha/Xiang Mandarin

1 2 3 4 5


  • 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

1 2 3 4 5

  • Fieldwork and recording
  • Procedure
  • Speech materials
  • Analysis methods

Fieldwork and recording

1 2 3 4 5


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 \(\pm\) 0.7 years
    • On average 15.71 years in Changsha

Fieldwork and recording

1 2 3 4 5


Phonetics Laboratory, University of Oxford

  • Premises: Audio Studio
  • Participants: 14 in total
    • 9 females and 5 males
    • Age: 24 \(\pm\) 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

1 2 3 4 5


Speech Materials

1 2 3 4 5


Methods

1 2 3 4 5


Plastic Mandarin Tones

1 2 3 4 5

Plastic Mandarin citation tones

1 2 3 4 5


Tones in Changsha

1 2 3 4 5

Standard Mandarin and Changsha tones

1 2 3 4 5


Tonal variation and change

1 2 3 4 5


Tone 4

Tonal variation and change

1 2 3 4 5


Tone 1


Three varieties in the parameter space

Possible accounts of the tone change

1 2 3 4 5

  • Phonetic biases in contour changes
  • Identity marking in prosody
  • A potential sound change mechanism

Phonetic biases in contour changes

1 2 3 4 5


Crosslinguistic tendencies in tone change:

“clockwise, leveling, and regress to mid patterns” Yang and Xu (2019)

Identity marking in prosody

1 2 3 4 5


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

1 2 3 4 5

Thank you!

Q & A