Modern, Languages and Cultures Research Seminar

Seminar

Just a reminder that our second Modern Languages and Cultures research seminar of the year will take place next Wednesday, 30^th October, 4-5pm, in Trent B38a. Annette Zhao (UoN) will present a talk entitled ‘Language standards and linguistic variation in multilingual China: a case study of Ningbo’. All are welcome. The event will be followed by the usual informal drinks and nibbles.

" With its rapid economic development, China has become more and more multilingual in the 21st century. But research on languages, communities, and identities in contemporary Chinese society, especially from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective, is still severely under-developed. As part of a bigger project examining language standards, variation and attitudes in China, this paper investigates young adults’ language use, perception and attitudes to different languages/varieties in Ningbo in Eastern China, where the economic impact has brought remarkable social and linguistic changes.

Specifically, I will present data from young adults’ production and perception of different linguistic features in Ningbo Putonghua. Ningbo Putonghua is often characterised by the merger of dental-retroflex fricative/affricates (/s/~/ʂ/,/ts/~/tʂ/, and /ts^h/~/tʂ^h/) and alveolar/velar nasal finals /n/~/ŋ/, possibly due to the contact between the standard Mandarin variety and the local non-Mandarin Wu dialect. Based on preliminary results showing that the two features differ in their usage in production and perception, I will discuss the social meanings of these features and their theoretical and social significances in identity building amongst young Chinese adults. "