Heilongjiang 4

Listen to Heilongjiang 4, a 20-year-old woman from Hǔ lín (or Hulin), Heilongjiang Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/02/1991

PLACE OF BIRTH: Hǔ lín (or Hulin), Heilongjiang Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject lived in Liaoning Province for five years between the ages of 10 and 15.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

These have been few; she had no foreign teachers at school and has had limited access to native English speakers since coming to university seven months prior to the date of the recording.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/04/2011

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Well, I want to, ah, introduce my hometown. I come from Heilongjiang Province; it is located in north of China. Ah, the winter in Heilongjiang is beautiful, and the snow is much more beautiful, I think. I love my hometown because it is the place where I was born and I grow up. Now, I want to sa – I want to say something about my life. When I was 10 years old, my parents was busy – were busy with working. So they sent me to my grandparents home in Liaoning Province. That the first time I leave my parents. My grandparents’ home was far from high school, so I had to live in dormistory. I can only return my grandparents’ home twice one month. At the beginning, I had a great longing for home because I left the person who I used to keep with and stay at a new place. So I felt nervous and even lonely. Then I took pains to adapt to the new environment, and, gradually, I found the person who live in Liaoning was kind. Ah, they are helpful and easy to get –get on with. So finally, I had a happy time in there for five years. I think, although we can’t change the environment, we can change ourselves to adapt to the environment. [The subject now goes on to read abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in her own Dongbeihua dialect. (See the detailed commentary below.) She has not provided a pinyin transliteration. A reading in standard Putonghua (Mandarin) can be heard on the Hebei 1 sample.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/07/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

SHORT READINGS FROM THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS

KEY: A = Mandarin (Simplified); B = Mandarin (Pingyin); C = Dialect (Pingyin); D = English.

孔子: 论语 – Kǒng zǐ : lún yǔ – Kon zi: len yu – Confucius: Lun Yu

 

學而第一 – xué ér dì yī – Xué ér dì yī – Chapter One

A: 1-1:-       子曰: 學而時習之、不亦說乎。

B: yī-yī :-    zǐ yuē: xué ér shí xí zhī, bù yì yuè hū.

C: yī-yī :-

D: 1-1:-       The Master said: Is it not pleasure to learn, and practice what is learned time and again?

A: 1-2:-       有朋自遠方來、不亦樂乎。

B: yī-èr:-     yǒu péng zì yuǎn fāng lái, bù yì lè hū.

C: yī-èr:-

D: 1-2:-       Is it not happiness to have friends coming from distant places?

A: 1-3:-       人不知而不慍、不亦君子乎。

B: yī-sān:    rén bù zhī ér bù yùn, bù yì jūn zi hū.

C: yī-sān:

D: 1-3:-       Is it not virtue for a man to feel no discomposure when others take no note of him?

為政第二 – wéi zhèng dì èr – wéi zhèng dì ér – Chapter two

A: 2-2:-       子曰：「詩三百，一言以蔽之，曰：『思無邪』。

B: èr-èr:-     zǐ yuē: shī sān bǎi, yī yán yǐ bì zhī , yuē: sī wú xié.

C: èr-èr:-

D: 2-2:-       The Master said: In the Book of Odes there are three hundred poems, but they may be summarised in a single sentence: Think no evil.

A: 2-7:-       子游問孝。子曰：今之孝者，是謂能養。至於犬馬，皆能有養；不敬,    何 以別乎。

B: èr-qī:-     zǐ yóu wèn xiào. zǐ yuē: jīn zhī xiào zhě, shì wèi néng yǎng. zhì wū quǎn mǎ, jiē néng yǒu yǎng; bù jìng, hé yǐ bié hū.

C: : èr-qī:-

D: 2-7:-       Zi You asked what filial piety was. The Master said: Nowadays, providing support for one’s parents is considered filial piety. But dogs and horses can also do this. If there is no respect, what is the difference?

A: 2-10:-     子曰：「視其所以，觀其所由，察其所安。人焉叟哉？人焉叟哉？

B: èr-shí :- zǐ yuē: shì qí suǒ yǐ , guān qí suǒ yóu, chá qí suǒ ān. rén yān sǒu zāi? rén yān sǒu zāi?

C: èr-shí :-

D: 2-10:-     The Master said: Watch what a man does. Find out his motives. See how he takes his ease. How then can the man hide his true self? How can the man hide his true self?

COMMENTARY

Noticeable characteristics, which can be heard on the recording, include the common Chinese problems with the /θ/- /s/ and /ʒ/- /s/ minimal pairs, the former of which is very pronounced. She also adds the Chinese /a/ to the end of many words, and this may be evidence of her stay in Lianong as it is not a characteristic of the other Heilongjiang samples but is more common in the southern dialects.

The subject’s native dialect is the Dongbei or Northeastern dialect of Mandarin. This dialect is spoken in the northeast of China (known as Manchuria in the West), except the Liaodong Peninsula. It is closely related to Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) with generally little variation in lexicon; there are very few tonal changes. The accent is distinctive of the northern Mandarin group.

For a detailed commentary on Heilongjiang, see the Heilongjiang 1 sample. The subject’s hometown is Hǔ lín (Tiger Forest), also spelled Hulin, on the Muling River in southeastern Heilongjiang close to the Russian border. It is heavily forested and mostly an agricultural region whose main products include timber, soybean, beef, and dairy products.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/07/2013

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