Jiangsu 33

Listen to Jiangsu 33, a 19-year-old woman from Binhai, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 19

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/05/1990

PLACE OF BIRTH: Binhai, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject had native English-speaking teachers at her high school, and she lists their pronunciation coaching as a major influence on her own speech.

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): 30/04/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

My hometown is located, ah, in a small city by the sea. Ah, because, ah, it is not developed s – so the environment is less polluted. Hm, I from – I came from a family, ah, which is – which has three people – ah, four people, my fath – my father, my mother and my sister and I. Mm, my sister is ten years younger than me; ah, she is very lovely; ah, she is now in the, ah, in – she is now, ah, studying in the primary school. Ah, we – we all love her and take good care of her. Hm, our hometown is a little small town so people live very peaceful – live in a very peaceful life. [The subject now goes on to read abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in her own Binhaihua dialect, which belongs to the Jinghuai Mandarin group. (See the detailed commentary below.) She has also provided a pinyin transliteration. A reading in pure Putonghua (Mandarin) can be heard on the Hebei 1 sample.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/07/2013

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 :-    zi yiao: xia ao si xi zi,bu ye yue hu

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:-     you pong zi yv fang lai, bu ye la hu.

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:    len bu zi er bu yun,bu ye jun zi hu.

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:-     Zi yiao: si san bo, yi yi yi bi zi,yue: si wu xia.

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:-   Zi you wen xiao. zi yiao: jin zi xiao zei, si wei neng yang. zi wu quan ma, jie neng you yang; bu jing, hu yi bie hu.

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 :- Zi yiao: si ci suo yi, guan qi suo you, ca ci suo an. len yi sou zai? len yi sou zai?

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

The accent here is fairly strong, with only a few of the distinguishing characteristics one finds in the English spoken by Chinese natives. In particular, she has retained the /T/, /s/ minimal pair confusion which can be heard in “cloth” and “thought” on the recording. She also drops the possessive /s/ when it follows another /s/, as in goose’s.

The subject’s dialect, Binhaihua, belongs to the Tong-Tai, or Tai-Ru, dialect group. This is a sub-dialect of Jianghuai Mandarin and is confined to the middle-east coastal area of Jiangsu Northern Plain. It takes its names from the three landward cities that more or less definethe area: Tongzhou in the west, Taizhou in the north, and Rugao/Rudong in the south.

Geographically, this linguistic area is situated to the north of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River and to the east of the Beijing-Hangzhou (Grand) Canal and covers an area of 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 square miles). It is estimated that about 11.4 million people speak the dialects in this group.

Linguistically, the area can be subdivided into three vernacular regions: west, middle, and east, which are distinguished by differences in the use of the /l/, /n/, and /r/ consonants; compare, for example, “ren” and “len” in the two pinyin versions of the 2.10 Analect in the Readings above. Another major feature of these dialects is that they do not follow the T3 sandhi rule, which most other Mandarin dialects follow. Mandarin has four tones, the third of which is a falling-rising tone. The T3 sandhi rule states that when a tone 3 occurs before another tone 3, it changes into tone 2, a rising tone. When it occurs before any of the other tones, it is pronounced as a low falling tone without a rise at the end.

All of this linguistic area used to be part of, or heavily influenced by, the Wu culture of south Jiangsu, and there is, therefore, a marked preservation of aspects of the Wu dialects in these vernacular regions. This is especially true of the middle region, to which the dialect in this sample, Binhaihua, belongs.

The subject’s hometown in Binhai County in Yancheng, a prefecture-level city. Yancheng literally means “Salt City” and refers to the salt pans surrounding the city, which are recorded as early as 119 BCE, during the western Han Dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE). Yancheng’s Yellow Sea coastline is the longest in Jiangsu: 600 km (372 miles) and includes two national nature reserves that provide important wintering habitats for millions of migrating birds and shelter an enormous number of species of insects, fish, and wild animals.

Binhai is made up of the two characters for “Beach” and “Sea,” and the modern port is capable of handling cargo ships of 20,00 to 30,000 tons. However, the hinterland supports an important forestry industry which provides 20 percent of the county’s annual GDP.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/07/2013

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