Language Variation and Social Identity in Beijing
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China's Iron Rice Bowl Transforms Into Government Checks Grain And
THIS REPORT CONTAINS ASSESSMENTS OF COMMODITY AND TRADE ISSUES MADE BY USDA STAFF AND NOT NECESSARILY STATEMENTS OF OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT POLICY Required Report - public distribution Date: 4/4/2018 GAIN Report Number: CH 18015 China - Peoples Republic of Grain and Feed Annual China’s Iron Rice Bowl Transforms Into Government Checks Approved By: Michael Ward Prepared By: Gene Kim Report Highlights: China’s agricultural policy-makers manage the dual mandate of ensuring national food security while pursuing poverty alleviation targets, which aim to raise rural incomes through domestic support programs and centrally planned marketing activities. Recent changes to the temporary reserve programs signal that minimum price supports and strategic stockpiles for wheat and rice are expected to continue in the near-term. State officials reason that full silos at home will translate into stable prices abroad. MY2018/19 rough rice production is forecast at 204.3 million tons, down more than 2 percent from MY2017/18, on a sharp decline in harvested area. MY2018/19 corn production is forecast at 223.0 million tons, up 3 percent from MY2017/18 on expanded area. MY2018/19 wheat production is forecast at 129.0 million tons, down slightly from MY2017/18 on a policy-driven decline in harvested area. 1 Executive Summary Spring weather has led to early emergence for winter crops across China. After historically low temperatures and strong winter storms, spring temperatures have jumped to unseasonably high levels and soaking rains have broken a dry spell across North East China. In South China, planting of early- season summer crops is underway. -
China's Urbanization, Social Restructure and Public
Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 9:1 (2014) 55-77 Articles China’s Urbanization, Social Restructure and Public Administration Reforms: An Overview Xiaoyuan Wan University of Sheffield [email protected] Abstract This paper provides a review of the broad process of China’s urbanization and the urban public administration reform since the 1978 reforms, with a focus on the changing public policies in the realms of employment, housing, social insurance and the devolution of government authority. It suggests that the main government rationale of the public administration system reforms was to hand over a part of public services which used to be delivered by the central government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), to local governments and to devolve a part of responsibility to the private sector, the social sector and individuals. According to these reforms, most of the social services, which could only be enjoyed by the employees of the SOEs were handed over to grassroots governments and aimed to cover more urban population. But at the same time, individuals had to take on more responsibilities of their careers choice and fund part of their own social welfare. This paper concludes by suggesting that with proliferating literature on China’s social and economic transition, further study should be carried out to explore the implementation of the reformed urban public policies by local governments and special concern should be given to the participation of non-government actors in China’s public administration. Introduction SINCE THE LATE 1970S, a series of economic reforms have been driving China to step away from a rigid socialism to a more open and diverse society, in which the urban economy developed at a tremendous speed and played an increasingly important role in the national economy. -
Discussion on the Early History of the Formation of Beijing Mandarin Wei
2017 3rd International Conference on Education and Social Development (ICESD 2017) ISBN: 978-1-60595-444-8 Discussion on the Early History of the Formation of Beijing Mandarin Wei-Wei LI College of International Exchange, Bohai University, Jinzhou, Liaoning, China [email protected] Keywords: Beijing Mandarin Area, Early History, Ethnic Fusion, Language Contact. Abstract. Beijing Mandarin is more than a thousand year ago Yan Yan dialect, based on the integration of the Central Plains Han and northern ethnic minority language components gradually formed. Beijing Mandarin before the formal formation of a long period of gestation, revealing the Sui and Tang dynasties before the formation of the Beijing Mandarin area early human history, for the understanding of Beijing Mandarin language situation is very important. Introduction In this article, "Beijing Mandarin area" means including Beijing urban and suburban county, Hebei Chengde area, much of the northeast in addition to Liaodong peninsula, and parts of Chifeng, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the general area (Lin Tao, 1987; Zhang Shifang, 2010). "From the northeast to Beijing, in history, there are two common characteristics: one is the ethnic group for a long time, and second, the population flow, this kind of situation lasted nearly one thousand years, the development of northeast dialect and Beijing dialect is extremely far-reaching influence."[1] Beijing dialect and northeast dialect in one thousand to influence each other, eventually forming a Beijing mandarin, including large areas of the northeast and Beijing area. The formation of Beijing mandarin has experienced a long historical process, is more than one thousand years ago YouYan dialect, on the basis of constantly fusion of han nationality and composition of gradually formed in the northern minority languages. -
Pan-Sinitic Object Marking: Morphology and Syntax*
Breaking Down the Barriers, 785-816 2013-1-050-037-000234-1 Pan-Sinitic Object Marking: * Morphology and Syntax Hilary Chappell (曹茜蕾) EHESS In Chinese languages, when a direct object occurs in a non-canonical position preceding the main verb, this SOV structure can be morphologically marked by a preposition whose source comes largely from verbs or deverbal prepositions. For example, markers such as kā 共 in Southern Min are ultimately derived from the verb ‘to accompany’, pau11 幫 in many Huizhou and Wu dialects is derived from the verb ‘to help’ and bǎ 把 from the verb ‘to hold’ in standard Mandarin and the Jin dialects. In general, these markers are used to highlight an explicit change of state affecting a referential object, located in this preverbal position. This analysis sets out to address the issue of diversity in such object-marking constructions in order to examine the question of whether areal patterns exist within Sinitic languages on the basis of the main lexical fields of the object markers, if not the construction types. The possibility of establishing four major linguistic zones in China is thus explored with respect to grammaticalization pathways. Key words: typology, grammaticalization, object marking, disposal constructions, linguistic zones 1. Background to the issue In the case of transitive verbs, it is uncontroversial to state that a common word order in Sinitic languages is for direct objects to follow the main verb without any overt morphological marking: * This is a “cross-straits” paper as earlier versions were presented in turn at both the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, during the joint 14th Annual Conference of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics and 10th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics, held in Taipei in May 25-29, 2006 and also at an invited seminar at the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing on 23rd October 2006. -
Attitudes Towards Multilingualism: a Comparison Between Shanghai And
Attitudes towards multilingualism: A comparison between Shanghai and Ningbo China, especially its urban areas, has become more and more multilingual in the 21st century. Younger generations born around and after the turn of century – roughly two decades after the 1978 Economic Reform – are often multilingual with Putonghua (China’s standard language), regional dialects (often mutually unintelligible with Putonghua), and English (amongst other foreign languages). Existing studies on language attitudes in China, possibly influenced by the country’s strong monolingual ideology, tend to focus on the contrast between ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ where Putonghua is seen as more ‘superior’ than all other languages [1-3]. Another gap in the literature is that many of these studies rely solely on either self-reported questionnaire data or implicit attitudes elicited from matched-guised experiments [3-6] while a combination of the two methods can potentially offer a more comprehensive picture. This paper combines implicit and explicit data to discuss how these different languages/varieties are perceived by young adults in Ningbo and Shanghai. Data was collected from 66 university students from Ningbo (44 with 24 women) and Shanghai (22 with 12 women). Data analysed includes questionnaires on language attitudes and usage, a matched-guise experiment on the perception of two ‘non-standard’ phonetic features in Putonghua, and sociolinguistic interviews on language use and attitudes in general. The two cities differ in that Shanghai is more international with more English presence, and the local Shanghainese dialect is suggested to have more covert prestige [7]. Results from quantitative analysis on the questionnaires and experiments and qualitative analysis on interview extracts confirm patterns noticed by previous studies on English and Putonghua, suggesting both are valued by students. -
Do You Speak Chinese, Mandarin, Or Cantonese? an Explanation Based on a Native Chinese Speaker’S Early Experience
The Morning Watch: Educational and Social Analysis Vol 46. No 1-2, Fall (2018) Do You Speak Chinese, Mandarin, or Cantonese? An Explanation Based on a Native Chinese Speaker’s Early Experience Cheng Li Yunnan Normal University, China [email protected] Abstract This article reports on my early experiences with learning and speaking varieties of Chinese, responding to the curious questions on the power relationship between Mandarin and other dialects in China today. A series of important life events and experiences are presented and discussed with regard to the historical and cultural context within which I learned Mandarin, Cantonese and other dialects at an early age. I argue that different varieties of Chinese are not only integral to Chinese history and culture, but also constituent of my identity as a native Chinese speaker. This study emphasizes that the dominance of Mandarin in contemporary China needs to be discussed under the umbrella of Chinese civilization and in consideration of rural- urban migrants’ benefits. Keywords: Native Chinese speaker; Mandarin; Cantonese; language policy; dialect As a native Chinese speaker , I was asked many curious questions on the language(s) spoken in China during the years I lived in St. John’s, Canada as an international Ph.D. student. The most frequently received questions concerned Chinese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. “Do you speak Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese?”, “Is the Chinese class in your school, in fact, a Mandarin class?” “Do the Cantonese people in Chinatown speak Cantonese or Chinese?” I was shocked when I first received these questions since my Canadian friends knew more about varieties of Chinese than I had expected. -
A Comparative Analysis of the Simplification of Chinese Characters in Japan and China
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO CHINESE CHARACTER REFORM: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SIMPLIFICATION OF CHINESE CHARACTERS IN JAPAN AND CHINA A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ASIAN STUDIES AUGUST 2012 By Kei Imafuku Thesis Committee: Alexander Vovin, Chairperson Robert Huey Dina Rudolph Yoshimi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express deep gratitude to Alexander Vovin, Robert Huey, and Dina R. Yoshimi for their Japanese and Chinese expertise and kind encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis. Their guidance, as well as the support of the Center for Japanese Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, and the East-West Center, has been invaluable. i ABSTRACT Due to the complexity and number of Chinese characters used in Chinese and Japanese, some characters were the target of simplification reforms. However, Japanese and Chinese simplifications frequently differed, resulting in the existence of multiple forms of the same character being used in different places. This study investigates the differences between the Japanese and Chinese simplifications and the effects of the simplification techniques implemented by each side. The more conservative Japanese simplifications were achieved by instating simpler historical character variants while the more radical Chinese simplifications were achieved primarily through the use of whole cursive script forms and phonetic simplification techniques. These techniques, however, have been criticized for their detrimental effects on character recognition, semantic and phonetic clarity, and consistency – issues less present with the Japanese approach. By comparing the Japanese and Chinese simplification techniques, this study seeks to determine the characteristics of more effective, less controversial Chinese character simplifications. -
De Sousa Sinitic MSEA
THE FAR SOUTHERN SINITIC LANGUAGES AS PART OF MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA (DRAFT: for MPI MSEA workshop. 21st November 2012 version.) Hilário de Sousa ERC project SINOTYPE — École des hautes études en sciences sociales [email protected]; [email protected] Within the Mainland Southeast Asian (MSEA) linguistic area (e.g. Matisoff 2003; Bisang 2006; Enfield 2005, 2011), some languages are said to be in the core of the language area, while others are said to be periphery. In the core are Mon-Khmer languages like Vietnamese and Khmer, and Kra-Dai languages like Lao and Thai. The core languages generally have: – Lexical tonal and/or phonational contrasts (except that most Khmer dialects lost their phonational contrasts; languages which are primarily tonal often have five or more tonemes); – Analytic morphological profile with many sesquisyllabic or monosyllabic words; – Strong left-headedness, including prepositions and SVO word order. The Sino-Tibetan languages, like Burmese and Mandarin, are said to be periphery to the MSEA linguistic area. The periphery languages have fewer traits that are typical to MSEA. For instance, Burmese is SOV and right-headed in general, but it has some left-headed traits like post-nominal adjectives (‘stative verbs’) and numerals. Mandarin is SVO and has prepositions, but it is otherwise strongly right-headed. These two languages also have fewer lexical tones. This paper aims at discussing some of the phonological and word order typological traits amongst the Sinitic languages, and comparing them with the MSEA typological canon. While none of the Sinitic languages could be considered to be in the core of the MSEA language area, the Far Southern Sinitic languages, namely Yuè, Pínghuà, the Sinitic dialects of Hǎinán and Léizhōu, and perhaps also Hakka in Guǎngdōng (largely corresponding to Chappell (2012, in press)’s ‘Southern Zone’) are less ‘fringe’ than the other Sinitic languages from the point of view of the MSEA linguistic area. -
From Eurocentrism to Sinocentrism: the Case of Disposal Constructions in Sinitic Languages
From Eurocentrism to Sinocentrism: The case of disposal constructions in Sinitic languages Hilary Chappell 1. Introduction 1.1. The issue Although China has a long tradition in the compilation of rhyme dictionar- ies and lexica, it did not develop its own tradition for writing grammars until relatively late.1 In fact, the majority of early grammars on Chinese dialects, which begin to appear in the 17th century, were written by Europe- ans in collaboration with native speakers. For example, the Arte de la len- gua Chiõ Chiu [Grammar of the Chiõ Chiu language] (1620) appears to be one of the earliest grammars of any Sinitic language, representing a koine of urban Southern Min dialects, as spoken at that time (Chappell 2000).2 It was composed by Melchior de Mançano in Manila to assist the Domini- cans’ work of proselytizing to the community of Chinese Sangley traders from southern Fujian. Another major grammar, similarly written by a Do- minican scholar, Francisco Varo, is the Arte de le lengua mandarina [Grammar of the Mandarin language], completed in 1682 while he was living in Funing, and later posthumously published in 1703 in Canton.3 Spanish missionaries, particularly the Dominicans, played a signifi- cant role in Chinese linguistic history as the first to record the grammar and lexicon of vernaculars, create romanization systems and promote the use of the demotic or specially created dialect characters. This is discussed in more detail in van der Loon (1966, 1967). The model they used was the (at that time) famous Latin grammar of Elio Antonio de Nebrija (1444–1522), Introductiones Latinae (1481), and possibly the earliest grammar of a Ro- mance language, Grammatica de la Lengua Castellana (1492) by the same scholar, although according to Peyraube (2001), the reprinted version was not available prior to the 18th century. -
The Role of the Glottal Stop in Diminutives: an OT Perspective*
LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS 8.3:639-666, 2007 2007-0-008-003-000168-1 The Role of the Glottal Stop in Diminutives: * An OT Perspective Raung-fu Chung Ming-chung Cheng Southern Taiwan University of Technology National Kaohsiung Normal University In this article, we first sort out the glottal stop patterns in the YBTH diminutives, namely, middle-GSI, final-GSI, and no-GSI (GSI = glottal stop insertion). After further analysis, those varieties in appearance come out essentially with different rankings of the same set of phonological constraints. In the middle-GSI type of dialects, the related phonological constraints work in the ranking order of MAX-IO, ANCHOR-BD(L/R), SON-SEQ, MAX-BD, LINEARITY-BD >> IDENTITY-BD[F], CONTIGUITY-BD, DEP-BD, while in the final-GSI dialects, the order is MAX-IO, ANCHOR-BD(L), CONTIGUITY-BD, SON-SEQ, MAX-BD, IDENTITY-BD[F], LINEARITY-BD >> ANCHOR-BD(R), DEP-BD. The no-GSI type of dialects are unique in that the order of the constraint is ANCHOR-BD(L/R), CONTIGUITY-BD, SON-SEQ, MAX-BD, DEP-BD, IDENTITY-BD[F], LINEARITY-BD >> MAX-IO, which places the MAX-IO in the lowest ranking. It is obvious that MAX-IO, as a constraint of the Faithfulness family, plays a central role for the presence or absence of the glottal stop. When MAX-IO is ranked high, the glottal stop shows up. When it is low, there is no glottal stop. Key words: glottal stop, diminutive, Yuebei Tuhua, optimality theory, output-to-output correspondence (OOC) 1. Introduction This article is an investigation into the role of the glottal stop in the development and formation of diminutives in Chinese dialects in general, and in Yuebei Tuhua (hereafter, YBTH) in particular. -
The Beijing Olympics
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A Chinese Yuppie in Beijing: Phonological Variation and the Construction of a New Professional Identity Author(S): Qing Zhang Source: Language in Society, Vol
A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological Variation and the Construction of a New Professional Identity Author(s): Qing Zhang Source: Language in Society, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jun., 2005), pp. 431-466 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4169435 Accessed: 25-04-2016 23:59 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Language in Society This content downloaded from 171.67.216.23 on Mon, 25 Apr 2016 23:59:09 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Language in Society 34, 431-466. Printed in the United States of America DOI: 10.1017/S0047404505050153 A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological variation and the construction of a new professional identity QING ZHANG Department of Linguistics Calhoun Hall 501 University of Texas at Austin I University Station B5100 Austin, IX 78712-1196 [email protected] ABSTRACT Recent sociolinguistic studies have given increased attention to the situated practice of members of locally based communities. Linguistic variation ex- amined tends to fall on a continuum between a territorially based "stan- dard" variety and a regional or ethnic vernacular.