Article published In: Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 2:2 (2016) ► pp.124–156
Variation and change in Toronto heritage Cantonese
An analysis of two monophthongs across two generations
Published online: 6 April 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.2.2.02tse
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.2.2.02tse
Abstract
This paper presents the first sociophonetic study of Cantonese vowels using sociolinguistic interview data from the Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Corpus. It focuses on four allophones [iː], [ɪk/ɪŋ], [uː], and [ʊk/ʊŋ] of two contrastive vowels /iː/ and /uː/ across two generations of speakers. The F1 and F2 of 30 vowel tokens were analyzed for these four allophones from each of 20 speakers (N = 600 vowel tokens). Results show inter-generational maintenance of allophonic conditioning for /iː/ and /uː/ as well as an interaction between generation and sex such that second-generation female speakers have the most retracted variants of [ɪk/ɪŋ] and the most fronted variants of [iː]. This paper will discuss three possible explanations based on internal motivation, phonetic assimilation, and phonological influence. This will illustrate the importance of multiple comparisons (including inter-generational, cross-linguistic, and cross-community) in the relatively new field of heritage language phonology research.
Abstract (Traditional Chinese)
本文通過分析語音材料，探索廣東話元音的社會語音學蘊涵。我們實驗採用的語音材料，來自多倫多繼承語的變體與變化語料庫（Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Corpus）。本文重點分析在兩代發音人中，兩個對立元音（/iː/和/uː/）中的四個音位變體（[iː]、[ɪk/ɪŋ]、[uː]和[ʊk/ʊŋ]）的不同發音狀況。我們一共有20位發音人，每一位發音人都提供了30個元音發音。本文通過分析這30個元音發音的第一和第二共振峰頻率（F1和F2），探究以上所說的四個音位變體在不同發音人中的實際體現。分析結果表明：1）對於不同的世代（在不同的兩代人的發音中），音位/iː/和/uː/都有不同的變體，而這些不同的變體的分化條件在兩個世代中（兩代人中）都得到了保存；2）音位變體的實現與世代以及性別都有關聯。比如說，我們發現在第二代的女性發音人中， [ɪk/ɪŋ]的發音舌位最靠後，而[iː]的發音舌位最靠前。我們討論了產生這種結果的三個可能的原因，它們分別是：內部動因、語音同化、音系影響。繼承語音系學研究在當今是一個較為新興的方向。通過本文的分析與討論，我們展示了多層次的比較（包括跨世代、跨語言以及跨社區的比較）在繼承語音系學研究中的重要作用。
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Heritage language phonology research
- 2.2Socio-historical background
- 2.3The Cantonese vowel system
- 3.Research questions and hypotheses
- 3.1Research questions
- 3.2Hypotheses
- 3.2.1Internal motivation
- 3.2.2TOENG influence through phonetic assimilation
- 3.2.3TOENG phonological influence
- 4.Data
- 5.Method
- 5.1Overview
- 5.2Procedure
- 5.3Normalization and subsequent steps
- 6.Results
- 6.1Overall results
- 6.2Results for individual vowels
- 6.2.1The vowel /iː/
- 6.2.2The vowel /uː/
- 7.Discussion
- 7.1Maintenance of allophonic conditioning
- 7.2External factors
- 7.3Accounting for variation
- 8.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
References
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