No description available.

The goal of this thesis is to provide a detailed description and analysis of vowel-consonant interaction in Mandarin. Vowel-consonant interactions in Mandarin have been described and analyzed in the literature, but there is little agreement on the exact nature of the interactions, and no acoustic studies have been done to confirm impressionistic transcriptions. The data and analysis in this thesis show that vowel-consonant interaction is extensive in both Northern and Southwestern Mandarin, but the nature and degree of the interactions varies based on vowel, context (onset vs. coda), and dialect. In this thesis, I provide an acoustic analysis and a theoretical account of vowel-consonant interactions in two different dialects of Mandarin that vary in their degree of interaction: the Northern dialect of eastern Hebei (similar to the Beijing dialect) and the Southwestern dialect of northeast Sichuan. The data analyzed was collected from native speakers of both dialects at Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu, and the analysis focuses on comparisons of the F1 and F2 of vowels in various onset and coda contexts. The theoretical account attempts to determine whether vowel-consonant interaction in Mandarin is best classified as a phonological process (e.g. assimilation) or a phonetic process (e.g. co-articulation). I explore possible analyses of the data under multiple theoretical frameworks, including serial rule-based phonology and Optimality Theory (OT), and compare the effectiveness of these analyses to a co-articulation account. Traditionally, sound change phenomena are assumed to be either phonological or phonetic in nature. However, a detailed examination of the data collected reveals an unexpectedly large variety of vowel-consonant interaction effects. The effects range from subtle coarticulatory adjustments that can only be detected instrumentally to large magnitude differences that can be represented by a change in phonological features. The results of this study show that vowel-consonant interaction in Mandarin is even more extensive than previously documented, and that the line between phonetic and phonological processes may be more arbitrary than we like to believe.

Thesis (M. Ed. (Community and Continuing Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / The purpose of this study was to identify the educational needs and assets of language educators for teaching vernacular reading. A qualitative research study was conducted to examine what educators have and need to teach Sepedi reading skills at Mashiloane Higher Primary School and Tours Junior Primary School. Six vernacular teachers participated in the study. The teachers were assisted in identifying the educational needs and assets for teaching learners to read Sepedi. The study has highlighted the areas where language educators need support in order to teach vernacular reading proficiently. The study revealed a lack of Sepedi reading material and adequate training for vernacular teaching in both schools, especially in the Foundation Phase. The educational assets for vernacular language teachers were also assessed. Chapter two outlines the theoretical framework and defines key concepts. Assumptions were formulated about what teachers need to proficiently teach reading of a vernacular language. These include issues such as adequate training, Sepedi reading materials and sufficient space in the classrooms, among others. Chapter three outlines the research methodology. It clearly explains the research design, data collection and data analysis. This study was purely qualitative and took the form of a case study. This enabled a detailed and intensive study of the case as it exists in its physical setting. Data collection included document analysis, observations, one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions. A data matrix was used in the analysis of data. Chapter four constitutes the presentation and analysis of the findings of the study. The milieu and physical location of the schools are also described. The chapter further outlines both the educational needs and assets of the two schools for teaching reading in a vernacular language, i.e Sepedi. Chapter five presents the conclusions from the outlined educational needs and assets from the two schools. The recommendations, which might assist in the creation of a Sepedi-reading culture, are based on the findings. Included in this chapter are reflections on the research process. Recommendations are made for further research towards developmental programmes for Sepedi teachers in the primary schools of Limpopo.

My idiolect, a Xin’an idiolect, belongs to the Wuxi dialect, which is the northern Wu dialect. It carries most of the characteristics of the Wuxi dialect, such as the tripartite division of the manner of articulation of initial stop consonants. However, with the special geographic position, on the bounty of Wuxi dialect from the northwest area to southeast area and connected with Suzhou city, my idiolect shows its unique features, such as the condition of the retroflex. This study analyzes the phonological system of the idiolect and discusses the features. Since the dialect of the suburban area of the Wuxi is rare, it was only documented in the local chronicles; therefore the study is a good supplemental material to the Wuxi dialect. Moreover, using the idiolect is like to use the phonological material with the specific area and social identity. It is well known that the variation of the language is related to the area, to the speaker’s social identity and to the situation, therefore the specific idiolect definitely will benefit researchers to analyze the dialect. Furthermore, idiolect is also a good sample to study the language diversity among the different social classes, which need to get more attention from scholars. With the influence of the Mandarin and the surrounding dialects, some phonological features of my idiolect are in the variation, such as the sharp and rounded sounds. In the thesis, the theory of the language contact is applied to explain my idiolect.

Research on the dialects of English spoken within the United States shows variation regarding lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological features. Previous research has tended to focus on one linguistic variable at a time with variation. To incorporate multiple variables in the same analysis, this thesis uses a latent class analysis to perform a cluster analysis on results from the Harvard Dialect Survey (2003) in order to investigate what phonetic variables from the Harvard Dialect Survey are most closely associated with each dialect. This thesis also looks at how closely the latent class analysis results correspond to the Atlas of North America (Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2005b) and how well the results correspond to Joshua Katz's heat maps (Business Insider, 2013; Byrne, 2013; Huffington Post, 2013; The Atlantic, 2013). The results from the Harvard Dialect Survey generally parallel the findings of the Linguistic Atlas of North American English, providing support for six basic dialects of American English. The variables with the highest probability of occurring in the North dialect are ‘pajamas: /æ/’, ‘coupon: /ju:/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’ ‘Florida: /ɔ/’, and ‘caramel: 2 syllables’. For the South dialect, the top variables are ‘handkerchief: /ɪ/’, ‘lawyer: /ɒ/’, ‘pajamas: /ɑ/’, and ‘poem’ as 2 syllables. The top variables in the West dialect include ‘pajamas: /ɑ/’, ‘Florida: /ɔ/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘handkerchief: /ɪ/’, and ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’. For the New England dialect, they are ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘route: /ru:t/’, ‘caramel: 3 syllables’, ‘mayonnaise: /ejɑ/’, and ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’. The top variables for the Midland dialect are ‘pajamas: /æ/’, ‘coupon: /u:/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘Florida: /ɔ/’, and ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’ and for New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States, they are ‘handkerchief: /ɪ/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘pajamas: /ɑ/’, ‘been: /ɪ/’, ‘route: /ru:t/’, ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’, and ‘coupon: /u:/’. One major discrepancy between the results from the latent class analysis and the linguistic atlas is the region of the low back merger. In the latent class analysis, the North dialect has a low probability of the ‘cot/caught’ low back vowel distinction, whereas the linguistic atlas found this to be a salent variable of the North dialect. In conclusion, these results show that the latent class analysis corresponds with current research, as well as adding additional information with multiple variables.

This paper investigated the difference of usage of the sentence-final particles of bai and tai that are used in the Fukuoka dialect from a sociolinguistic variation study perspective. Social factors such as age, gender and social network were gathered through a survey, in which the results were analyzed, and patterns identified. The study showed that there is a decline in the usage of bai and tai, especially bai as many informants’ usage of the particle differed from what has been found from prior research. By looking at the different social factors, the study shows differences between how the sentence-final particles are used, especially in relation to gender and age. The study concluded that women from two out of three age groups tend to not use the particles while men and the third age group which are older informants tend to still use the particles. These results showed that there may be a language change within the Fukuoka dialect, but that more research needs to be conducted to say for sure, as there were not enough informants representing all age cohorts.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The Heyang dialect has many distinct phonological features, which make it quite different from its adjacent dialects. The phonological features of the Heyang dialect are systematically studied, and the historical strata are revealed. Diverse historical strata exist in the current system of the Heyang dialect. In the Heyang dialect, there are phonological features which belong to the stratum of the Northwestern dialect during the Tang and Song dynasties. These features include: the Middle Chinese voiced obstruents are all aspitrated; the -ŋ ending is lost in the colloquial readings of Dang (宕) and Geng (梗) rhyme groups; the division III hekou syllables in Zhi (止) and Yu (遇) rhyme groups merge; and the division III and IV hekou finals of Xie (蟹) rhyme group are xiyin. The initials yi (疑) and wei (微) in the Heyang dialect are pronounced the same as they are in the Zhongyuan yinyun. The kaikou contrasted with the hekou finals in Guo (果) rhyme group when they combined with velar and glottal initials, the division I contrasted with division II finals of Xiao (效) rhyme group in the Heyang dialect. Those phonological phenomena belong to the historical stratum of the Zhongyuan yinyun. The Heyang dialect was further compared with the Meixian dialect, a representive of the Hakka dialect group. The two dialects share so many phonological characteristics. The relation between the two dialects is even closer than that between the Heyang dialect and Mandarin, in some essential aspects, which strongly suggests that the Heyang dialect may be rooted from the Zhongyuan dialects during the Tang and Song dynasty.