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A comparison of the Cantonese pronunciations recorded in Shangwu xin cidian and Yueyin yunhui

Although we see an increasing use of Putonghua in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover, under the government’s language policy encouraging bi-literacy and tri-lingualism, Cantonese still retains its dominant position in the territory, where a continuing concern over “proper” Cantonese pronunciation persists. To join in this discussion, the present thesis compares Cantonese pronunciation contained in a recently published Chinese dictionary, The New Commercial Press Dictionary (Shangwu xin cidian 商務新詞典, appearing in 2010), with that in a classical reference A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton (Yueyin yunhui粵音韻彙, first published in 1941). A detailed analysis reveals that among the 5,872 common characters, 1,182 differ in their Cantonese pronunciation. Apart from differences in phonological makeup, the two books also diverge in their treatment of literary versus colloquial, and archaic versus contemporary readings. This is most likely due to their 70-year span and disparate natures – a dictionary versus a syllabary. / published_or_final_version / Chinese Language and Literature / Master / Master of Arts

  1. 10.5353/th_b4842178
  2. b4842178
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/177299
Date January 2012
CreatorsSung, Ye-wan, Yvonne., 宋尔芸.
PublisherThe University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong)
Source SetsHong Kong University Theses
LanguageChinese
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePG_Thesis
Sourcehttp://hub.hku.hk/bib/B48421789
RightsThe author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License
RelationHKU Theses Online (HKUTO)

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