A sociolinguistic study of Mainland putonghua and Taiwan guoyu in New York City.
Item
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Title
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A sociolinguistic study of Mainland putonghua and Taiwan guoyu in New York City.
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Identifier
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AAI9510699
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identifier
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9510699
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Creator
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Pan, Shiwen.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Edward Bendix
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Date
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1994
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics | Language, Ancient | History, Asia, Australia and Oceania
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Abstract
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This work is a sociolinguistic study of the two Mandarin varieties in New York City: Mainland putonghua and Taiwan guoyu.;Two-stage field work was conducted from 1992 to 1993, aiming at collecting sociolinguistic data specific to Mandarin speakers in the Chinese communities. Following the social network methodology, 96 Mandarin speakers were interviewed, completed questionnaires, and had their conversations recorded. Data collected from 47 Taiwan guoyu speakers and 46 putonghua speakers were used for both qualitative and quantitative analyses.;Mutual linguistic influence between the two Mandarin varieties was explored and was further contrasted with extralinguistic variables which include gender, age, education, years of residence in USA, language attitude, NSS-O (Network Strength Scale-Other Group) scores, and TV watching.;The study demonstrated that mutual linguistic influence between the two Mandarin speaking populations is inevitable as long as language contact is maintained. Statistical analyses further indicated that the linguistic influence detected in the two groups is associated with both NSS-O scores and TV watching. The study does not reveal any significant correlations between individual linguistic variables and other social factors, although some suggestive correlations do appear. The results suggest that the mutual linguistic influence occurring between the two groups of Mandarin speakers is an extremely complex phenomenon which cannot be explained solely by psychological motivations as advocated by both the social network model and the speech accommodation theory. This study points to the simple fact that language contact, both personal and non-personal, constitutes the very basis for linguistic influence.;To conduct the research, the traditional social network model was modified and elaborated. The results of the study suggest further improvement of this sociolinguistic model.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
