for fellow students

[kaigou]

Came across this paper: Gender Differences In The Chinese Language: A Preliminary Report by Marjorie K.M. Chan, Ohio State University

Summary: "Research on language and gender interaction is well into its third decade and yet there have been surprisingly few contributions from the Chinese language to the explosion of cross-linguistic literature on the topic. This paper brings together both scattered observations and detailed published works on Chinese to provide a preliminary report on gender differences in the Chinese language."

I recently finished watching Sweet Relationship [美味關係 / Mei Wei Guan Xi ], which I'll review/comment on later, but just wanted to mention in light of the linked paper: the lead actress, Patty Hou, was criticized in an online review for having 'odd pronunciation' that the reviewer found annoying -- for being too precise. Perhaps, the reviewer said, this was because Hou was previously a newscaster (that is, had wrong/different training than an actress). Me, I found Hou's accent to be very familiar -- she reminded me strongly of the coworker who used to tutor me in Mandarin. (X. had a bachelor's in radio communications from a PRC university.) Hou's tonal inflections, like my friend's, are softer, yet she enunciates clearly. As my mother might say, Hou 'moves her mouth' -- something I can't say of many other Taiwanese actors and actresses (especially when you contrast male Taiwanese actors' near-constant slurring dropped-tones versus the extreme pitch-inflection of male PRC actors).

And here's a bit from the first section of the paper, about just that. For info on the meaning of [v], see the wiki page on labiodental consonants. In this case, the [v] means the labiodental is a 'veh' sound, where you make the sound by putting your lower lip against your upper teeth to make the start of the sound. There are a number of labiodental consonants, but you can check the page to see the rest of them.

Interestingly, in Taiwan as well, one frequently hears news broadcasters using [v] in their speech, and this is typically (though not exclusively) produced by females. Such production is not accidental, as one trainee for television news broadcasting in Taiwan recalls. In her news broadcasting class at TTV in 1989, trainees were separated by sex, with female trainees taught by female instructors (and presumably male trainees taught by male instructors). In her all-female class, the trainees were asked to repeat and imitate their instructor, who used [v] in such words as yi wan ... Those who pronounced such words using the plain labial approximant, [w], were corrected by her. ... In Taiwan and mainland China, news broadcasters are often females. Shih (1984:224) attributes the greater use of female announcers to their more standard pronunciation and clearer enunciation. [Female newscasters also speak with] with steadier pitch (less pitch flunctuations) and in a lower and deeper voice... (Shih 1984:225).

And then, for those of you familiar with aegyo (see previous post with link spammage, for a link to a series of blog posts that went into depth on aegyo)... I came across behavior/speech in another drama that was almost identical to what I'd seen in kdramas. Honestly, for the first few minutes of the actress speaking, I couldn't even register her words as Mandarin, because she sounded like she was speaking Korean -- all nasalized vowels, drawn-out with complete exaggeration, and rising/falling tones where I least expected them.*

Check this out:

Gender differences in pronunciation may also be studied in association with a particular communication style, such as sajiao (撒嬌), analyzed by Farris (1995) in present-day Taiwan's setting. The sajiao style, which she describes as the adorable petulance of a spoiled child or young woman who seeks material or immaterial benefit from an unwilling listener, is analyzed as being marked for the feminine gender. Farris (p.16) reports on a friend's observation of a very nasal style in young unmarried women's use of sajiao with their boyfriends. Farris argues that the sajiao style indicates women's indirect and informal power in Chinese society; at the same time, it serves as a means to create and maintain that form of power.

...Zhang (1995) prefers the definition in the Modern Chinese Dictionary (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1979), namely, to deliberately act like a spoiled child in front of someone because of the awareness of the other person's affection. Zhang observes that in both mainland China and Taiwan, sajiao is a communication style that is typically used by children to their parents (to refuse things demanded of them or to get permission to do things prohibited by them), and by adults to their lovers or spouses (as a kind of romantic play)...

If I ever ruled the world and could change linguistic deliveries with one sweep of my hand, it would be to outlaw this style of petulant ultra-feminized delivery. I hear it, I want to KILL it. DED.

* by the 5th or 6th appearance from her, I started muting my speakers rather than listen to her. Thank the heavens for subtitles, because it was that or reach into the screen and seriously bitch-slap her for talking through her nose. Of a choice between listening to someone whine versus listening to nails on a blackboard, I'll take the freaking nails, any day.

Comments

[margrave]

I'm still in the process of writing a response to your questions from, gods, last year, it is coming, I swear.

Just a few things first - my Chinese education is a true horror story of GAPS. My formal Chinese education involves year 1 & 2 of primary school in China, and then education via Chinese dramas (simplified subtitles is your friend). There were years where I didn't read Chinese at all, and only started learning (relearning it) when I wanted to read Hiakry no Go. That was several weeks of me and my dad's trusted Chinese-to-English dictionary.

I can speak PRC (and supposedly my accent is very, um, northern), I can understand it, but reading it is like pulling teeth. I did however; spend a few months back in China a few years ago, and that, well, after the first two weeks I was speaking like a native once more. My home town is northern China, as in more north than BeiJing, and we supposedly have one of the most clear and precise pronunciation of PRC in all of China. The only people who have a more precise pronunciation of PRC would be people living in Harbin (哈尔滨). So, when I first arrived in my hometown the family made much fun of my 'strange' accent because it wasn't as precise and clear. Apparently I had started to sound like someone who had spent too much time in south or Taiwan. Also, you might find this amusing, but we tend to say that BeiJing accen

Anyway, to answer (or just add to the headache) on reporters’ accent: in PRC, all news reporters have the 'standard' accent, which is based on the BeiJing standard (though dad has informed me that while TV reporters adopt the 'BeiJing' accent, they don't use their colloquialism). That’s why all TV reporters when speaking Mandarin on PRC television have the same pronunciation, which is quite different from their hometown accent. It is really bizarre when they speak in their own accent – in short, some of them sound like country hicks.

Also, AGREED on the death of petulant ultra-feminized delivery. It drives me mad, because while I can make out what they are saying it shits me to no end that ADULTS are speaking in such a way. It hurts my soul.

[margrave]

I don't know what happened with my cut and paste ability, but obviously it is crap. In regards to BeiJing accent, we tend to say people from BeiJing speak as if they have a gold leaf in their mouth. There are many implications with this - the slight twang (melodic) to their accents make them sound posh. And it is a known fact that peopel frrom BeiJing think they are the best (oh gods, bias against province is coming through). All of which make them come across as posers at time. Ha Ha Ha.

Oh, I can't wait for you to get to that stage of picking at each based on where they are from. So much of it is implied.

[kaigou]

Ahahaha YES BEIJING ACCENT OMG.

My father-in-law spoke Mandarin so strongly Beijing. Urrrrrrrr, urrrrrrr, urrrrrrr. Made my skin crawl even before I ever studied Mandarin. Then in class, we learned... I don't know, a kind of generalized version of Mandarin (our first professor was Shanghaiese), and late in 2nd semester he tried to get us to start using Beijing-accent and it was pretty much total class rebellion. We'd do it only if he reminded us, and then drop it again immediately. Maybe that's to do with USian associations with a strong urrrrr-sound? No idea.

But my friend who was trained as radio-person didn't use that -rr ending at all. I asked her once about it, and she just made this slight frown, which was one expression I couldn't parse but I guess there were undertones or statements being made (in the use or not-use, I suppose) that she just didn't want to get into. (We were also in the middle of a tutoring session, so it may've been something that required time she didn't want to be taking away from correcting my pronunciation... when she wasn't giggling and saying I sounded like her relatives from Hunan, that is.)

(The other odd thing was that my professor was constantly, constantly, trying to get me to speak in a higher register. It took me awhile to release the problem wasn't tones, it was pitch -- I'm somewhere around a middle alto, I suppose, and he wanted a soprano delivery. My female classmates with higher-pitched voices were already finding it hard to raise their voices like that, and he wanted me to stretch even farther. I couldn't do it. I sounded like freaking Minnie Mouse in my own ears: unnatural, wrong, too shrill. I asked my friend -- whose pitch was just a hair higher than my natural speaking voice -- and she just shrugged off the professor's demands, and told me to speak at my normal pitch. Maybe it's because she knew the tones were hard enough for me, no reason to add pitch in there, too, or maybe it's because her newscaster training had taught her a lower-pitch delivery. Hmm. Maybe I should email her and ask... heh.)

Also: the Beijing accent reminds me of the British 'public school' accent. There's something rather... put-on about it. Taiwanese trips me up, but at least while I'm being tripped I'm also enjoying a very pretty dialect doing the tripping.

[issenllo]

A character on a Taiwanese drama described it as "using her nose to speak" - agree, can't think of anything else less appealing!

[kaigou]

One of the funniest scenes in Dalja's Spring is when the three main female characters (all in their mid-30s) are complaining about the 'younger generation' ... and inevitably, especially, complain about the overuse of aegyo. The three adult women mimicking that petulant, whiny delivery was absolutely hysterical. I guess you could see it as an age-thing, but it also carried overtones of a professional thing, too -- that these three women were career women, working hard to be taken seriously in the workplace, and younger women flouncing and whining left and right subtly undermines another woman's attempt to not be tarred with that manipulative brush.

Which is probably the same reason I, personally, also tend to want to slap anyone (in any language) using that kind of through-the-nose delivery.

(My mother always used to admonish us, "Do NOT talk through your nose.")