Jiangsu 6

Listen to Jiangsu 6, a 21-year-old woman from Rudong, Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples.  IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1989

PLACE OF BIRTH: Rudong, Nantong, Jiangsu Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: At the time of the recording, the subject was in her third year at university.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

Subject came to live in Suzhou, Jiangsu, two and a half years before the date of the recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject was raised in Juegang, the county town of Rudong in middle Jiangsu Province. The county is under the jurisdiction of Nantong, which is why she refers to that city as her hometown in the unscripted speech. Her dialect is specific to Ruegang, but it belongs to the Jianghuai group, which can be heard in the Jiangsu 4 and Jiangsu 5 samples. The main differences are in the tonalities. The only external influences on her speech will have come from her three years as a student in Suzhou, but these are slight and will have come mainly from the enforced use of Putonghua (Mandarin). She is an English major at university and has had limited exposure to native English-speaking teachers.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/04/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

My hometown is [pause] Nantong; it’s very near from (ah) Shanghai (eh); actually it’s the first (ah) coastal cities (ah) after the opening up and (ah) Reform Policy. But it didn’t develop very well. About ten years ago, I begin to learn English, but (ah) it proved that it’s (ahm) a disaster [laughs] and a failure – at all because (ahm, ah) for the oral English I can’t speak it very e-fluent – fluently, (ah) and also (ah) in many occasions I can’t use the appropriate words to express myself. (ah) Modern China? Yes it’s (ahm), well, like the ancient China; it’s (ah) still a fascinating land for me because I love China very much. It’s a place that nurtured me and (ahm, ahm) teached me a lot; it’s a place that (ah) where I growed up, and (ahm) in modern China there are many (um) great changes (ah) have taken place since (ahm) reform and opening-up policy. And the people’s living standards have (ah) raised up a lot.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/04/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Short readings from the analects of Confucius

The subject now goes on to read the following abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in her own Jueganghua dialect. A reading in Putonghua (Mandarin) can be heard on the China 15 sample.

KEY: A = Mandarin (Simplified); B = Mandarin (Pinyin); C = Dialect (Pinyin); D = English.

孔子: 论语 – Kǒng zǐ : lún yǔ – Kon zi: lun yu – Confucius: Lun Yu

學而第一 – xué ér dì yī – Xia er chi yi – Chapter One

A: 1-1:-  子曰、 學而時習之、不亦說乎。

B: yī-yī :-  zǐ yuē: xué ér shí xí zhī, bù yì yuè hū.

C: yī-yī :-  zi ya , xia er sa xi zi ,ba r ya hu

D: 1-1:-  The Master said: Is it not pleasure to learn, and practice what is learned time and again?

A: 1-2:- 有朋自遠方來、不亦樂乎。

B: yī-èr:-  yǒu péng zì yuǎn fāng lái, bù yì lè hū.

C: yī-èr:-  you pen zi yong fang lai ,ba r la hu

D: 1-2:-  Is it not happiness to have friends coming from distant places?

A: 1-3:-  人不知而不慍、不亦君子乎。

B: yī-sān:  rén bù zhī ér bù yùn, bù yì jūn zi hū.

C: yī-sān:  ren ba zi er ba yun ,ba r jun zi hu

D: 1-3:-  Is it not virtue for a man to feel no discomposure when others take no note of him?

為政第二 – wéi zhèng dì èr – Wei zeng chi er – Chapter two

A: 2-2:-  子曰：「詩三百，一言以蔽之，曰：『思無邪』。

B: èr-èr:- zǐ yuē: shī sān bǎi, yī yán yǐ bì zhī , yuē: sī wú xié.

C: èr-èr:-  zi ya : si san bo, yi yi r bi zi , ya : si wu qia .

D: 2-2:-  The Master said: In the Book of Odes there are three hundred poems, but they may be summarized in a single sentence: Think no evil.

A: 2-7:-  子游問孝。子曰：今之孝者，是謂能養。至於犬馬，皆能有養；不敬，
何 以別乎。

B: èr-qī:-  zǐ Yóu wèn xiào. zǐ yuē: jīn zhī xiào zhě, shì wèi néng yǎng. zhì wū quǎn mǎ, jiē néng yǒu yǎng; bù jìng, hé yǐ bié hū.

C: : èr-qī:-  zi you wen xiao . Zi ya :jin zi xiao zai , si wei nen yang. Zi yu qiu ma , je nen you yang; Hu r bie hu .

D: 2-7:-  zi You asked what filial piety was. The Master said: Nowadays, providing support for one’s parents is considered filial piety. But dogs and horses can also do this. If there is no respect, what is the difference?

A: 2-10:- 子曰：「視其所以，觀其所由，察其所安。人焉叟哉？人焉叟哉？

B: èr-shí :-  zǐ yuē: shì qí suǒ yǐ , guān qí suǒ yóu, chá qí suǒ ān. rén yān sǒu zāi? rén yān sǒu zāi?

C: èr-shí :- zi ya : Si chi su r , guan chi su you , ca chi suo n .Ren yi sou za ? Ren yi sou
za ?

D: 2-10:-  The Master said: Watch what a man does. Find out his motives. See how he takes his ease. How then can the man hide his true self? How can the man hide his true self?

Commentary

Rudong County is named as Ru (Rugao County) and dong (east) because, geographically, Rudong is located to the east of Rugao County and was once one part of it. It has a long history, dating from the Spring and Autumn Period (722 – 476 BCE). At that time, a small coastal town named Rugao Port was established.

Rudong lies on land reclaimed from the sandbars created in the Yellow Sea at the mouth of the Yangtse. The ancient name of the place was Fuhaizhou, which roughly translates as “small sand island in the ocean.” The original, Mandarin speaking inhabitants migrated here from the north in the early period. Reclamation has continued since, and the county has grown eastward as a result. This has resulted in a number of administrative upheavals with merging and demerging into and out of neighboring counties. The most recent change, in 1940, saw Rugao divided along the Tongyang Canal into two parts: Ruxi County and Rudong County, and the re-establishment of Rugao itself in 1945.

The modern town of Rugao is famous for the longevity of its residents. Currently it boasts no fewer than 200 centenarian residents. Of the six “longevity towns” in China, it is the only one situated on a coastal plain and in an industrial region.

The coastline is 106 km (63 miles) long and has always supported salt manufacture and fishing. Juegang, the subject’s hometown, is famous for its shellfish, especially the clams which are “the sweetest on earth.” Fishing here is a tourist attraction: Fishermen stamp the sands to bring the shellfish to the surface. The similarity of their movements to modern dance forms has spawned the phrase “the disco in the ocean.”

The county has had many migrants from south of the Yangtse River, and this has given rise to two groups of dialects in the county. These are broadly known as Rudonghua, which is part of the Jianghuai Mandarin family, and Shadihua, a member of the Wu family spoken in south Jiangsu. This subject’s local dialect belongs to Rudonghua.

Noticeable characteristics, which can be heard on the recordings, include the difficulty with the /l/ and /r/ and the /l/ and /n/ minimal pairs, which is particular to the Juanghuai dialect. The words “rule” and “near” in the recording are classic examples of these. There is also a problem with duke, where /du:k/ is pronounced as /dʌk/. Elsewhere, the /v/- /w/ minimal pair is not a problem with “vet” but is very evident in “five.” The problem of the possessive and plural /s/ preceded by an /s/ sound that has been noted in other Jiangsu samples is also evident here.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/04/2010

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.