"Learning foreign languages" : phonetic analyses of a Tiānjīn Xiàngsheng

Abstract

The most common way of representing Chinese speech sounds in writing, and also the chief tool for teaching Chinese pronunciation to foreigners, is China’s official alphabetical writing system; Hànyǔ Pīnyīn. Most modern textbooks use this alphabet to give students an introduction to the system of Mandarin speech sounds, and most major Chinese dictionaries use it to list the pronunciation of the entry words. And yet, there is often a considerable distance between the way words are written in Pīnyīn and the way they are pronounced.

In this thesis I develop and present a phonetic transcription of a Chinese theatrical dialogue. The aim of this is to reveal details of Chinese pronunciation that are not made explicit in Hànyǔ Pīnyīn writing. I also use the phonetic data to argue about tone sandhi and syllable stress in Chinese.