Phonetics and phonology ofthe Chinese language

MALE 5303

INSTRUCTOR:Prof. ZHU Xiaonong

Email:

LECTURE TIME:Friday3-5:50pm

Course description

This course is both a theoretical and practical introduction to Chinese Phonetics and Phonology. It teaches you about how speech sounds are made by the human vocal tract; how they are organized for linguistic purposes. You will also learn how to quantify some important speech acoustics with a computer.

Phonetics deals with how speech sounds are made; how they are transmitted, and how they are perceived. Phonology deals with the principles on which speech sounds are organized in Language. Although there are aspects of Phonetics and Phonology which are common to all human languages, individual languages also differ in their Phonetics and Phonology – not all languages are tonal, like Chinese, for example. This course focuses on speech sounds in Standard Chinese and otherChinese varieties. Its aim is to explain to what extent Chinese dialects differ in their speech sounds (their vowels, tones and consonants) – how Cantonese differs from Shanghai for example – and what they have in common.

Course assessment

Class participation: 10%

Homework and presentation: 15%

Term paper: 75%.

Readings

Ladefoged, Peter. A course in Phonetics, 5th edition. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth. 2006.

朱曉農《語音學》. 北京: 商務印書館. 2010.

朱曉農《教我如何不想她：語音的故事》. 北京: 商務印書館. 2013.

Course outline by week:

Wk / Theme / Reading
Introduction to phonetics and phonology / L.Ch1. Zhu Ch1.
The International Phonetic Alphabet / Handbook of IPA.
Major phoneticclasses / L.Ch5. Z.Chs4, 5.
Acoustic parameters / L.Ch3. Z.Chs2, 9.
Syllable structure and constituency: Mandarin / L.Chs2, 11. Z.302-312.
Syllable structure and constituency: Other Chinese dialects / Z.313-321.
Tone: Nature and structure / Z.Ch9.
Typological patterns of tones / Science 2015.1
Vowels in Mandarin and other Chinese dialects / L.Chs4, 7. Z.Ch8.
Sonorants in Mandarin and other Chinese dialects / L.Chs5, 8. Z.Ch5.
Obstruents in Mandarin and other Chinese dialects / L.Chs5, 8. Z.Ch6.
Phonation types across Chinese dialects (1): Clear voices / L.Ch6. Z.66-82.
Phonation types across Chinese dialects (2): Non-clear voices / Z.83-108. L.Ch 6.
Phonological approaches: phonemics and formalism / L.Chs2, 11. Z.322-336

ILOs

By completion of the course, students are expected to be able to

  1. gain familiarity with the terminology and theories in Chinese phonetics and phonology,
  2. master the practical techniques for producing and describing the sounds of Chinese dialects,
  3. investigate, with a computer,the speech sounds of a Chinese dialectindependently,
  4. apply their knowledge to working out the phonology of a Chinese dialect.

Outcomemapping

Course outcomes

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