Case Study On Minnan Dialect In Shangba Village, Dingshu Zhen, Yixing City, Jiangsu Province

As special variant and important part of Minnan dialect, Minnan speech island has rich research value, thus drawing increasing attention from the academic community recently.From the view of both linguistic structure and social function of language, this thesis focuses on the properties and their formation mechanism of Shangba dialect, a branch of Minnan dialect in Dingshu Zhen, Yixing City, as a pioneering attempt to examine Minnan speech islands in Jiangsu Province.Firstly, on the basis of a brief introduction to Minnan speech islands in Yixing and to geographic features as well as folk custom of Shangba, we make a special effort to investigate language ability, communication habit and attitude towards Shangba dialect of local people, to reveal possible changes in social function of Shangba dialect. Despite lots of local people are willing to speak Shangba dialect, hoping pass on it to next generation, many others have given up their mother dialect, which can be seen in the fact that the number of adolescents who can speak and frequently use it has been declining.Secondly, we present a detailed and accurate account of the phonetic system, colloquial and literary readings, lexical system as well as several special grammatical phenomena of Shangba dialect. Additionally, we carry out a multi-level comparative study, by means of scientific classification and quantitative statistic, aiming to discover differences between Shangba and Quanzhang-Zhenan Minnan dialect and to analyze the influences exerted by surrounding dialects (e.g. Zhenan Wu dialect&Yixing dialect) on Shangba dialect. We note that although having been separated from its origin for a long time, Shangba dialect still maintain a series of typical features of Minnan dialect in many aspects. Existing as a speech island plays a dual role in the formation and development of Shangba dialect. While enabling Shangba dialect to preserve some earlier features of Minnan dialect, it exposes Shangba dialect to the impacts of surrounding dialects, therefore accelerating its evolution. Taking all factors into consideration, this speech island is likely to disappear before qualitative change in Shangba dialect happens.