The Phonetic Changes Of The Contemporary Suzhou Dialect

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the phonetic changes of the Suzhou dialect which is the author's mother tongue. Many predecessors have made a lot of researches on the phonology of the Suzhou dialect. So we focus our attention on the comparison between the old and new varieties and describe the changing progress of the Suzhou dialect by using the hypothesis of lexical diffusion which is proposed by Prof. William S-Y Wang.At first, it introduces the phonetic changes in initials, finals and makes a series of specific tests of the phonetic changes. The result of the tests shows the changing progress through lexical diffusion and analyze the possible reason of the phonetic changes based on the reality of the Suzhou dialect. Next, it discusses some theoretic problems, including the heterogeneity of the Suzhou dialect, the phonetic changes diffusion through the lexicon, the possibility of phonetically gradual, the relationship between phonetic changes and the physiological factors.