The Phonetic Research Of Boxing Dialect Island In Dongwan Village, Huozhou City

At the late Qing Dynasty,due to hunger,war,poverty and other reasons,so many people in Shandong Province,Henan Province and Hebei Province moved to Shanxi Province and Shannxi Province to survive.In Shanxi Province,there are so many villages that gathered by these people in Changzhi and Linfen,and their dialect and customs are kept completely.These villages are so-called"dialect island".On one hand,some of them may last for a long time because of the complete customs and dialect,on the other hand,some of them may disappear in the future because of cultural and dialect assimilation.This article is about such a dialect island,and will introduce the pronunciation and evolution of its dialect.The dialect island that this article will talk about is Dongwan village,located in Huozhou,Shanxi Province,near the Tongpu railway and Fen River.Dongwan village is of more than 120-years history,the dialect and most customs are kept completely.With the deep and frequent communications with local people in Huozhou,the pronunciation of Dongwan dialect has been influenced,and the villagers are the leading part of my investigations.According to my 3 times field work,on one hand,my study summarized the phonology of Dongwan dialect,revealed the variation of tone caused by two words expressions and light sound,and provided some fresh materials for the Shandong dialect island research;on the other hand,with the comparison of Huozhou dialect and Boxing dialect,and the villagers' attitude,my study showed the phonetic change of Dongwan dialect and predicted the future of this speech island.There are 6 chapters in my study.Chapter 1 is the introduction.In this chapter,firstly,the history,geography,dialect and Shandong migrants' dialect of Huozhou were introduced,and we defined the Dongwan dialect island.There are definitions of dialect island in academic circle,and we prefer Huang Xiaodong's and Wang Yuanxin's definition.Secondly,we introduced the aim of the study and a summary of relevant reaearches.Finally,the methods and interviewers and phonetic symbols of the study were introduced.Chapter 2 is about the phonology and features of Dongwan dialect,in terms of the word examples of the initial,final and tone,the phonology,the matching rule of the initial and final,the features of the phonology,differences between generations and variation of tone caused by two words expressions and light sound of Dongwan dialect.There are 26 initials and 38 finals and 4 tones in Dongwan dialect,according to my field works,differences between generations are obvious on initials and finals,and features like the flow after the sound and nasal vowel are kept on some finals.The variation of tone caused by the light sound of Shandong Mandarin are very typical and steady,and so as to Dongwan dialect,but in terms of the phonology development of Dongwan dialect itself,some variations are still in developing.Chapter 3 is about the syllabary of homophones of Dongwan dialect.This syllabary is based on the dialect word list,which was compiled by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1981,and add some words that are used usually in Dongwan dialect but not involved in the list,also delete some words that are not popular in Dongwan dialect.Chapter 4 is about the comparison between Dongwan dialect and related dialects.The main contents of the chapter are the comparisons of Dongwan dialect with Huozhou dialect,and Dongwan dialect with Boxing dialect in terms of initial,final and tone.Huozhou dialect belongs to Middle Mandarin,and the Boxing dialect belongs to Jilu Mandarin.In general,there are obvious differences between Dongwan dialect and Huozhou dialect in terms of initial,final and tone.On initials,Huozhou dialect doesn't have a[n],on finals,Huohzou dialect is 5 less than Dongwan dialect.Huozhou dialect doesn't have the features like the flow after the sound and nasal vowel,and Huozhou dialect has 5 tones,1more than Dongwan dialect.However,there are few differences between Dongwan dialect and Boxing dialect,the former has 26 initials and 38 finals,but the latter has 25 initials and 26 finals,the 2 dialects have no difference on tones,but the differences on variation of tone caused by two words expressions and light sound of the 2 dialects usually occur on such types:yin +yin,shang + shang,qu + qu,yang + light,shang + light,qu + light.Chapter 5 is about the factors affecting the development and evolution of Dongwan dialect.The chapter generalized the factors by questionnaire which including interviewers' family backgrounds,language aquization,language using,the level of language mastery,the way of language learning and attitude about language,then draw a conclusion.The chapter concluded the factors that affecting the development of Dongwan dialect island and the evlution of its dialect.These factors are:the oriental cultural identity of migrants,the assimilation of the strong dialect,the social and economic development.Chapter 6 is the conclusion of the study,through the questionnaire,we found that the villagers are with high level of Dongwan dialect,and except the people that older than 65 years,many villagers are proficient in 2 or 3 dialects,and most of them can both speak Dongwan dialect and Mandarin.With the Dongwan village's history and the questionnaire,although the Dongwan village still remains the origin of the customs,as well as the dialect identity,but the smaller dialect islands like Dongwan,with its own development and evolution,and other languages' or dialect's pressure,Dongwan dialect island's living space will smaller,even will disappear in the future.At the end of the chapter,summarized some goals that this study achieved,and some deficiencies of the study are pointed out.