| dc.description.abstract | This paper first examined the Southern Fujian dialect used in Ruifang District, New Taipei City, to sort out its existing phonetic systems. Then, investigating from the perspective of sociolinguistics, the study made a synchronic comparison of the differences in the use of the dialect among the old, middle, and young generations and analyzed the impact of its social variables to highlight the phonetic characteristics of all age groups. Finally, the researcher of this study utilized the characteristics of the dialect to draw a map of the distribution of its variants.
The study found that among the consonantal variants, the old generation has a higher proportion of preserving [j], and the middle and young generations tend to read [l]; The dominant variant of the vowel class 〈居居juju〉is [i]; the dominant variant of the class 〈科伽白ke jia〉is [e]; the most competitive variant of the class〈科檜白ke hui〉is [ue]; as for the class 〈雞稽白ji ji〉, more people are inclined to read [e]; in the class〈杯稽白bei ji〉, the dominant variant of the four characters is [e], and [ue] is the most competitive sound for the character 「批pi」; the dominant variant of the class 〈刀高白dao gao〉is [ɔ], and the variant [ə] only appears in the character ＂蚵 ke＂; regarding the class 〈恩巾en jin〉, [in] is taken as the dominant sound; the [ẽ] and [ĩ] variants of the class 〈青更白 qing geng〉are equally competitive in the old generation while the [ẽ] sound is more dominant in the middle and young generations; in the class 〈關官白 guan guan〉, the variant [uaĩ] is more dominant. With respect to the class〈毛扛白 mao kang〉, [ŋ] and [ɔ̃] are equally dominant. Among the tonal variants, the rising modified tone is often read as [33] among the three generations. The characters with the Chinese tone yang ru are mostly read as [40] by the old and middle generations but as [330] by the young generation; the hou yang ru tone is more frequently read as [33] by the three generations.
Taking a closer look at its social variables of gender differences, language use and attitudes, immigration situation, education level, and occupation, we can find that the Ruifang area will also have a trend towards common accents and place more emphasis on the learning of Chinese and foreign languages in the future. | en_US |