The current article is a modified version of the original draft of an article with the same title published in JCLTA.
FEMININE ACCENT IN THE BEIJING VERNACULAR
A SOCIOLINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION
Mingyang Hu
China People's University
(C) Copyright 1996 All Rights Reserved
1.0. `Feminine Accent' in the Beijing Vernacular
It was reported, in the twenties and thirties by Professors Jinxi Li,
Yuan Ren Chao and others that schoolgirls in Beijing Girls' Middle
Schools tended to pronounce palatals as dentals, and would continue to
keep such peculiarities in pronunciation until they got married or
entered society. Professor Li called this type of pronunciation
`feminine pronunciation.' Others termed it `Picai
pronunciation' on the ground that it supposedly originated within the
Girls' Middle School (now the Experimental Middle School), attached to
Beijing Normal University, situated then in Picai Lane in the
western part of the city.
In the fifties and seventies, this type of pronunciation was again
mentioned by Mr. Shirong Xu in his `Vulgarisms in the Beijing Vernacular'
and `Difference in Pronunciation between Putonghua or the Chinese
National Common Speech and the Beijing Vernacular.'
In 1983 we carried out a tentative investigation among senior
students of a class of Chinese literature at China People's University,
Extension No.1 (now the College of Business Management of the Beijing
Union University) to ascertain whether there were female students
speaking with a feminine accent nowadays, and whether there were male
students speaking in the same way. The result with female students was
positive while that with male students was negative as expected.
In 1985 a reading list was drafted to contain words with regular
palatal consonants followed by medial /i/ before vowels with different
degrees of openness and with different historical backgrounds (those
derived from * tsi- etc. and those from * ki- etc. in
ancient Chinese). A young female teacher was entrusted with the field
work among female students in various parts of the city. The
investigation of 1985 unfortunately failed, owing to the lack of strict
phonetic training of the operator, who failed to distinguish regular
dentals from fronted palatals. Towards the end of the same year, Miss
Songcen Chen confirmed the existence of feminine accent in Putonghua in
her An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. The years 1986 and
1987 saw two successive papers by Mr. Yun Cao, dealing with the same
topic, and providing for the first time statistics concerning the
occurrence of different categories of this type of pronunciation in
Beijing.
Our investigation on feminine accent in the Beijing vernacular of
1987 was conducted from April to June with a view to (1) locating the
exact place of articulation of fronted palatals, (2) delimiting the
sphere of diffusion of the feminine accent, (3) counting percentages of
speakers of the feminine accent among different age groups, (4) providing
a sociolinguistic interpretation of the occurrence of the feminine
accent.
The informants used in our investigation were chosen exclusively from
aation on feminine accent in the Beijing vernacular of 1987 was conducted
from April to June with a view to (1) locating the exact place of
articulation of fronted palatals, (2) delimiting the sphere of diffusion
of the feminine accent, (3) counting percentages of speakers of the
feminine accent among different age groups, (4) providing a sociolinguis-
tic interpretation of the occurrence of the feminine accent.
The informants used in our investigation were chosen exclusively from
aa word list than to reading a story in the colloquial style. However,
it is still consistent with his theory that maximum attention yields the
most formal speech. This is because different experiences are
determined by differences in the social and linguistic structures of New
York and Beijing. The average New Yorkers speak a form of English more
or less deviant from Standard American English, so they would
conscientiously aim at the standard form in reading isolated words on a
word list, while natives of Beijing are perfectly confident of their use
of a standard form of speech, but less confident in reading a literary
article in the proper way as required in literary recitation, so they
would pay more attention to their pronunciation in reading a story,
however colloquial in style.
2.0 Some Results of the Investigation
2.1 Phonetic Description of the Sounds of the Feminine Accent
Feminine accent is characterised by the alternate use of dentals or
fronted palatals in place of regular palatals in a number of syllables
with close vowels in words of everyday use. These fronted palatals are
pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth as in the
case of the typical Beijing palatal series, but with the back of the
blade and the front part of the tongue pressing against the upper tooth
ridge. They are fronted palatals and not alveolars as reported by Cao in
his article (Cao, 1987). Alveolars are usually articulated with the tip
of the tongue behind the upper teeth and with the blade of the tongue
pressing against the upper tooth ridge as in English ch and
sh. Besides, palatals and alveolars have quite distinct
acoustic effects. Fronted palatals and dentals sound more `fragile' and
`piercing' to Chinese ears and so more feminine, while alveolars tend to
be more `blunt' and "masculine."
2.2 Sex Variation
None of the 65 male informants, ranging from 12 to 33 years of age,
exhibited any trace of feminine accent. 48 out of 162 female informants,
ranging from 12 to 56 years of age, exhibited traces of feminine accent,
amounting to 29.62% of the total.
2.3 Frequency of the Features of Feminine Accent
Female informants with feminine accent do not substitute every
palatal with a dental or fronted palatal, and the same word is not
affected on every occasion. There were 59 syllables beginning with a
palatal in our word list, but only 49 were read as a dental or fronted
palatal. Different informants spoke with different ranges of `femini-
zation' of palatals. Miss Xiujuan Ge, a second year student at the
Haidian Teachers' School, No. 3, had the widest range of `feminization'
of palatals, substituting 35 syllables on the word list with dentals or
fronted palatals, reaching a high percentage of 71.42%. She pronounced
the syllable xiong in yingxiong (hero) as
siong, this being the only instance of a palatal pronounced as a
dental in a syllable with a back vowel. The 48 female informants with
feminine accent gave a total of 371 instances of feminization of
palatals, averaging 7.72 syllables per informant. Such being the case,
it may be stated that the so called feminine accent involves only a
minority of female speakers in Beijing, and those who speak with a
feminine accent substitute for only a small number of palatal
syllables.
2.4 Syllables Most Susceptible to Feminization
The syllables most susceptible to feminization on our word list
are:
Table I
| Syllables with palatal(s) | Dentalized | Fronted | Total |
| (you3 yi4)xie1 (some) | 31 | 17 | 20 |
| ji2 (in a hurry) | 14 | 12 | 26 |
| ji1 (rooster/chicken) | 10 | 12 | 22 |
| ji4 (to send) | 21 | 10 | 21 |
| ji3 (several) | 11 | 7 | 18 |
| xi4 (slender;fine) | 9 | 12 | 21 |
| ji1ji2 (active) | 7 | 10 | 17 |
| jiao1ji2 (worried) | 3 | 13 | 16 |
On the whole, the most favorite syllable structures are those with the
vowel -i or medial -i- followed by front close
vowels.
2.5 Variation by Age Groups
Feminine accent appears to have a close correlation with age. It
begins at the age of puberty, lasts throughout girlhood and early
womanhood, and gradually disappears after marriage or entering into
society. However, it begins and disappears at different ages under
different social conditions. Before 1949, it was the custom for girls to
marry young, and few young women went on to college. Now it is no longer
the custom for girls to marry young and nearly half of college students
are young women. Thus feminine accent lingers on longer than it used to.
A few women retain their feminine accent for some time after marriage or
getting a job. Very few, and practically none, however, speak with a
feminine accent when they grow old.
Table II
Distribution of feminine accent among different age groups
| Age | Total Number of Speakers | Dentals | | Dentals/Palatals | Fronted Palatals | Percentage out of Total |
| 12-13 (1st year, Jr) | 46 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 7/46 15.21% | |
| 15-17 (1st year, Sen) | 29 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5/29
17.24% |
| 16-18 (2nd year, Sen) | 42 | 1 | 15 | 3 | 19/42
45.23% |
| 19-20 (1st to 4th year Col) | 24 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 9/24
37.50% |
| 21-60 (Workers and Functionaries) | | 21 | | 4 | | 2 | | | | | |
|
| Age | Total Number of Speakers | Dentals | Dentals/Palatals | Fronted Palatals | Percentage out of
Total |
| 12-13 (1st year, Jr) | | 0 | 3 | 4 | 7/46 15.21% |
| 15-17 (1st year, Sen) | 29 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5/29
17.24% |
| 16-18 (2nd year, Sen) | 42 | 1 | 15 | 3 | 19/42
45.23% |
| 19-20 (1st to 4th year Col) | 24 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 9/24
37.50% |
| 21-60 (Workers and Functionaries) | 21 | 4 | 2 | | |
3.0 Discussion
The fact that feminine accent is female-specific and its occurrences
correlate closely with the age of puberty and full womanhood convincingly
demonstrates that this is not a case of a general phonological drift
towards fronted palatals in the Beijing vernacular, but is a sex-
correlated sociolinguistic feature. In traditional Chinese opera
singing, two types of syllables with vowel -i or medial -i-
are distinguished: those beginning with dentals (from dentals in
ancient Chinese) are called `fragile' or `piercing' sounds, and those
beginning with palatals (from gutturals in ancient Chinese) are called
`blunt' sounds. People in China are of the opinion that `fragile' or
`piercing' sounds are more womanly and pleasant to the ear while blunt
sounds are more masculine. So it is only natural for a number of girls
to aim at speaking with what is perceived as a `pleasant and lovely
accent.' It is this commonly held opinion that gives rise to the
development of feminine accent among school girls.
However, it must be mentioned that all informants with feminine
accent denied consciousness on their part to aim at loveliness in speech
and declared unanimously that they spoke standard Pekinese and were
unconscious of any difference in pronunciation from other natives of
Beijing. These statements are true to a certain extent, for even
nowadays it is still exceptionally unusual and even shameful in China for
girls and young women to acknowledge openly that they are trying to be
`sweet and lovely.' Besides, their intentions to be so, if there were
any, have often been `driven' into subconsciousness under the pressure of
traditional social norms. Another social factor of the same nature
giving rise to the fronting of palatals is the requirement of good
manners for girls and young women to avoid laughing and talking with
their mouths wide open. So they would try to speak with their mouths as
closed as possible, pressing, in this way, their palatals forward and
resulting in fronted palatals and sometimes dentals. All these social
factors have contribute to the development of feminine accent.
Therefore we believe that feminine accent is a socially motivated
linguistic phenomenon rather than a result of pure linguistic
development.
Our investigation was carried out chiefly among female school
students and female college students. Consequently, it would be
imprudent to form conclusions on the process of disappearance of feminine
accent among women workers, functionaries and professionals. Further
detailed studies pertaining to the entire development of feminine accent
will surely contribute to a comprehensive description and better
understanding of the nature and process of its development.
NOTE
1. Number of speakers.
REFERENCES
Cao, Yun. 1986. `Sex Related Phonetic Variations in the Beijing Ver-
nacular.' In Chinese Studies.
_______. 1987. `The Fronting of the tç Group Sounds in the
Beijing Vernacular.' In Language Teaching and Linguistic
Studies, no.3. Beijing: Beijing Languages Institute Press.
Chen, Songcen. 1985. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.
Beijing: Beijing University Press.
Karlgren, Bernhard. 1937. Etudes sur la Phonologie Chinoise.
Translated by Y.R. Chao et als. Commercial Press.
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Xu, Shirong. 1957. `Vulgarisms in the Beijing Vernacular and Difference
in Pronunciation between Putonghua or the Chinese National Common Speech
and the Beijing Vernacular.' In Zhongguo Yuwen, no.3.
__________. 1979. `Difference in Pronunciation between Putonghua or the
Chinese National Common Speech and the Beijing Vernacular.' In
Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, no.1. Beijing:
Beijing Languages Institute Press.