Response paper to the reading on Fangyan. Literature & Language Essay
Format and structure of the paper: (must follow)
1. A summary of the main points of the assigned article.
2. What you agree with, and why. You may provide further supporting arguments.
3. What you do not agree with, and why. You must provide supporting arguments, preferably with linguistic data.
4. A reference list is not required because you may not have sufficient time to research the topic, but it would be great if you include additional references in your paper. For the bibliography and citation, we recommend the APA style. But you can use other styles that you are familiar with.
Length of paper: 4 pages, double spaced
grading rubrics: see attached file (must follow grade A's guide)
What would be the best type of arguments in linguistics? (just for knwon)
1. Although some linguists do write conceptual theoretical papers with minimal linguistic data, such papers are very challenging to write well. Instead, most linguistics papers need adequate linguistic data for any argument.
2. Therefore if you can find linguistic data to support your arguments it would be ideal. You may even suggest possible data to collect to further the research.
3. However, given the short time alloted for writing the paper, you may not have enough time to gather data, and therefore it would be completely fine if your arguments can be made without too much reliance on linguistic data.
4. However, it may be helpful to keep in mind that linguistics is an empirical science, and arguments in linguistics are often approached quite differently from disciplines in the humanities. Research methods in linguistics are often similar to social sciences.
please response to the reading Mair, V. 1991. What is a Chinese “dialect/topolect” folloing the grading policy and requirements i listed above. And you can mention and discuss the questions listed in doc "discussion questions on Fangyan" while writing the paper. The key points are the requirements listed above which are the things you must talk about in the paper but its better to also mention the question which listed in doc. PLZ Dont forget giving supporting details and maybe reserching data and references.
Response Paper to the Reading on Fangyan
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Response Paper to the Reading on Fangyan
Over the years, terminological imprecision, especially with the Chinese word Fangyan and its subsequent translation by the English word “dialect” has resulted in a chaotic scenario. It has impenetrable in Sinitic language taxonomy that is unacceptable. With Sinitic, being such a diverse agglomeration of languages, Victor H. Mair’s What Is a Chinese “Dialect/Topolect”? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms seeks through rigorous analysis, to differentiate Fangyan from dialect.
In order to accomplish his goal, Mair indicates the need to understand the classification of languages. The “tree model” serves as an effective way of classifying languages. The first level constitutes of the major families, which includes languages presumed to be from the same “parent” language. Under this group, there is the “major” language like the Indo-European, Semito-Hamitic, Ural-Altaic, Sino-Tibetan, and African among others. The next level is the “group” which breaks down a “major” language into the main groups. For example, Indo-European languages can be broken down into several languages like Indic, Iranian, Hellenic, Romance, and Celtic among others. The third level of classification is the “branch.” The approach considers several closely related languages of a particular group. Germanic has two branches, North or Scandinavian, with each branch having constituent languages.
Before differentiating Fangyan from dialect, the author introduces the idea of “mutually intelligible” and “mutually unintelligible” and how they apply to Chinese varieties. For mutually intelligible languages, the speakers can understand one another without difficulties. There could be slight differences in accent, vocabulary, and spelling, but this does not hinder the speakers from understanding one another. For instance, English varieties like Cockney, Boston, Toronto, and Texas have the speakers understanding each other without difficulties. The same applies to Chinese varieties Yue’s Canton, Taishan, and other dialects that are mutually intelligible. On the other hand, in mutually unintelligible languages, the various speakers cannot understand each other easily despite the fact that the languages are related. For instance, English, Dutch, and Swedish belong to the same Indo-European language family. However, speakers of various languages cannot understand each other easily. In the same way, the varieties of Chinese like Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese (Yue), and Hunan (Xiang) among others belong to the same family, but the speakers do not understand each other easily.
With this in mind, the author goes ahead to differentiate the word “dialect” from fāngyán. According to the author, the word “dialect” in English denotes languages that are peculiar to a given social group or region. Dialects share “mutual intelligibility” where the speakers of the various languages can understand each other without the need for a special effort. For example, English has dial...
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