If Chinese Already Uses Accent for Something Else, Then How Do They Show Emotion?

Factual Questions
21

“la” is not Singaporean Chinese! It’s also Malaysian - generally, Southeast Asian Chinese. It’s a result of long time exposure to Malay. It is a multifunctional, multitone thing.

Tone Chinese has 5 levels of tone, from low (1) to high (5).
For those in the know, the yin in Chinese noted as 55, yang as 35, shang 213 and qu is 51.

5 is similar to reading English at a very high pitch and 1 is akin to trying to mutter things under your breath. So you change your tone accordingly.

Tone is used together with stress. How do you stress things in Chinese? You either slow down your reading – “Bu. Yao. la” (ie No. Way.) or lengthen your reading (and therefore the rate you change your tones) – Bu yaaaooo la.

Or you either shout to express extremes in emotion eg in distress or joy. Of course, whether you’re happy or not depends on what you shout. Also, facial and hand gestures tell a great deal.

Just before I forget about the "la"s and "lo"s (known as “tanci”)

“la”/“le” - used somewhat to indicate past tense, or that something has already happened. eg

“Ta lai la!” There he comes!
“Bu yao la” No… implies that the speaker has decided against the topic.

“a” – implies surprise and exclamation. Also, agreement
“Hao a!” That’s great!
“A, ta pao de zhen kuai!” He runs really fast!
“A, rensheng shi duome de cuiruo!” Ah, the fragility of life!

“ne” – implies questioning
“Tamen dou you renwu le, wo ne?” They have their own duties, what about me?

“ne” also indicates that something is being carried out at the time of speech.
“Bie xianzai zou, waimian hai zai xia yu ne” Don’t go now, it’s still raining.

“ne” – to affirm something and convince
“Wo de shouhuo bu xiao ne” I benefitted quite a lot.

“ma3” - implies something is obvious, to suggest, to state the topic
“Benlai jiu shi zheyang ma!” It’s always been like that!
“Bie zuo zheme kuai ma!” Don’t walk that quickly (ie Slow down!)
“Kexue ma, ding nan de” (As for) Science, it’s quite difficult (for me)

“ma1” – to question
“Ni hao ma?” How are you?

Should be all, I can’t squeeze anything else out…

22

I gotta say, I’ve been studying Chinese for a decade and a half now, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.

23

True enough it’s a difficult thing to grasp. But if you read slowly enough you may note the changes in tone.

Maybe it’s easier to conceptualise it in terms of music.

You can play a piece of music quickly or slowly. But no matter how you play, the music itself remains the same.

When one plays music, it is possible to throw in emotion eg by emphasising on some parts, playing louder and softer.

This is the same thing that happens in languages, including Chinese.

I must apologise for confusing.

24

OK, maybe I have a vague idea now . . . it seems like you’re saying that “levels of tone” are something like notes on a scale, such that “level” 1 equals (say) middle C and “level” 5 equals G, with the intervening “levels” corresponding to D, E, and F. So you want to indicate that a first-tone word (yin) is a steady G, a second tone word (yang) rises from E to G, and so on.

OK, but I think that’s making things a little too complicated. Chinese first tone words are like a hotel receptionist giving a bright and cheery “Yes?” after you ring the bell.

Second tone words are like a slightly sarcastic waiter responding to your call–“ah, yes, how may I be of service?”–note the upward, mocking inflection in his voice.

Third tone is like your boss giving some deep and skeptical though to a point you’ve raised during your performance review. “Umm . . . yeess, it’s true that you’ve been consistently punctual, but . . .” Notice how he almost seems to nod his head in thought, and the word “yes” seems to go down and then slightly up with it?

And fourth tone is a flat, insistant declarative: “Yes! I did take out the garbage, for the fourteenth time!”

Isn’t that easy? English has exactly the same tones as Chinese, just used in different ways.

25

I have no idea what xejkh is talking about even when I am native Chinese.

26

I have no idea what xejkh is talking about even when I am native Chinese.

27

Haha. I also got a bit lost – with the yin, yang, shang, qu and corresponding numbers. Any clarification would be appreciated.

I think it’s true that in Chinese, and language in general, a lot of emotion is not necessarily attributed to inflection. I guess it’s pretty easy to think that changing the inflection would mess up the tone. The same argument could be made to how do Chinese sing? In the latter, the tones are kind of neutralized. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I think after a while, you notice that tones are really subtle. You can almost tell which word it is by just the way it starts out (first tone is long and high, second tone starts low, third tone has a slight inflection going down then up, and fourth tone starts high and goes down abrupt). The tendency to those that start learning is to really exaggerate these differences.

Anyway, after a bit of thinking, one thing I noticed that people from Beijing (maybe they do it elsewhere) do is draw back their bottom limp (like a frown) and suck in to indicate hesitation. I thought it was the strangest thing, but after a while, even I did it (but not as much as they did). Also, after a while when you get a real feel for the language, pauses + just speed of how you speak can convey a lot of the meaning. These is definite a natural flow you learn after a while.

28

on a related note , a certain linguist ,whose name I can’t remember, did a very detailed survey showing that Mandarin pop singers eliminate the tones while singing , whereas Cantanese singers retain them ! After listening to some Chinese music , I’m inclined to say that she is correct .

29

I think I know what he’s talking about.

He’s talking about the tones in Madarin. Yin and yang are actually yin pin and yang pin. Yin pin is the ordinary flat tone. Yang pin is also flat but at a higher pitch. Shang is raising at the end. Qu is dipping in the middle.

30

Ok… I’ve checked again.

The numbers are simply assigned to reflect the changes in tone. As all of us are aware of, there are many tonal languages apart from Chinese, and these numbers simply create a unified system for comparison.

A link: http://www.graman.net/hongkong/tone/
Another: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagoda/3847/sapienti/anctones.htm – scroll down for “Yuen Ren Chao’s Pitch Representation”

The study on whether tones are retained in Chinese and in Cantonese is found here:
http://deall.ohio-state.edu/chan.9/articles/bls13.htm

Essentially tones are reflected in songs sung in Cantonese by the shape of the melody: when there is a rising tone, the music also rises in pitch. In Chinese tones are totally ignored – which can be difficult even for a Chinese to understand what the signer is singing about.

31

xejkh, it looks like you speak some sort of Chinese instead of googling, but your tonal thing is way off. It ain’t pitch it is changes in inflection. There is the standard pinyin flat (first), rising (second), falling then rising (third), falling (fourth) and neutral. Maybe you’re describing this in a method used in Singapore or Malaysia, but it sure isn’t the standard way of describing tones attributed to Mandarin.

“La” is something used by Chinese speakers in Southeast Asia, and really no where else. Certainly not in Taiwan, Hong Kong or China.

“le” is used in China but is not the same as “la”

32

The above method – prescribing numbers to describe tone – is used nowhere except in linguistics. Here in Singapore (and all over the world) people learn their Chinese with the help of romanisation and the 4 tones. True enough, the tones are simply changes in pitch and inflection does not affect tone at all.

Please note: Stick to the yin, yang, shang and qu that you’ve learnt! The system I gave is just for your own information and enrichment - you may understand better how the tone system really works - but it’s not needed for speaking Chinese accurately.

BTW, I speak Chinese (Putonghua) and another Chinese dialect, Teochew (Chaozhou).

33

Not to be argumentative, but I do hear something that sounds like “la” all the time in Taiwan, though it’s probably used differently than in SE Asia. It usually expresses annoyance: “Tao yan la! Ni hao fan!” Although it’s usually girls who speak this way. A guy peppering his conversation with “la’s” of annoyance would sound extremely gay.

BTW, there’s all sorts of usages in Taiwan that probably aren’t heard on the mainland–for example, quite a few Japanese words have entered common parlance.

34

xejkh: Last time I was in Singapore, I got the distinct impression the national government was trying to instill Putonghua into the Chinese education system instead of the Cantonese (IIRC) that said population there was already using.

35

I know you know more than I do, but are you sure about that? I surf an HK-based board that is mostly Cantonese-language, and it’s full of “la” both written in Chinese (“pull” plus a mouth) and romanized in English phrases (as in “Sammi act very good la!”) It’s possible that those people are all Singaporean and Malaysian, but given the sheer numbers I’m skeptical. Or are we talking about different things?

36

Well, in HK, they use Aieeeya a lot, and a drawn out “ahhh” sound at the end of a sentence. It is quite distict from the Singapore/SE Asian “la”, which is a very distict “la” sound. It would be “Sammi act very good-ahhhhhh” in HK, and in Singapore “Sammi act very good LAHHHHHHHHHH.”

Doghouse, it’s been about 12 years since I lived in Taiwan, so maybe it’s changed but I haven’t heard the Taiwanese I know here use it. Again, in Singapore it is a very clear “la” sound, whereas I think the cutesy “xiaojie ke ai” speak is more the “le” modal particle that perhaps is not pronounced so clearly.

37

Well, again, I don’t think the “la” I hear in Taiwan is the same “la” that’s used in Singapore, but it’s definitely a “la”. I suspect it might be a Taiwanese word of annoyance that’s carried over into everyday Mandarin speaking.

I think also that the Taiwanese people you run into on the mainland are probably speaking a careful sort of lingua franca in which they avoid words and phrases that the mainlanders wouldn’t understand–and vice-versa, of course.

38

“Aieeya” is different from “la” in Cantonese.

“Aieeya” is a generic term signaling something bad happened. “La” is just something meaningless added to the end of a sentence.

39

My lecturer at uni said that particles are used to show emotions and things, often like an exclamation mark for example.

From my chinese textbook (in addition to some mentioned):
a = (depending on tone) “ah”, “oh dear”, or indicates doubt or joy or anything really (i guess they put the tone they want to use for the sentence into this one letter!)
aiyo = an interjection expressing pain or surprise
ba = at end of sentence indicates statement is a suggestion, a request or an order… can also indicate uncertainty
shi…de = between words are emphasised

ehh. Can’t be bothered looking for any more!

There are also words such as zhebu, which is inserted into a sentence when what is going to be said is evident.

So, from what I have been taught, they use words which indicate the tone of the sentence but don’t really mean anything.

40

Close, but not quite. The government is pushing Chinese Singaporeans to speak Mandarin (Singapore-speak for Putonghua) and discouraging people from using their dialects like Cantonese and Hokkien (Fujian/Min dialect) etc. Descendants of Hokkiens (ie people who originally hailed from Fujian) form the majority of the ethnic Chinese population here, not the Cantonese.