Perceptions of invisible Zhuang minority language in Linguistic Landscapes of the People’s Republic of China and implications for language policy

The article presents data from a 2013–2019 ethnography of Zhuang language policy to support an analysis of implications for language policy research and scholarship of findings about the (in)visibility of publicly displayed Zhuang. The analysis challenges core assumptions of language policy-making, advocacy and scholarship and explicates the general implications of this challenge beyond China, particularly for minority languages. The most important assumption that this article interrogates is that a written language on display will be recognised as that language by its speakers. Further, it argues that literacy, script, and other language policies impact on display policies and must work together; they do not in the Zhuang case. In making a case for language policy informed by ethnographic research, this article reviews the foundations of socially-situated analyses of Linguistic Landscapes. To galvanise further such research and articulate it to policy-makers, the article employs the term ‘lived landscape approach’.

Thai tonal confusion patterns in the production of L1 Chinese Zhuang students

This paper examines Thai tonal confusion patterns in two sample groups of Chinese Zhuang Students with the research hypothesis that the experimental group who possess Zhuang language experience as native speakers (C+Z) would have better tonal performance in the process of assigning tone for each lexical word than the control group who have no experience of Zhuang (C−Z). The hypothesis focuses on the C+Z′ familiarity of tone split which is a common feature of the tonal system in Tai languages as their L1 positive transfer. The tone split patterns of their L1 and L2 were explored and contrasted in the comparative Gedney’s tone box. The C+Z and the C−Z were asked to pronounce 60 words of two wordlists, one of which contained Zhuang-Thai cognates to stimulate the familiarity of their L1 tone split pattern. The findings show that Thai tonal confusion patterns in the two groups present differently. The accuracy rate of the C+Z is significantly higher than that of the C−Z overall and especially in T3 and T5. Their confusion rate on the Zhuang-Thai cognate wordlist was not higher than the non-cognate wordlist. All of the aforementioned indicates the positive transfer of the L1 Zhuang in the students’ Thai L2 tonal acquisition.

廣西欽州漢佬話的語言成分來源及詞彙整合

The Hanlao language in Qinzhou city of Guangxi Province is a language blending the Zhuang language and Han dialects. The part of Han comes mainly from Cantonese, Pinghua and Hakka. Different source dialects influence Hanlao in distinctive levels. The core vocabulary of Hanlao language is mainly influenced by Zhuang, the influence of which becoming weaker towards the periphery. On the contrary, the Han dialects mainly affect the peripheral words of the Hanlao language. Hanlao thus obtains its present form through the restructuring of various source languages in a complex way.廣西欽州漢佬話是一種融合壯語、漢語的語言，漢語主要來自粵語、平話和客家話。各種來源語言在漢佬話中所處的地位不同：壯語的影響主要在核心詞部分，越往外圍影響越小；漢語則相反，核心詞部分影響小，越往外圍影響越大。各種來源語言經過了複雜的整合過程形成了漢佬話如今的面貌。(This article is in Chinese.)