马来西亚“儿”[ɚ]音的变化及其社会意义 ：以新山为例 = The sound change of [ɚ] (儿) in Malaysian mandarin and its social significance : a survey conducted in Johor Bahru

Abstract

在普通话里，“儿”字可作为词根或是词缀，因此“儿”音可分为儿系列字音和儿化音。本文通过对37位新山小学生、中学生和小学华文教师的语音采样，旨在研究其儿系列字音和儿化音的变化。在儿系列字音研究方面，借用PRAAT语音软件，依据F3频率值与F2频率值之间的最小频率差拟定“卷舌三变式法则”，归纳新山华人的儿系列字音的卷舌变项可分为“全卷”、“半卷”和“不卷”三种变式，并探究个中原因，然后计算各变量包括语体、性别、学业成绩、方言程度和年龄分别产生的影响。儿化音方面，则先以听力验证新山华人的儿化变项主要可分为“有‘儿’意识读音”和“无‘儿’意识读音”两种变式，之后邀请四位说流利普通话的中国研究生为他们的儿化程度评分，再计算各变量对儿化程度产生的影响。除访问法之外，亦采用问卷法设计了一套问卷供中学华文教师作答，冀初步了解教师们对马来西亚儿系列字音和儿化音的音变现象的感知和看法，借以探讨音变现象的产生原因和未来趋势，检视当今马来西亚的“儿”音教学。

In Standard Chinese(普通话), the word 儿 can be a root or suffix. Hence its sound includes the sound of [ɚ](儿耳二) and the sound of er-hua(儿化). Based on the voice sampling recorded from a group of 37 school students and primary school Chinese-language teachers, this research is aimed to study how Johor Bahru Chinese pronounce [ɚ](儿耳二) and er-hua(儿化). In the first part of this paper, it discusses the different possible ways of pronouncing the word and with the help of the PRAAT phonetic software, it is found that [ɚ] can evolved into three variants - “strong /r/”, “weak /r/”, and “no /r/” if according to the “law of three /r/variants” which is judged by the minimum frequency difference between F3 and F2. Different possible reasons of these pronunciation variants are discussed in terms of the sociolinguistic variables including contextual styles, gender, academic performance, dialect influence level in speech and age group. In the second part of the paper, the subject of er-hua is further discussed. Two main streams of er-hua variants in Johor Bahru Chinese pronunciation - “existence of [ɚ] (儿)” and “non-existence of [ɚ] (儿)” are identified by four native speakers of Mandarin Chinese who are graduate students from China and whose pronunciations are standard enough to be able to judge the er-hua level in the sampling collected.