Dialectal and normative registers in Yangzhou storytelling

Chinese storytelling is inseparably bound up with local dialect. However, normative language also plays a distinctive role in many performance arts. In this paper the interplay of dialectal and normative registers in Yangzhou storytelling ( Yangzhou pinghua ) is analysed. Audio recordings of storytellers born during the late Qing and Republic demonstrate their subtle handling of linguistic registers: dialogue and narrative are regularly rendered in alternating registers, reflecting local Yangzhou dialect ( Yangzhou fangyan ), local Mandarin ( difang guanhua ) and Northern Mandarin ( Beifang guanhua ). The usage of storytelling registers provides new source material on the Yangzhou variety of difang guanhua . On this background the paper raises the question of the linguistic habits of former storytellers and — tentatively — offers a key to the riddle of the famous Liu Jingting’s (1592–1674) spoken language-in-performance.

Epistemology · Linguistics · Mandarin Chinese · Narrative · Normative · Register (sociolinguistics) · Sociology · Storytelling · Variety (cybernetics) · Artificial Intelligence · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Chinese history and philosophy · Computer Science · History · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy