hahaha....i really think the "hanyu cool" campaign can do better.
You don't just say, oh mandarin's cool, let's start speaking
mandarin! It has to be the overall way of life, the way role models
are bilingual in english and mandarin. People like Lee Hom come to
mind.
The singaporean accented chinese doesn't sound very good either,
though I admit that's our way of life. Mediacorp personalities like
振容 and 谢韵仪 are those whom we can learn from. Not sounding too much
like the 北京 accent and still sgaporean. 李国煌， his standard of
mandarin used is quite good but he carries a heavy 福建 accent. If
you look at variety shows from taiwan and china, one will realise
that their level of mandarin used is much higher. And I wonder why
Singapore, despite our modern education system has lagged behind?
This one, fcukpap will have a lot to say hahahaha.
Oh not forgetting, as we all know.... 郭亮 is very good. Saw him do
an intro ad for "Tour with celebrities", I observed how he
introduced China. Words like 山环水绕 (a place of mountains and water),
何乐而不为 （means why not?) struck me. There's always this touch of
finesse about his speech.
The variety shows from taiwan and china, from the hosts to the
guests..... there will always be idioms peppered into their
conversations. It's natural for them.
I give some of my views on some of the above observations:
On tones
The
singaporean accented chinese doesn't sound very good either, though
I admit that's our way of life.
I have observed that the 4 tones of our Mandarin Chinese (the
target language) follows closely to that of Singaporean Hokkien
(the substrate language). The trend should have started way back as
far as 1960's. It has proliferated even into non-Hokkien base users
groups, such as Cantonese background or Hainanese background,
reflecting the local character.
Example: Our 1st tone of "Yin Yang Shang Qu" is
Tone 44 (using Chao YuanRen's 5-degree tonal
scale), is lower than Standard Mandarin Chinese's 1st tone
Tone 55. Singapore's Hokkien 1st tone
which corresponds to Mandarin Chinese 1st tone, is also
Tone 44.
Our 2nd tone of "Yin Yang Shang Qu" is
Tone 24, is lower than Standard Mandarin
Chinese's 2nd tone Tone 35. Singapore's
Hokkien 2nd tone which corresponds to Mandarin Chinese 2nd tone,
is also Tone 24.
Our 3rd tone of "Yin Yang Shang Qu" is
Tone 11 <- low flat tone, is
different from the Standard Mandarin Chinese 3rd tone which is
Tone 213 <- contour falling-rising
tone. Singapore's Hokkien 3rd tone which corresponds to
Mandarin Chinese 3rd tone, is
Tone 53 , which is too far to be
similar to Tone 213, thus the
substitution of Singapore Hokkien 5th Tone
Contour 11 or 22
to match Singapore Mandarin 3rd Tone. Because there is
no "Falling-Rising Tone Contour" in Singapore Hokkien,
thus the substitution of a "Low Flat Tone" to approximate the
low tone quality of Standard Mandarin's 3rd Tone.
Our 4th tone of "Yin Yang Shang Qu" is
Tone 53, falls much less steeper than
Standard Mandarin Chinese's 4th tone which is
Tone 51. Singapore's Hokkien 4th Tone
which corresponds to Mandarin Chinese 4th tone, is
Tone 21, which doesn't approximate to
"High-Falling Tone Contour", but fortunately, Singapore
Hokkien 4th Tone has a tone-sandhi feature of changing into
Tone 53, thus using it to match the
"High-Falling Tone" quality of Standard Mandarin.
Similarly in our neighbouring context, the Malaysian Mandarin
Chinese can be demonstrated to match closely to the tonal system of
the Malaysian Hakka dialect. (for more info, elaborate in
another post when requested)
On consonantal
values
Not sounding
too much like the 北京 accent and still sgaporean.
Basically the main difference between Singapore Mandarin
Versus Standard Mandarin Chinese or Taiwanese Mandarin
is the tendency to pronounce Alveolo-palatal
consonants as Alveolar
consonants and the
main difference between Singapore Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin
Versus Standard Mandarin Chinese is the tendency to
pronounce Retroflex
consonants as Post-alveolar consonants or simply
as Alveolar consonants.
This is due to the influence of mirroring English phonology system.
This similar pattern is observed in other multi-lingual
communities, indicating a natural phenomenon in the direction of
retention of only a minimal set of phonological system for
different languages.
This, coupled with our distinctive tonal contours, makes us
truly Singaporean.