Dialects and Chinese Culture (???????)

Climbing over a mountain, you get a different tone; crossing through a field, and you get a different voice. Mainland China’s geographical landscape is vast and diverse, and so are her dialects. These dialects carry a unique way of understanding the world by the local people, and contain a rich and wonderful cultural accumulation. In Singapore, since most early Chinese migrants were from the southern provinces of China, the five main Chinese dialect groups are Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese and Hakka, while the Fuzhou dialect, Pu-Xian, and Shanghainese have smaller speaker bases. Singapore’s language policy promotes a dual-language learning system, with English as the main medium of instruction, and it is compulsory for students to learn their mother tongue language in primary and secondary schools. In the present day, dialects are more commonly spoken by the older generation, and to a lesser extent by the younger generation. Through CLC351 Chinese Dialects and Culture, students will learn to appreciate the unique charm of each dialect, its characteristics and its relationship with Singapore Chinese culture.

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