Sunday, May 10, 2020

How to Pronounce the Name of Taiwanese Politician Tsai Ing-wen

In this article, we will look at how to pronounce the name of the president Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen (è” ¡Ã¨â€¹ ±Ã¦â€"‡), which in Hanyu Pinyin would be written Cà  i YÄ «ngwà ©n. Since most students use Hanyu Pinyin for pronunciation, we  will henceforth use that, although the notes about pronunciation are of course relevant regardless of system. Cà  i YÄ «ngwà ©n was elected president of Taiwan on Jan. 16, 2016. And yes, her personal name means English, as in the language this article is written in. Below are some easy instructions if you just want to have a rough idea how to pronounce the name. Then we’ll go through a more detailed description, including analysis of common learner errors. Pronouncing Names in Chinese Pronouncing can be very hard if you havent studied the language; sometimes its hard, even if you have.  Ignoring or mispronouncing tones will just add to the confusion. These mistakes add up and often become so serious that a native speaker would fail to understand. Read more about how to pronounce Chinese names. Easy Instructions for Pronouncing Cai Yingwen Chinese names usually consist of three syllables, with the first being the family name and the last two the personal name. There are exceptions to this rule, but it holds true in many cases. Thus, there are three syllables we need to deal with. Cai - Pronounce as ts in hats plus eyeYing - Pronounce as Eng in EnglishWen - Pronounce as when If you want to have a go at the tones, they are falling, high-flat and rising respectively. Note: This pronunciation is not correct pronunciation in Mandarin (though it is reasonably close). It represents an attempt to write the pronunciation using English words. To really get it right, you need to learn some new sounds (see below). How to Actually Pronounce Cai Yingwen If you study Mandarin, you should never ever rely on English approximations like those above. Those are meant for people who dont intend to learn the language! You have to understand the orthography, i.e. how the letters relate to the sounds. There are many traps and pitfalls in Pinyin you have to be familiar with. Now, lets look at the three syllables in more detail, including common learner errors: Cai  (fourth tone) - Her family name is by far the hardest part of the name. c in Pinyin is an affricate, which means that it is a stop sound (a t-sound) followed by a fricative (an s-sound). I used ts in hats above, which is sort of okay, but will lead to a sound that is not aspirated enough. To get that right, you should add a considerable puff of air afterward. If you hold your hand a few inches from your mouth, you should feel the air hitting your hand. The final is okay and is pretty close to eye.Ying  (first tone) - As you have probably guessed already, this syllable was chosen to represent England and thereby English because they do sound quite similar. The i (which is spelt yi here) in Mandarin is pronounced with the tongue closer to the upper teeth than in English. Its as far up and forward you can go, basically. It can almost sound like a soft j at times. The final can have an optional short schwa (as in English the). To get the right -ng, let your jaw drop and your ton gue withdraw.Wen (second tone) - This syllable seldom clauses problem for learners once they sort the spelling (its uen but since its the beginning of the word, its spelt wen). It is actually very close to English when.  Its worth pointing out that some English dialects have an audible h, which should not be present here. It should also be noted that some native speakers of Mandarin reduce the final to sound more like un than en, but this is not the standardized way of pronouncing it. English when is closer. The are some variations for these sounds, but Cai Yingwen/Tsai Ing-wen (è” ¡Ã¨â€¹ ±Ã¦â€"‡) can be written like this in IPA: tsÊ °ai jiÅ‹ wÉ™n Conclusion Now you know how to pronounce Tsai Ing-wen (è” ¡Ã¨â€¹ ±Ã¦â€"‡). Did you find it hard? If you’re learning Mandarin, dont worry; there arent that many sounds. Once you’ve learned the most common ones, learning to pronounce words (and names) will become much easier!

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Are gender differences socially shaped Free Essays

a) The term androgyny is the meaning for a person who uses both male and female characteristics. b) Content analysis is the analysing of different communications and the sort of message they’re giving out. An example of this is a study of British TV adverts conducted by Manstead and McCulloch in 1981. We will write a custom essay sample on Are gender differences socially shaped? or any similar topic only for you Order Now They found evidence that stereo-typing of the male and female role was significant and that because of this, the adverts are likely to play an active part in shaping cultural attitudes towards women. c) One study in which the experimental method was used was by Money Erhardt (1972). They were interested in seeing whether a boy who’s identity had been changed would develop as a biological male or, because of his new identity, a male. They could compare this with his identical twin brother. The method was that due to an accident during surgery, this child of 7 months suffered injuries to his genitals so badly that the doctors advised to the parents that he should be castrated and given plastic surgery to create a female appearance. During adolescence, the hormone oestrogen was given to the child (known as Joan) to encourage breast development. Money monitored the behaviour of Joan until early adolescence. The results were that Joan did in fact develop as a normal female. She assumed a traditional female identity and was far more feminine than her identical twin brother. The conclusion to this experiment is that if it was presented in the nature vs. nurture debate, nurture would win in this case. Even though Joan was a biological male, the results showed that Joan developed a female gender identity. d) The use of cross-cultural research to investigate gender differences is essentially to point the differences in cultures by environmental factors, shaping the development of gender identity. Mead (1935) conducted a study of three societies to see whether there were differences in gender roles looking at the nature vs. nurture idea. She went to New Guinea for six months to study ‘The Arapesh’ who lived in the mountains, ‘The Mundugamor’ who lived by the riverside and ‘The Tchambuli’ who lived on the lakeside. She wasn’t campring the differences between the three groups, but the differences of their culture compared to traditional Western culture. Her results showed that The Arapesh showed that there were similarities between themselves and Western society, although they were more interested in the community than reaching their own individual targets. The Mundugamor showed traits that were described as masculine. Both males and females were ‘fierce’ and ‘cannibalistic’. The Tchambuli had very obvious gender roles, although they were the reverse of the West; men were more artistic and women held more status and economic power. Her conclusion to this was that culture is the major socialising and conditioning agent, particularly in the early years. There’s no relationship between biological sex and gender role. Although this has been a hugely studied work, there is some criticisms that should be brought up. She was very young when she produced this study, so she was with little life experience and her judgement may have been influenced and slightly ‘over-the-top’ in places. She was known to have believed strongly in the idea that the environment is a major factor in shaping gender roles. Mead only spent six months in these places, so didn’t get the full yearly cycle. Errington and Gewertz (1989) recognised all of these problems and went to do the same study that Mead had done over 50 years before them. They went to the Tchambuli and recognised that women didn’t diominate men, nor did men dominate women. They believed that Mead being a women and experiencing what she may have thought ‘unfair’ at the time in 1930’s Western culture, may have changed her idea of what she was observing. Despite the flaws, this was still a great study that used cross-cultural research to investigate gender differences. In conclusion, I think that cross-cultural studies into gender differences has certainly provided a lot of evidence over the years to show that gender differences are a socially shaped. Traditions and values certainly shape cultural ideas, but maybe due to the nature of evolution, what might appear to be social to us, may now be biological within our bodies, so it would be harder for us to change our ways that we live. How to cite Are gender differences socially shaped?, Papers