A Study On Phonetic Differences Between Young Group And Old Group Of Mengcheng Dialect

Mengcheng located in the northwest of Anhui Province, and it is a part of Bozhou. Mengcheng dialect belongs to Zhengcao region of Zhongyuan Mandarin. With the mass migration movements and dialect contact, Mengcheng dialect is changing dramatically. Depending on the phonetics differences between young groups and old groups of Mengcheng dialect, the phonetic system of Mengcheng dialect was finished by collecting the first-hand information from field study. The thesis of phonetics differences is clear by the comparison, analysis and other related researches.The thesis consists six chapters. The first chapter is introduction. To briefly induce the anthropogeography, history and population. In order to indicate the necessity of research, a brief history of other researches on Mengcheng dialect was made in this part. At last, significance and methods was introduced.Chapter Two describes the general situation of phonetics differences. The differences of the phonetic system between young and old groups were described. Tables of relations between initial, final and tone circle were made. The last part of this chapter is homonyms table of Mengcheng dialect.The following two chapters compared the phonetics differences between young and old, and draw a briefly conclusion of the tendency of Mengcheng dialect. Firstly, researches on features of the initial were made by analyzing Jiantuan pronunciation and some exception pronunciations from Jing Group, etc. Secondly, according to analyzing some pronunciation from Ru Tone and Non-Ru Tone, the differences pronunciation of vowel between the two groups were clear.The fifth chapter studied on the tone differences between the two groups. Firstly, the tone system was determined by using Praat(a software), then through comparing the tone pitches of two groups, the differences were found. Secondly, there were more falling tones in young groups than old, with a survey form about liquid sound in Ru consonant group.The last chapter summarized the differences on phonetics between the two groups, the young group’s phonetic system is closer to the common language than the old, for the mechanism of pronunciation, the influence of common language, and speaker’s psychological factors.