An Acoustic Study on the Citation Tones in Malaysian Mandarin

In the Global Chinese (GC) framework, Malaysia plays a crucial role in the spread and legacy of Mandarin. Although Malaysian Mandarin (MalM) has been extensively studied, its phonetic aspects have been neglected. Thus, this paper examines the four citation tones in MalM, in addition to the “checked quality”—termed the “fifth tone” (‘T5’) of MalM—by using Chinese dialectology supported by smartphone-based recordings. The findings suggest that, in MalM, the four tones contrast in tone height, tone value, and tone duration, with the main realizations being the high-level, low-level-rising, mid-falling, and high-falling contours, respectively. Other than the main tonal realizations, a number of variants are depicted. Furthermore, while MalM and Putonghua tones have evolved rather similarly, the checked quality—which is absent in Putonghua but was part of Middle Chinese, the shared ancestor of Putonghua and MalM—remains in MalM. However, there is a lack of distinctive phonemic contrast between Tone 4 and ‘T5,’ and there is insufficient evidence to consider ‘T5’ as a new tone category in this study. Unlike Putonghua, MalM is undergoing tonal reduction, like Singaporean and Taiwanese Mandarin. These findings indicate that, although Malaysian Mandarin (MalM) is undergoing substantial variations compared to Putonghua, it shares similarities with other Mandarin varieties, as there is some overlap in their tonal features. This study makes an empirical contribution to the body of research on tonal variations in the GC framework and echoes GC’s call for a pluricentric approach to Mandarin varieties.