Paragraph Summaries
- Chinese has many dialects. With some dialects, you can’t understand speakers of a different dialect. Some linguists say that there is a new dialect in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Evidence: it is distinct from every other dialect in China. But, if you know any Chinese dialect + Chinese-American terms, you can talk to Chinese San Francisco speakers.
- Actually, the dialects aren’t different in San Francisco. They just use new words. But the core of the language is the same. So if San Franciscan speakers avoid the new words, regular Chinese people can easily understand them.
- The second claim is misleading. Chinese-American who speak various dialects are familiar with Cantonese through movies and by hearing the dialect. But this doesn’t mean they can fully communicate in it. And a common vocabulary such as American place names and other unique features of San Franciscan Chinese are only a tiny portion of the language, and merely knowing those won’t let you communicate.
Analysis
This passage is sort of like a math problem. Or, it’s easier if you know math. Never thought I’d say that about an RC passage, but LSAC is getting trickier.
Let’s imagine four separate categories of Chinese. We have the following types of language comprehension:
- A Chinese Dialect as spoken in China
- Cantonese understanding from movies
- Chinese American terms
Now, we can think of three different groups:
- Mainland Chinese people
- Chinese Americans who speak one dialect, such as Cantonese
- Chinese Americans who speak a different dialect.
Let’s look at these groups separately and see what language skills they have. The claim is that there is a dialect called San Franciscan “Chinatown Chinese” understood by all Chinese-Americans and unintelligible to Chinese people from mainland China. The passage attempt to prove this is false.
People from China newly arrived in the USA: They speak their native dialect. They don’t know San Franciscan terms, and they may not know Cantonese unless it is their dialect. So, #1 only.
Chinese Americans who speak a Chinese dialect: They speak their native dialect, and also understand Cantonese from movies and from hearing it, but they are not fluent in Cantonese necessarily. They also know San Franciscan terms (#4).
Now, let’s examine the claims in the article. There are two claims:
Claim 1: Chinese people can’t communicate with Chinese San Franciscans.
The first claim is that Chinese people can’t communicate with San Franciscan Chinese people if they don’t know the terms.
The second paragraph says, that actually, Cantonese speakers can communicate with SF Chinese people just fine, if both sides speak the same traditional Chinese dialect (#1).. As long as SF Chinese people leave out Cantonese (#2) and Chinese American terms (#3), then both groups speak #1. SF Chinese people’s use of their native dialect (#1) is basically unchanged from how speakers in China use those dialects. The only difference is that SF Chinese people added a variety of local words (#3).
In math this is called a superset. SF Chinese people who speak a certain dialect know everything mainland speakers of that dialect know, but they also know the local American terms (#3). But the base language isn’t different.
So SF Chinese people speak #1 + #3, whereas mainland Chinese people just speak #1.
Claim 2: Chinese speakers of any dialect can understand SF Chinese if they know the local terms
The passage says this is false. Someone who only knows a certain dialect (#1) won’t be able to communicate at all with SF Chinese people who speak a different dialect.
It is true that most Chinese Americans know some Cantonese from watching movies. This is language skill #2. If these people also know SF words, then they have languages skills #2, and #3.
But, the core of the SF Chinese language is the traditional dialect (language skill #1). Skills #2 and #3 let you know some aspects of Cantonese, so if you have these things you can sort of “get by” when talking to Chinese people in SF.
But you don’t really speak the language, so the claim is false. There are many differences between Cantonese and other dialects, and SF Chinese people fundamentally speak Cantonese, as paragraph 2 shows.
All the other details
Are irrelevant. The questions only ask about stuff covered in this general explanation, or they specifically call out two lines: 22 and 24. These are in the middle of paragraph 2, and easy to reread when necessary.
I broadly understood the details when reading the passage, but I didn’t retain most of them. However, I absolutely retained everything I wrote in the explanation above. It’s very important to understand the relations between groups, but not important to remember all the little details.
I’ve never seen a passage like this before, but it really is best understood by thinking in terms of (very basic) mathematical sets.
Mainland Chinese of a certain dialect: Overlap with SF Chinese only on #1. They can communicate if they share a basic dialect and leave out local San Francisco terms (#3).
Chinese Americans who speak a different base dialect: Can’t communicate with each other very well in Chinese. They tend to share some Cantonese from movies and exposure (#2) and some local terms (#3). But these local terms are only a small part of language, so if two people don’t share the same base dialect it is hard to communicate.
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