Variational pragmatics in Chinese discourse markers zhege and nage: The influence of region and gender

Discourse markers are critical for maintaining discourse coherence. This study investigated the regional and gender variations of discourse markers zhege and nage in spoken Chinese. In this study, the interactive conversations were collected from native Chinese speakers in Taiwan and Chinese mainland, including 36 males and 50 females in each group. Regarding the influence of region, both groups used a higher number of nage than zhege. And they used zhege and nage in similar conversational situations (i.e., zhege was more often used as resumptive opener than nage, while nage was more frequently used as pause filler than zhege). However, the significant differences in the frequency of zhege and the preference of ‘only use zhege’ were observed between the two groups. Regarding the impact of gender, there existed significant differences in the frequency of zhege and the preference of ‘only use nage’ between Mainland males and females. Also, these differences were found between Mainland and Taiwanese males. By contrast, Taiwanese males and females used zhege and nage in similar ways, as do Mainland and Taiwanese females. It means that region is a more influential factor than gender on the use of zhege and nage.