Regional variation in conventional expressions: a comparative study of Mandarin in Mainland China and Taiwan

This exploratory study investigated regional variation in conventional expressions between two varieties of Mandarin, a pluricentric language, spoken in Mainland China and Taiwan. A timed aural-oral Discourse Completion Task was conducted, and over 9,000 oral responses were collected from 152 L1 speakers in Mainland China and Taiwan. This study adopted the Variational Pragmatics framework and conducted pragmatic analysis at three levels: speech act, pragmatic strategy, and the actional level, specifically focusing on the linguistic realizations of conventional expressions. The results showed that although conventional expressions embody high alignment in these two regions at the speech act level, regional variation was observed at the pragmatic strategy level, the actional level, and in some cases at both levels. At the pragmatic strategy level, speakers in the two regions used different semantic formulas, realized through distinct expressions, to perform the same speech act. At the actional level, while the distribution and production rates of conventional expressions were similar across the two regions, regional variation manifested in two ways: “variation across expressions” and “variation within expressions.” This study provides empirical data to the field of variational pragmatics by examining Mandarin varieties and sheds light on regional pragmatic similarities and differences between these intra-cultural varieties.