Transcript Cantonese-English Code switching

A Study of Cantonese-English
Code-switching in Bilingual Children
EDWI N KO 
L X5 40 
Luke (1998)
 English lexical items typically follow Cantonese prosody and differ
phonetically.

我 有 個 project 要 present.



Ngo5 jau5 go3 pro1ject4 jiu3 pre6sent1
(lit. I have CL-project need present)
“I have a project I need to present.
 English lexical items are typically inserted into Cantonese syntactic
frames.


happy di1 ‘happy’ + comparative marker ‘happier’
pro m5 produce dou2 ‘can (it) be produced’
 English lexical items tend to have their range of meanings restricted
to one specific meaning, or another meaning altogether.


‘tissue’ is widely used to refer only to soft paper in a packet.
‘board’ is widely used among civil servants to mean ‘board meeting’
 There is a significant absence of discourse markers.
 E.g. and, but, after all, and then, etc.
Yip and Matthews (2000)
 Syntactic transfer in a Cantonese-English bilingual child



Wh-in-situ interrogatives
 (1) What did you eat?
 (2) Lei5 sik6±zo2 mat1je5? – (2) You eat-PFV what?
Null objects
 (5) A: Gin6 saam1 hou2 leng3 wo3.
 CL blouse very pretty PRT
 “That's a nice blouse.”
 B: Ngo5 zung1ji3 aa3.
 I like PRT
 “I like (it).”
Prenominal relatives
 [[Ngo5 sik1 _s] go2 di1 jan4 NP] zau2 saai3.
 I know those CL people leave all
 “The people I know have all left.”
 English shows substantial influence of Cantonese in the early development
of a Cantonese-dominant bilingual.
 MLUw for Cantonese was higher indicating dominance over English during
the observed period.
Methodology
 CHILDES Database
 CHILDES/ EastAsian/ Cantonese/
 The children were being instructed English and the majority of the data could not
be used.
 CHILDES/ Biling/ YipMatthews/
 Omissions:
 Repetition of an immediate preceding utterance
 Names


English words that have been lexicalized in Cantonese.


Hello, OK, Bye bye, etc.
Rote-learned expression


“Auntie”, “哥哥” (Brother), “Mickey Mouse” (米奇老鼠)
“Twinkle twinkle little star”
Chinese exclamative particles


“Bear bear 呀” (Bear bear!/It’s bear bear! - context)
Exception: “嘩 so many 呀” (Oh, wow! So many!)
Subjects
 Collected data from five subjects on the CHILDES database.
 All subjects are Cantonese L1 and English L2 speakers.
 Spontaneous speech data were obtained at the subjects’ home.
 Subject #1
 Alicia/female
 1;3 – 3;0
 40 transcripts

20/20 early/late
 Subject #2
 Charlotte/female
 1;8 – 3;0
 19 transcripts

9/9 early/late, the 10th transcript is omitted
Results
Subject #1
3.100
2.900
MLUw
2.700
2.500
2.300
2.100
1.900
1.700
1.500
English
Cantonese
Early Transcripts
1.692
2.047
Late Transcripts
2.307
2.879
Results (cont.)
Subject #2
2.9
2.7
MLUw
2.5
2.3
2.1
1.9
1.7
1.5
English
Cantonese
Early Transcripts
1.919
1.925
Late Transcripts
2.743
2.309
Results (cont.)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Incorrect
Correct
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Subj. #1 Early Subj. #1 Late Subj. #2 Early Subj. #2 Late
Analysis
 Wh-in-situ interrogatives

*呢度 呢個 what?
nei1 dou6 ne1 go3 what ?
 Lit. here this-CL what?

*what 呢 個 ?.
what ne1 go3?
Lit. what this-CL?
 Null objects

我 open .
ngo5 open.
 Lit. I open – “I open (it).”

*我 想 戴 it.
ngo5 soeng2 daai3 it.
Lit. I want bring it.
 Prenominal relatives

小朋友 too dark 嗰個 呀 .
siu2 pang4 jau5 too dark go2 go3 aa3 .
 Lit. small friend too dark that-CL PRT – “The child who is too dark is
that one!”

Analysis (cont.)
 Classifiers
 *我哋 咁 一 garden 咁樣 .


ngo5 dei6 gam3 jat1 garden gam2 joeng2.
Lit. I-PL so one garden like this
 Negation
 *not 污糟 呀


not wu1 zou1 aa3.
Lit. not dirty PRT
*你 no
nei5 no
Lit. you no
 L1 Transfer
 *I want 沖涼 .


I want cung1 loeng4.
Lit. I want shower(verb)
 “Attrition”/L2 Transfer (?)
 *我 想 dog 呀 .


ngo5 soeng2 dog aa3.
Lit. I want dog PRT
*no 位 呀
no wai2 aa3
Lit. no space!
References
 Luke, K.K. (1998) Why two languages might be better than
one: Motivations of language mixing in Hong Kong. In
Pennington, M. (ed.) Language in Hong Kong at Century’s
End, pp.145-159. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
 Chan, B. (1998). How does Cantonese-English code-mixing
work? In Pennington, M. (ed.) Language in Hong Kong at
Century’s End, pp.191-216. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press.
 Matthews, S. and Yip, V. (1994) Cantonese: A Comprehensive
Grammar. London and New York: Routledge.
 Matthews, S. and Yip, V. (2000) Syntactic transfer in a
Cantonese-English bilingual child. Bilingualism: Language
and Cognition 3.3.193-208. Cambridge University Press.