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Article published In: Regional Chinese in Contact
Edited by James A. Walker
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 5:1] 2019
► pp. 84–108

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Classifier use in Heritage and Hong Kong Cantonese

 | University of Toronto
 | University of Toronto
Published online: 13 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.17001.nag
Abstract
Heritage language speakers have frequently been reported to have language skills weaker than homeland (monolingual) speakers. For example, Wei and Lee (Wei, Li, & Lee, Sherman (2001). L1 development in an L2 environment: The use of Cantonese classifiers and quantifiers by young British-born Chinese in Tyneside. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 61, 359–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, p. 359), a study of British-born Chinese-English bilingual children’s morphosyntactic patterns (including classifier use), report “evidence of delayed and stagnated L1 development.” However, many studies compare heritage speaker performance to a prescriptive standard rather than to spontaneous speech from homeland speakers. We compare spontaneous speech data from two generations of Heritage Cantonese speakers in Toronto, Canada, and from Homeland Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. Both groups are similar in a strong preference for general and mass classifiers, and classifier choice being primarily governed by the noun’s number. We observe specialization of go3 個 to singular nouns, a grammaticalization process increasing with each generation. The similarity between homeland and heritage patterns replicates previous studies utilizing the same corpus.
Abstract (Chinese)
鄉土語言的研究者一般認為，海外華僑對自己鄉土語言的掌握比本土（單語）為弱，而過往數項針對粵語量詞的研究亦發現上這個的現象。Lee 與 Li (2001, p. 359) 在英國的一項研究發現粵英雙語兒童粵語方面的發展有所延遲。這項研究同時發現這批兒童對於特定量詞的使用有問題，意味著他們粵語的發育不完全以及第二語言對他們粵語發展的影響。過往研究所使用的衡量標準以規範粵語為標準，而非日常用語。本研究使用了兩代加拿大多倫多海外華僑以及香港本土粵語使用者的對話錄音進行對比，並發現海外華僑與香港本土用家在量詞使用方面非常相似。各代華僑和本土用家的使用都是以量詞 啲 和 個 為主，而控制量詞使用的最大因素是該量詞所修飾的名詞的複／單數。從研究的觀察所得，其中一個量詞使用的變化是單數名詞傾向以「個 go3 」來修飾，而這個語法化的過程有按代遞增的趨勢。根據上述的發現以及其他使用本語料庫的研究，我們發現海外華僑的粵語使用與香港本土用家的使用極為相似。
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What is a classifier?
  • 3.Hypotheses and expectations
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Distributional patterns
    • 5.2Patterns of go3 個 use
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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