Cantonese as a Second Language: Issues, Experiences and Suggestions for Teaching and Learning 0815395191, 9780815395195

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Cantonese as a Second Language

Cantonese is a language from southern China that is spoken by roughly 70 million people worldwide. It is the language of Hong Kong cinema and has traditionally been the most prominent language spoken in Chinatowns around the world. People choose to learn Cantonese for a variety of social and economic reasons: because it is a heritage language that one’s relatives speak; because it is the language of one’s partner and monolingual in-laws; because it is necessary for living and working in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, or other Cantonese-speaking communities; because it is the bridge to fully appreciating and understanding Cantonese culture; or simply because it is an irresistible challenge. Whatever the motivation, more and more people are choosing to learn Cantonese as an additional language. This book discusses many issues related to both acquiring and teaching Cantonese. If you are a learner of Cantonese, this long overdue volume is essential to understanding both the grammatical and the social issues involved with learning this notoriously difficult language. If you are a teacher, this book will be invaluable to gaining insight into your students’ motivations and needs. And finally, if you are an applied linguist, the unique aspects related to the acquisition of Cantonese offer a fascinating contribution to the literature. John C. Wakefield (莊域飛) received his PhD in Linguistics from the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is an Associate Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and has a forthcoming book titled English Loanwords in Cantonese: How Their Meanings Have Changed (Hong Kong University Press).

Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics

Grounded Theory in Applied Linguistics Research A Practical Guide Gregory Hadley Project-Based Language Learning with Technology Learner Collaboration in an EFL Classroom in Japan Michael Thomas Metacognition in Language Learning and Teaching Edited by Åsta Haukås, Camilla Bjørke and Magne Dypedahl Language Management and Its Impact The Policies and Practices of Confucius Institutes Linda Mingfang Li Multiliteracies, Emerging Media, and College Writing Instruction Santosh Khadka Cantonese as a Second Language Issues, Experiences and Suggestions for Teaching and Learning Edited by John C. Wakefield For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Studies-in-Applied-Linguistics/book-series/RSAL

Cantonese as a Second Language

Issues, Experiences and Suggestions for Teaching and Learning Edited by John C. Wakefield

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, John C. Wakefield; individual chapters, the contributors The right of John C. Wakefield to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wakefield, John (John C.), editor. Title: Cantonese as a second language : issues, experiences and suggestions for teaching and learning / edited by John Wakefield. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in applied linguistics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018059453 | ISBN 9780815395195 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351184250 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese language—Study and teaching. | Cantonese dialects. | Second language acquisition. Classification: LCC PL1065 .C359 2019 | DDC 495.17/95127—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059453 ISBN: 978-0-8153-9519-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-18425-0 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

This book is dedicated to the memories of Jeff and 肥仔, both of whom fully and naturally accepted the editor as one of their own, and both of whom left this world far too soon.

Contents

List of figuresix List of tablesx List of contributorsxii List of abbreviationsxiv Introduction

1

JOHN C. WAKEFIELD (莊域飛)

  1 The Cantonese language

8

ROBERT S. BAUER (包睿舜) AND JOHN C. WAKEFIELD (莊域飛)

PART I

The teaching and learning of Cantonese45   2 Teaching and learning Cantonese as a second language: learners’ attitudes and learning hurdles

47

SIU-LUN LEE (李兆麟)

  3 Learning Cantonese in the work context of Hong Kong: needs, practices, and benefits

67

WINNIE CHOR (左靄雲)

  4 A case study of Cantonese as a foreign language curriculum design in North America: establishing the Cantonese Language Program at the University of British Columbia

85

RAYMOND PAI (白文杰)

  5 Teaching Cantonese literacy as part of a general education program: issues and challenges MATTHEW B. CHRISTENSEN (岑民兆)

100

viii  Contents PART II

Experience and advice from advanced learners111   6 My Cantonese odyssey

113

ROBERT S. BAUER (包睿舜)

  7 Self-reflective ethnographic analysis of a Singaporean learner of Hong Kong Cantonese

138

LIAN-HEE WEE (黄良喜)

  8 “Do you dream in Cantonese?”: the long road to a competent L2

154

JOHN GUEST (郭思達)

  9 Striving for linguistic and cultural assimilation in Hong Kong

168

JOHN C. WAKEFIELD (莊域飛)

10 Cantonese as seen from Japanese eyes

189

SHIN KATAOKA (片岡新)

PART III

Cantonese as a second language in the Hong Kong education system207 11 From oracy to literacy: the role of Cantonese in the learning of Chinese reading and writing

209

CHAN SHUI DUEN (陳瑞端)

12 The effect of age of arrival to the development of Cantonese narrative in ethnic minority children of Hong Kong

232

CHEUNG HIN TAT (張顯達)

13 Teaching Jyutping to non-Chinese-speaking secondary school students in Hong Kong

251

CHAAK MING LAU (劉擇明) AND PEGGY PIK KI MOK (莫碧琪)

Appendices273 Index281

Figures

1.1 The structure of the Hong Kong Cantonese syllable 14 1.2 The five levels of a speaker’s pitch range 19 1.3 Six Hong Kong Cantonese tone contours occurring on live syllables21 1.4 Three Hong Kong Cantonese tone contours occurring on dead syllables 22 4.1 Full or partial retention rate for the 22 main immigrant mother tongues, 2016 92 4.2 Students enrolled in UBC Cantonese courses 93 12.1 Scores of the four subcomponents measured at Time 1 and Time 2 242 12.2 The use of complex structures at Time 1 and Time 2 243 12.3 Distribution of standardized scores at a norm level of age 5.5 years 243 13.1 Illustration of how Cantonese morphemes are represented in the Learnable Chinese series 255 13.2 Extract from a worksheet 258 13.3 Typing exercise for the sound 258 13.4 Extract of their Chinese textbook and a corresponding typing exercise259 13.5 Screenshot of CantoKey on iOS 263 13.6 Tabulated data for error analysis 264 13.7 A sample page from the course booklet 266

Tables

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

1.5

1.6

1.7 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 6.1 6.2

7.1 10.1

Sixty Cantonese rimes 13 The contemporary Hong Kong Cantonese tone system 23 The historical four tone categories of Ancient Chinese with some representative Chinese characters 25 Tonal assimilation: High Level ˥55 tone occurring on first syllable of a bisyllabic word can cause the second tone to change to High Level ˥5525 Morphological changed tone: High Rising �25 changed tone deriving a concrete noun with meaning related to the original Chinese character 26 Morphological changed tone: High Level ˥55 changed tone deriving a word with new or additional meaning in relation to that of the original Chinese character 26 Phonetic variations and changes in Hong Kong Cantonese 28 Biographical data of the two focus group discussions’ participants 51 Real-world situations where Cantonese was used 54 FSI’s language difficulty ranking 56 Number of live-in domestic helpers in 1987–1993 77 Foreign domestic helpers by nationality and sex, 2008–2016 77 North American universities offering Cantonese courses as of July 2018 86 Cantonese language programs’ student profiles by country of origin, 2015–2018 88 Cantonese language programs’ student profiles by first language, 2015–2018 88 Sample chart provided to CanFL learners 107 Cantonese tone categories, tone contours (= Chao tone letters), and tone values by register 124 Correspondences between Cantonese and Mandarin tone categories and tone contours (= Chao tone letters) with Chinese character examples 125 Tonal inventory 143 General corresponding rules of Cantonese and Japanese initials 192

Tables xi 10.2

Comparison of velar consonants in Cantonese, Putonghua, and Japanese 10.3 Approximate corresponding rules of Cantonese and Japanese finals 10.4 Japanese On-readings for the Cantonese nasal finals 10.5 Japanese On-readings for the Cantonese plosive finals 10.6 Japanese traditional readings for the Cantonese /-p/ final 10.7 Cantonese tone types 10.8 Japanese On-readings for characters with Cantonese Yin and Yang tones 10.9 Lexical comparison: nouns 10.10  Lexical comparison: the verb “to return” 0.11 Situational distribution of “thank you” and “apology” expressions 1 12.1 Age and birthplace of SA children 12.2 The four components in the narrative retelling task 12.3 Overall narrative scores of SA children by grade 12.4 Age of arrival and narrative scores 13.1 Ratio of speakers who use Cantonese as the usual language, another language, or another dialect, grouped by ethnicity 13.2 Topic list for the first intervention 13.3 IPA, Jyutping, and attempted romanization by Urdu speakers

192 193 194 194 195 195 196 197 198 203 236 238 241 241 252 257 261

Contributors

Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) received his PhD in Linguistics from the UC-Berkeley in 1982. He is Honorary Professor in the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Linguistics. He is co-author of Modern Cantonese Phonology (Mouton de Gruyter, 1997) and The Representation of Cantonese with Chinese Characters (Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 2002). Chan Shui Duen (陳瑞端) is a Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She was awarded the Medal of Honour by the HKSAR Government in 2015 for her contributions to the education sector. She has published on language policy and on teaching Chinese to non-Chinese-speaking students. Winnie Chor (左靄雲) received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Sydney. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University and is the author of Directional Particles in Cantonese: Form, Function, and Grammaticalization (John Benjamins, 2018). Matthew B. Christensen (岑民兆) received his PhD in Chinese Linguistics from The Ohio State University. He is a Professor of Chinese at Brigham Young University, and Director of the BYU Chinese Flagship Center. He has taught Mandarin and Cantonese for 30 years, and is co-author of the advanced-level Cantonese textbook series, Spoken Cantonese. John Guest (郭思達) is an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Linguistics. He teaches courses on General Linguistics, Pragmatics and Writing Systems of the World. He is regularly invited by the Education Bureau in Hong Kong to give talks on survival Cantonese to NET Scheme teachers from overseas. Cheung Hin Tat (張顯達) received his PhD in Child Language from the University of Kansas. He was previously the Director of the Audio-Visual Educational Center (2001–2006), the Director of the Graduate Institute of Linguistics (2007–2009) of National Taiwan University (NTU), and the President of the Linguistics Society of Taiwan (2007–2009).

Contributors xiii Shin Kataoka (片岡新) received his PhD in Chinese Linguistics from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is an Assistant Professor at The Education University of Hong Kong and has co-authored a large number of Cantonese textbooks published by Greenwood Press. Chaak Ming Lau (劉擇明) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His main research interests are the functions and syntax of Cantonese sentence-final particles and intonation patterns. He also develops resources to facilitate the teaching and learning of Cantonese, such as http://words.hk. Siu-lun Lee (李兆麟) received his EdD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Leicester. He is a senior lecturer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and has taught Cantonese as a Second Language for over 20 years. He has also published journal articles on teaching Cantonese as a second language. Peggy Pik Ki Mok (莫碧琪) received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Cambridge. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She studies both speech production and perception, particularly with cross-linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives. Speech acquisition is an important theme in her research. Raymond Pai (白文杰) is a PhD candidate in Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. He is a Lecturer and the current Director of the Cantonese Language Program at UBC. His research and teaching interests include language learning motivation, language technology, assessment and testing, and psycholinguistics. John C. Wakefield (莊域飛) received his PhD in Linguistics from the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is an Associate Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, and has a forthcoming book titled English Loanwords in Cantonese: How Their Meanings Have Changed (Hong Kong University Press). Lian-Hee Wee (黄良喜) received his PhD in Linguistics from the Department of Linguistics at Rutgers University. He is a Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. Among his publications, he has authored Phonological Tone (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and co-edited Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong: Angles on a Coherent Imaginary (Palgrave, 2018).

Abbreviations

AoA ACC BYU CanFL CanSL CC CHAT CHILDES CMI COM CS DAT EDB EM FDH FL GCE GCSE GEN HL IELTS IGCSE IPA Jyutping

age of arrival accusative case marker Brigham Young University Cantonese as a foreign language Cantonese as a second language clausal complement Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts Child Language Data Exchange System Cantonese as medium of instruction (cf. PMI) comitative case marker Chinese-speaking (cf. NCS) dative case marker Education Bureau ethnic minorities foreign domestic helpers foreign language General Certificate of Education General Certificate of Secondary Education genitive case marker heritage learner International English Language Testing System International General Certificate of General Education International Phonetic Alphabet 粵語拼音 Jyut6jyu5 Ping3jam1, Cantonese romanization system created by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong L1 first language L2 second language LOC locative case marker LoR length of residence MOI medium of instruction NCS non-Chinese-speaking (cf. CS) NEG negation NOM nominative case marker

Abbreviations xv manner modifier MM PERF perfective aspect Putonghua as medium of instruction (cf. CMI) PMI PP prepositional phrase PRT particle QUOT quotative relative clause RC SA South Asian SEN special education needs SFP sentence-final particle second language SL SLA second-language acquisition SWC Standard Written Chinese Test of English as a Foreign Language TOEFL TOP topic marker UBC The University of British Columbia UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organi­ zation

Introduction John C. Wakefield (莊域飛)

There are many good reasons to learn Cantonese, whether for work or for pleasure. This language poses some special challenges for learners, but none of these challenges are insurmountable. This book was written with the aim of making the process of learning Cantonese better understood, in hopes that learners and teachers can approach it more effectively and successfully. Cantonese learners, language teachers, and applied linguists will all benefit from the chapters that follow. The authors of this book are all Cantonese linguists, some of whom are themselves teachers and/or learners of the language. They discuss their experiences and their research with the goal of educating and informing students, teachers, and linguists about some of the key issues related to learning and teaching Cantonese as a second language (CanSL) and Cantonese as a foreign language (CanFL). Before giving an overview of the book’s contents, I will first say something about the need for a book like this. Second-language acquisition (SLA) is the major area of study within the subfield of Linguistics called Applied Linguistics. It is understandable that SLA has become such a large field of study; many people learn at least one language in addition to their native language, either necessarily because of life circumstances, or voluntarily for personal reasons. Numerous books and journal articles have been written about English as a second language, because English is by far the world’s most widely used lingua franca and is therefore learned as a second language more than any other language. Not as much has been written about Chinese as a second language (CSL), but more and more linguists are now studying and writing about CSL because of the growing number of people who choose to learn Mandarin (also called Putonghua), which is a consequence of China’s growing political power and economic influence around the world. By comparison, little has been written about CanSL, and as far as I know, the only book length treatment of CanSL/FL aside from the present one is Siu-lun Lee’s (2005) doctoral dissertation.1 Among the relatively few papers that have been written on CanSL, some have focused on learners’ needs (Li and Richards, 1995; Lee, this volume; Chor, this volume); some on how linguistic and social factors affect the acquisition of CanSL (Boyle, 1997; Tinker Sachs, 2002; Li et al., 2016; Lee, 2018; Lee, this volume; Part II of this volume); some on reviewing available learning materials

2  John C. Wakefield (莊域飛) (Li and Richards, 1995; Smith, 1997a, 1997b; Chor, this volume); some on suggestions for learning and/or teaching (Smith, 1995; Tinker Sachs, 2002; all of this volume); and some on South Asian students in Hong Kong (e.g. Tsung, Zhang, and Cruickshank, 2010; Shum, Gao, Tsung, and Ki, 2011; Tse and Hui, 2012; Part III of this volume). While these studies are very informative and useful, their number is small compared to studies on other major languages, and this relative dearth of research and language materials related to CanSL is significant because materials written about CSL are not readily adaptable to the learning of spoken Cantonese, just as, for example, materials written about Spanish as a second language are not readily adaptable to the learning of Italian. It is surprising that so little has been written about learning a language with roughly the same number of native speakers as three major European languages: • • • •

French: 76.8 million native speakers German: 76 million native speakers Cantonese: 73.76 million native speakers Italian: 64.82 million native speakers (Ethnologue, 2018)

While it is true that fewer people learn Cantonese than English, Mandarin/ Putonghua, French, German, or Italian, there are probably more than most people realize, and there is a long history of people learning CanSL/FL for a variety of reasons. Many of the different types of CanSL/FL learners are represented in this book: university students; missionaries; heritage learners; Japanese, European, and North American expatriates; South Asian immigrants; South(east) Asian migrant workers; and Mandarin speakers from Taiwan and mainland China. Research and writings on CanSL/FL are greatly needed by learners, teachers, and curriculum designers. CanSL/FL learning materials and teaching strategies should be based on learners’ needs and should directly address the unique aspects of the Cantonese language and the culture of its speech community. This book will help learners know what to expect as they begin their language-learning journey. It will help them know what aspects of phonology and grammar to pay particular attention to, as well as how to become a more discerning and informed consumer of language courses and materials. Teachers will learn about their learners’ needs and motivations and will be better informed about what to include in their teaching materials and what to focus on in the classroom. Applied linguists will learn some of what is unique about CanSL/FL in relation to learning other languages, and language policy experts will learn about some of the issues involved with planning and implementing teaching programs for CanSL in education.

The contents of the book The book starts off with a chapter by Bauer and Wakefield that presents some linguistic facts about Cantonese and discusses this in relation to learning the

Introduction 3 language. This first chapter offers background linguistic knowledge for those readers who need it. In addition to being useful for students, this chapter provides teachers with information that they can share with their students in the classroom. The remainder of the book is then divided into three themed parts.

Part I: The teaching and learning of Cantonese This part of the book includes four chapters from experts on teaching CanSL/ FL. Lee’s chapter presents his questionnaire- and interview-based research, which looked at CanSL students’ needs, motivations, and experiences. Guided by his more than 20 years of experience teaching CanSL at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lee offers suggestions on how his findings should guide curriculum design and classroom teaching. The chapter by Chor also focuses on needs-based learning and teaching, and it reinforces Lee’s findings that most CanSL learners need to know Cantonese for work-related reasons. After Chor discusses the lack of adequate teaching materials for immigrants/expatriates working in Hong Kong, she reviews and critiques some of the CanSL books and materials currently available. Providing an illustration of the gap between what current learning materials offer and what CanSL workers in Hong Kong need, Chor discusses the language needs of Indonesian domestic workers. She concludes by suggesting ways in which curriculum designers and teachers can address these needs. Pai’s and Christensen’s two chapters are each about CanFL programs in North American universities. Pai’s chapter talks about the Cantonese Language Program at the University of British Columbia, which he directs, and Christensen’s chapter discusses the teaching of Cantonese literacy at Brigham Young University, which is a requirement of all students who choose Cantonese as their language of choice in BYU’s general education program. Both chapters describe the challenges of creating a Cantonese language program that has to address student populations with a wide range of linguistic backgrounds. Both chapters also talk about using written Chinese in the classroom, and Christensen’s chapter additionally discusses in detail the serious challenge of teaching CanFL learners how to be literate in a way that meaningfully resembles the complex literacy skills of native-Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong.

Part II: Experience and advice from advanced learners The second part of the book includes five chapters written by linguists who speak Cantonese as a second (or additional) language. Even though there are inevitably overlapping elements, each story of how and why a person acquires CanSL is unique. For example, all learners of Cantonese must acquire the language’s complex system of lexical tones, but the individual differences in the learners’ cognition and linguistic backgrounds (e.g. L1 Japanese vs. L1 Mandarin) will significantly influence their acquisition of the tones. As a result, some stories about the teaching and learning of Cantonese will be more or less relevant to individual readers of this book. Teachers should ideally work to understand the

4  John C. Wakefield (莊域飛) various needs of learners with different backgrounds, and will therefore probably benefit from reading every chapter in this part of the book. Learners will benefit most from reading about the learners who share similar backgrounds but may nevertheless be interested in reading about other types of learners and their unique needs and challenges. All five chapters present the story of how and why each author learned Cantonese and share some of the social issues involved. In addition to this, Bauer’s and Wee’s chapters both talk about learning Cantonese with a background of already knowing one or more Chinese languages. Both of these authors are trained phonologists who present very useful and insightful contrasts between the sound systems of Cantonese and Mandarin (Wee also talks a little about Teochew (or Chiuchow) and Hainanese), and they explain how knowledge of Mandarin can help CanSL learners acquire Cantonese. The two chapters by Guest and Wakefield talk about some of the social issues related to learning Cantonese, such as gaining access to Cantonese-speaking social networks. Both authors talk about the learning strategies they have used and give suggestions to current and future learners. They also describe how they worked to strengthen and maintain their motivation to learn, which is a critical ingredient for success. Kataoka’s chapter, the final of this section, will be extremely beneficial to Japanese-speaking CanSL learners, as well as their teachers. Kataoka outlines and explains a number of systematic similarities between Japanese and Cantonese. These systematic contrasts relate to phonology, syntax, sentence-final particles, and the appropriate ways to express thanks. For each of these, Kataoka suggests how Japanese-speaking learners can exploit their knowledge of Japanese to help themselves learn Cantonese.

Part III: Cantonese as a second language in the Hong Kong education system The final part of the book includes three chapters that each relate to South Asian (SA) immigrant children who attend Cantonese-medium schools in Hong Kong. These children must learn to speak, read, and write Cantonese in order to have successful academic, social, and working lives in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s Education Bureau says it “is committed to encouraging and supporting the early integration of [non-Chinese-speaking] NCS students (notably ethnic minority students) into the community, including facilitating their adaptation to the local education system and mastery of the Chinese language”.2 The success of the Education Bureau’s stated commitment to this issue is far from satisfactory up to this point, and the final three chapters of this book provide information that can be used to address this very important language policy issue. These chapters will be of great interest and benefit to both teachers and language policy experts. This section of the book begins with Chan’s chapter, which describes in some detail the background of the NCS student population and the range of teaching practices used in the local Chinese language classrooms. Chan illustrates the

Introduction 5 situation with data that she collected from in-class observations conducted in local Chinese classrooms and tutorial sessions, and she describes a key, recurring problem with teacher feedback, which is that it fails to explicitly point out the distinction between spoken vernacular Cantonese and formal register written Cantonese. Chan then discusses the issue of medium of instruction (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) and discusses the effect that this choice has on NCS students. She concludes by suggesting that students’ knowledge of spoken Cantonese should be exploited; students should be explicitly trained in the formal registers of Cantonese as a bridge towards learning Standard Written Chinese. Cheung’s chapter is a report of his study on the development of oral Cantonese narrative by SA students in Hong Kong. His study looked for a correlation between the SA students’ narrative ability and two factors: age of arrival to Hong Kong and length of residence in Hong Kong. Based on the results of the study, Cheung suggests implementing transitional Cantonese language programs for SA students, rather than simply increasing the amount of time they spend on learning Cantonese. He argues that “SA children require different language inputs and learning activities”. The final chapter by Lau and Mok proposes that NCS students should be taught the Jyutping romanization system of Cantonese for the purpose of teaching them how to type Chinese. This is based on the entirely reasonable suggestion that NCS students should not be barred from “acquiring up-to-date information online [using keyword searches], or communicating with their potential employers, clients, and colleagues using text messages or social networks”. Knowing how to type Chinese is obviously empowering to NCS students, and using Jyutping to type Chinese is arguably the best and easiest way for them to do so. In this light, Lau and Mok give a detailed report of the findings of their 13-week intervention program to teach NCS student how to type Chinese using Jyutping as an input method. Based on the results of their experience, they conclude by suggesting a number of practical teaching strategies. Taken in combination, all the chapters of the book give a good overview of the current status of teaching and learning CanSL. It is hoped that this book will be used by teachers and learners as a means of improving their teaching and learning. We also hope it inspires more linguists to conduct research on and write about various CanSL issues.

Some noteworthy features of the book The romanization system used throughout the book is Jyutping, which was created by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. See Bauer and Wakefield (this volume) and Appendix 1 for some details about Jyutping. In Bauer and Wakefield (this volume) and Bauer (this volume), Jyutping is written with spaces between every syllable, e.g. 佢哋講廣東話 Keoi5 dei6 gong2 Gwong2 dung1 waa6/2 (“They speak Cantonese”); in other chapters, Jyutping is written with spaces between words (e.g. Keoi5dei6 gong2 Gwong2dung1waa6/2). The first way of writing Jyutping mimics Chinese writing, which is written as characters

6  John C. Wakefield (莊域飛) without spaces between words. This way of writing makes it easier to read each individual syllable. The second way, in contrast, shows which syllables combine to form words, which can be helpful to CanSL/FL learners who often have trouble knowing how the syllables are arranged into words. However, it must be noted that deciding how syllables combine to form words is often difficult in Chinese (see Bauer and Wakefield, this volume). Both ways of writing Jyutping were allowed for this book because Bauer’s (2017) dictionary, which is an essential resource for learners, writes Jyutping out as syllables, while other works write it out as words. This means teachers and learners will need to adapt, at least for the time being, to seeing it written both ways. The Cantonese sentence in the preceding paragraph shows that, in this book, Chinese characters are given first, followed by Jyutping, and then by the English translation in parentheses. It should also be pointed out that many Cantonese syllables change their tone when they are combined with other syllables to form a word. For example, the character 話 waa6 (“speech/words”) is originally tone 6, but when it combines to form a word that is the name of a particular language, it changes to tone 2. This is represented by showing the original tone first, and then the changed tone after a forward slash – in this case as “6/2”. Another difference among chapters is whether words like 你 (“you”) and 女 (“girl”) are written in Jyutping as nei5 and neoi5, or as lei5 and leoi5, respectively. The initial in these words is pronounced by most speakers as l-, but the official Jyutping spelling for this word uses the older pronunciation with an initial n-. Using an l- helps learners know how to pronounce this word the way the vast majority of people pronounce it, but at the same time, they must know to spell it using an n- initial if they want to look it up in a dictionary. This is why, again, two different ways of representing the same thing were allowed in this book – learners must be aware of both.

Notes 1 Li and Richards (1995) was published as a 90-page “Research Monograph” by City University of Hong Kong Department of English, but it is actually a 25-page paper that is comparable to a chapter of this book. The remaining pages are appendices. 2 https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/student-parents/ncs-students/about-ncs-students/ index.html (accessed March 14, 2019)

References Bauer, R. S. (2017). The ABC Cantonese dictionary [ABC粵語英語詞典]. Retrieved from https://wenlin.co/wow/Project:Jyut Boyle, J. (1997). Success and failure in learning Cantonese. Language Learning Journal, 16, 82–86. Ethnologue. (2018). (21st ed.). Retrieved from www.ethnologue.com/browse/ names Lee, S. (2005). History and current trends of teaching Cantonese as a foreign language: investigating approaches to teaching and learning Cantonese (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Leicester, UK.

Introduction 7 Lee, S. (2018). Expatriate Cantonese learners in Hong Kong: Adult L2 learning, identity negotiation, and social pressure. In D. Velliaris (Ed.), Study abroad contexts for enhanced foreign language learning. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Li, D. C. S., and Richards, J. C. (1995). Cantonese as a second language: A study of learner needs and Cantonese course books. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, Dept. of English. Li, D. C. S., Keung, S., Poon, H. F., and Xu, Z. (2016). Learning Cantonese as an additional language (CAL) or not: What the CAL learners say. Global Chinese, 2(1), 1–22. Shum, M. S. K., Gao, F., Tsung, L., and Ki, W. W. (2011). South Asian students’ Chinese language learning in Hong Kong: Motivations and strategies. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 32(3), 285–297. Smith, G. (1995). Learning Cantonese: How to succeed where thousands have failed. The Hong Kong Linguist, 15, 29−32. Smith, G. (1997a). An independent learner’s guide to Cantonese instructional materials. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(1), 55−80. Smith, G. (1997b). Resources for the independent study of Cantonese as a foreign language in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Linguist, 17, 10−16. Tinker Sachs, G. (2002). Learning Cantonese: Reflections of an EFL teacher educator. In D. C. S. Li (Ed.), Discourses in search of members. In honor of Ron Scollon (pp. 509−540). Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Tse, S. K., and Hui, S. Y. (2012). Supporting ethnic minority students learning the Chinese language in multilingual Hong Kong. L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 12, 1–27. Tsung, L., Zhang, Q., and Cruickshank, K. (2010). Access to majority language and educational outcomes: South Asian background students in postcolonial Hong Kong. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 4(1), 17–32.

1 The Cantonese language Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) and John C. Wakefield (莊域飛)

Introduction Hong Kong Cantonese as an extraordinary Chinese variety Today, among all the regional varieties of the Chinese language spoken throughout China, it is Hong Kong Cantonese that particularly stands out for its extraordinary – even unique – phonological, lexical, grammatical, orthographic, and sociolinguistic features. In this chapter, we have selected some of these remarkable characteristics of Cantonese for presentation to and analysis for the readers of this book, as we believe they will find this material both interesting and useful. We assume that one group of readers will be learners of Cantonese as a second language (CanSL), who would naturally be interested in knowing more about the language that they have chosen to devote their time and energy to learn. Another group of readers will be Cantonese language teachers, who may benefit from reading our suggestions about what to include in their lesson plans, as well as learning about the reference materials that we cite here. Yet another group of readers that we assume will read this book are linguists, some of whom we hope will find some new and useful information here, or at least learn about some reference materials they can go to for further study. This chapter provides some useful, basic background knowledge for those who need it, and we very much believe this will help some readers to more fully appreciate and comprehend the chapters that follow.

Classification of Cantonese: language or dialect? Students of Cantonese will be interested to know that this variety of Chinese is sometimes called Yue Chinese in English and that it goes by various names in Chinese, e.g. 白話 baak6 waa6/2 (“plain (white) speech”), 廣東話 Gwong2 dung1 waa6/2 (“speech of Guangdong (province)”), 廣府話 Gwong2 fu2 waa6/2 (“speech of Canton prefecture”), 廣州話 Gwong2 zau1 waa6/2 (“speech of Guangzhou (i.e. Canton)”), 香港話 Hoeng1 gong2 waa6/2 (“speech of Hong Kong”), 香港粵語Hoeng1 gong2 Jyut6 jyu5 (“Hong Kong Cantonese”), 粵語 Jyut6 jyu5 (“Cantonese language”), 省城話 saang2 sing4 waa6/2 (“speech of the provincial capital” – i.e. Canton), and 唐話 Tong4 waa6/2 (“Tang (dynasty)

The Cantonese language 9 speech”) (Bauer and Benedict, 1997, xxxi; Wikipedia, 2018). It is one of the most widely spoken linguistic varieties in China after Mandarin (also called 普通話 Pou2 tung1 waa6/2 (“Putonghua”)) (Bauer and Benedict, 1997, xxxv). It is currently spoken as the “usual, daily language” by about 90 percent of the ethnic Chinese population of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2017); although it was also once the dominant Chinese variety spoken in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, it has been in steady decline there as the result of the heavy-handed promotion of Putonghua and national and provincial laws on language and script. Cantonese is commonly referred to as “a dialect of Chinese”, but whether from a technically linguistic standpoint, or even the layman’s viewpoint, that is an inaccurate and dubious classification that turns out to have more to do with politics than linguistics – let us not forget the oft-quoted aphorism attributed to Uriel Weinreich: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy (Chambers, 1997, p. 214). It is important to note that no linguistic variety is inferior to another, and what linguists call “dialects” are not in any way considered by linguists to be less complete than what they call “languages”. Nevertheless, classifications are important in any field of study, so it is worth explaining why Cantonese is technically a language, having its own dialectal varieties, rather than being merely a dialect of the Chinese language. Classifying linguistic varieties based on their relationships to one another using the terms “dialect” and “language” is much more complicated than most non-specialists realize, but mutual intelligibility can be and typically is used as one of the basic criteria for determining whether two varieties are distinct languages from each other (by being mutually unintelligible), or whether they are two dialects of a single language (through their mutual intelligibility). So, if we were to rely on the criterion of mutual intelligibility for classification, then the fact that Cantonese and Mandarin are mutually unintelligible for people who speak only one of them, but have never learned the other, means that they should be classified as two distinct languages. They are as different from each other as French is from Italian, so referring to Cantonese and Mandarin as two dialects of a single language would be like saying that French and Italian are dialects of Romance, which is not something people say. Even though Cantonese and Mandarin, along with other mutually unintelligible regional Chinese varieties, such as Min, Hakka, Wu, etc., should be considered distinct languages, they can all be classified as belonging to the same Chinese language family or 漢語 Hon3 jyu5. Ethnologue (2018) captures this relationship among Mandarin, Cantonese, and all the other regional varieties of Chinese without calling them dialects by referring to Chinese as the “macrolanguage of China” that includes a number of languages, two of which are Mandarin and Yue.1

Cantonese as 中文 Unless and until the sociopolitical situation changes, it is necessary to categorize all of China’s languages (excluding the non-Chinese minority languages) as being “Chinese”. This is because the speakers themselves identify as speakers of

10  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. a Chinese language. Cantonese and Mandarin speakers commonly refer to their own variety as 中文 (Cantonese: Zung1 man4/2; Mandarin: zhōngwén) which is a very broad, elastic, but ambiguous category that includes any kind or form of the Chinese language, such as modern or classical, written or spoken, etc. When people in Hong Kong use Cantonese to refer to “Chinese” or to “knowing how to speak Chinese” (識講中文 sik1 gong2 Zung1 man4/2), the default reference is to Cantonese rather than to Mandarin. This is even done officially. For example, the Hong Kong Government’s official website states that “Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong”, and directly below that, it states that 89.5 percent of the population speak Cantonese, while only 1.38 percent of the population speak Putonghua.2 Debates and discussions in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council are virtually all conducted in Cantonese, making it the de facto official variety of Chinese that is referred to by the government as its official language. Hong Kong’s Education Bureau says it “is committed to encouraging and supporting the early integration of [non-Chinese-speaking] NCS students (notably ethnic minority students) into the community, including facilitating their adaptation to the local education system and mastery of the Chinese language”.3 The bureau’s reference to “non-Chinese speaking” in this statement by default refers to not being able to speak Cantonese, considering that the local education system uses Cantonese as the medium of instruction and that integration into the community requires learning Cantonese rather than Mandarin. One final example of Cantonese being the default variety of Chinese comes from the Language Centre at Hong Kong Baptist University, whose website lists (at the time of this writing) all of its Cantonese and Chinese writing classes under the heading “Chinese courses” but lists all of its Mandarin classes under the heading “Putonghua courses”. All of these examples demonstrate the need to continue referring to all Chinese languages as (flexible) “Chinese”. However, it should be kept in mind that they are separate languages, rather than dialects of the same language, even though the practice of calling them dialects will probably not cease any time soon, if ever.

Number of Cantonese speakers worldwide Ethnologue (2018) estimates that there are 73,355,610 people who speak Cantonese as their first language (L1), and 402,000 people who speak it as a second language (L2).4 Despite the apparent precision of these numbers, we believe they are no more than rough estimates based on the assumption that all of the people residing in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hong Kong speak varieties of Yue. If there actually are 70+ million people who speak Cantonese as their L1, then this figure includes all varieties of it, only one of which is the variety called Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC). Hong Kong has been referred to as the “Cantonese-speaking capital of the world” (Bolton, 2011, p. 64), having taken this mantle away from Guangzhou where Cantonese has gone into decline as a result of the successful promotion of Putonghua there. We should also take into consideration the powerful economic influence of Hong Kong’s business and financial sectors, as well as the widespread sociocultural influence of Hong Kong-based Cantonese

The Cantonese language 11 television and movies. Today HKC is typically the target variety for most writers of Cantonese language-learning materials, as well as for most learners of CanSL. The Guangzhou variety of Cantonese has been traditionally regarded as being the standard form throughout the South China region; as for the Cantonese varieties spoken in the major cities of the Pearl River Delta, or what is now being dubbed 大彎區 Daai6 waan1 keoi1 (“the Greater Bay Area”), plus those spoken in overseas Cantonese-speaking immigrant communities, these all generally resemble the Hong Kong variety. The cities of the Greater Bay Area include Macau, Zhuhai, Foshan, Guangzhou, and Dongguan. Beyond the Greater Bay Area, a number of non-standard Cantonese varieties are spoken throughout Guangdong and eastern Guangxi provinces, and these differ significantly from the Hong Kong and Guangzhou varieties. Indeed, when the second author traveled around Guangdong province selling water pumps and aerators in the early 1990s, he observed that the further away he got from the Pearl River Delta region, the more difficult it became for him to understand the local varieties of Cantonese. All the linguistic facts about Cantonese that follow in this chapter, and in the rest of the book, relate to the HKC variety, unless otherwise noted.

Cantonese phonology Romanization for transcribing Cantonese sounds In this section and throughout this book, the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong’s Jyutping system of romanization is used to transcribe the Cantonese pronunciations of Cantonese words and Chinese characters. Jyutping is the official, abbreviated name for 粵語拼音 Jyut6 jyu5 Ping3 jam1 “Cantonese romanization”. In our view, among all the many Cantonese romanization systems that have been devised up to the present time, Jyutping is by far the best and most accurate; furthermore, we have found it to be the most convenient for computer-input, since all the required symbols are found on the computer’s keyboard (unlike Yale, Jyutping does not require any diacritics to indicate the tones). We strongly advise students of Cantonese to learn Jyutping, as well as the Yale system, which is still widely used in North America. We also encourage teachers of the Cantonese language to use one or both of these romanization systems in their teaching materials, rather than disadvantage learners by teaching them a system that is not widely known or used. There are too many good materials available in both Jyutping and Yale for learners to learn only one or the other system; e.g. teaching materials that use Yale include Yip and Matthews, 2000; Lee and Kataoka, 2004; Matthews and Yip, 2011; and all the books in Lee and Kataoka’s series by Greenwood Press. Materials that use only Jyutping include the essential ABC Cantonese Dictionary by Bauer, 2017 and its related phone app published by Pleco. For descriptions of the Yale romanization system see, for example, Yip and Matthews (2000, pp. 1–16) and Lee and Choi (2003), and for descriptions of the Jyutping system see, for example, Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (2002) and www.lshk.org/ jyutping. Appendix 1 in Bauer and Benedict (1997, pp. 471–475) has contrasted

12  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. all Cantonese sound segments and tones as transcribed in ten different Cantonese romanization systems with comparison to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). A less detailed version of contrasts between IPA, Yale and Jyutping is given in Matthews and Yip (2011, pp. 461–463). Finally, Appendix 3 of the present volume presents the Jyutping and Pinyin (for Mandarin/Putonghua) systems of initial consonants, rimes, and tones with their corresponding IPA equivalents. Because of the way Cantonese speakers have learned to read and write the standard Chinese language in Hong Kong classrooms, many of them think that the Chinese language equals the Chinese characters, and these in turn equal Chinese words. That is, they think there is only the written Chinese characters and nothing more beside or beyond them, so that they have no concept of words as being independent phonetic entities that are separate from Chinese characters. While Cantonese speakers do indeed recognize that Chinese characters have pronunciations, the sound segments associated with Chinese characters are essentially ephemeral, elusive, and ungraspable. If you present students with a Chinese character and then ask them to segment (or separate) its syllabic pronunciation into its constituents of initial consonant, rime, and tone, either by pronouncing these individual parts of the syllable, or by writing down with letters of the alphabet that represent or correspond to the sequence of individual sounds, most simply cannot do it. In the first author’s experience, they look at the Chinese character and pronounce it, but because they cannot find any strokes in the character’s written form that correspond to individual sounds linked to the character’s pronunciation, they cannot overcome the hurdle of phonetic segmentation. For whatever reasons, it is the case that Hong Kong primary schools do not use any kind of Cantonese romanization to teach Cantonese pronunciation to their Cantonese-speaking students. Mainland Chinese students, on the other hand, have no difficulty with this kind of exercise in romanizing the pronunciations of Chinese characters, because they have learned the Pinyin system of romanization while learning Putonghua in primary school. Today there is available to everyone in Hong Kong the excellent Cantonese romanization system known as 粵語拼音 Jyut6 jyu5 Ping3 jam1 (“Cantonese Phonetic Alphabet (Jyut Jyu Ping Jam)”) or 粵拼 Jyut6 Ping3 (“Jyutping”) (for short), which was developed by linguists associated with the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in the early 1990s. (The reader is referred to Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (2002) for details on the LSHK’s handbook in which the Cantonese pronunciations of all the Chinese characters, including some Cantonese characters, have been transcribed in Jyutping.) Up to now, it has been used on a relatively limited basis to teach Cantonese as a second language, for example, to ethnic minority students in a Hong Kong school (Lau and Mok, this volume). It seems a great pity that it has not become more widely adopted for teaching the Cantonese pronunciation, not only to ethnic minority students, but also to the majority Chinese students. Since most primary school students have already learned the English alphabet in kindergarten, they should be able to learn Jyutping with not much difficulty. By acquiring this skill, they would be able to write down whatever words they can say even if they do not know how to write

The Cantonese language 13 the relevant Chinese characters. Despite such apparent advantage, it is a curious fact that the use of Cantonese romanization in Chinese language education for Cantonese-speaking students in Hong Kong schools remains relatively limited and almost nonexistent. Nonetheless, we can conclude by asserting that Cantonese romanization is an essential tool in the teaching of the Cantonese language to students who are learning it as a second language.

Cantonese initial and final consonants, vowels, rimes, and syllables In the Cantonese phonological system, there are 19 initial consonants (or 20, if we were to include the non-contrastive zero-initial or glottal stop, the sound produced when the vocal cords snap together, and which occurs before the vowel in a syllable that does not begin with a consonant), namely b-, p-, f-, m-, d-, t-, s-, n-, l-, g-, k-, h-, ng-, gw-, kw-, z-, c-, w-, j-; w- and j- are approximants and also semivowels because they are articulated with some friction. Cantonese syllables can carry these six final consonants -m, -n, -ng, -p, -t, -k. Cantonese has nine nuclear vowels, i, yu, e, oe, eo, aa, a, u, o. Some of these vowels can combine with the vowels -i or -u and the final consonants to form a total of 60 rimes (also called finals), which are listed in Table 1.1. (See Appendix 1 for the IPA symbols that correspond to all of the Jyutping consonants and rimes and see Appendix 3 for contrasts between Jyutping and Yale.) Table 1.1 takes a relatively more expansive, inclusive view of the Cantonese syllabary (the full inventory of syllables that occur in Cantonese) than what one usually finds in dictionaries and grammars; this is to say, the table comprises not only the rimes associated with the literary readings of the standard Chinese characters, but also rimes associated with colloquial Cantonese words and rimes that only occur in certain English loanwords (see Bauer, 2016b, for further details).

Table 1.1  Sixty Cantonese rimes Final vowel or consonant Nuclear vowel

0

-i

-u

-m

-n

-ng

-p

-t

-k

i yu e oe eo a aa u o

i yu e oe aa u o

ei eoi ai aai ui oi

iu eu au aau ou

im em oem am aam om

in yun en eon an aan un on

ing eng oeng ang aang ung ong

ip ep ap aap op

it yut et oet eot at aat ut ot

ik ek oek ak aak uk ok

Source: Based on Table 1 in Bauer (2016b, 45–46).

14  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. With just two exceptions as indicated in Table 1.1, namely eo and a, each of the vowels on the far left functions as a separate, independent rime on its own; the exceptional vowel eo must combine with either final (or ending) vowel -i, or final (or ending) consonants -n or -t, while vowel a must be followed by either final (or ending) vowel -i or -u (symbolized as Ge for ending glide in Figure 1.1) or a final consonant (symbolized as Ce for ending consonant in Figure 1.1). These 60 rimes combine with the 19 (or 20) initial consonants (symbolized as Ci in Figure 1.1) to form a total of 807 syllables (at the last tally in Bauer, 2016b, 46). As for Mandarin, readers may be interested to know that it has 21 initial consonants (or 22, if the zero-initial is included); 38 rimes; and 415 syllables (Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn, 1972, pp. 4–8).

Structure of the Cantonese syllable The structure of the Hong Kong Cantonese syllable is displayed in Figure 1.1, which shows how the tone (T) overrides the entire syllable. (A section discussing lexical tones appears later in this chapter.) The syllable comprises two main segments, namely the initial consonant (Ci) and the rime or final (F). The final can comprise either a nuclear vowel (V), syllabic nasal (Csn), or nuclear vowel (V) plus ending sound segment (consonant ending Ce or glide ending Ge). The main difference between the structures of the Cantonese and Mandarin syllables is that the Cantonese syllable has no onglide, i.e. a sound segment that occurs between the initial consonant and the nuclear vowel, whereas Mandarin does have the onglide.

Stop initial consonants p-, t-, k-, b-, d-, g-, kw-, gwSome Cantonese consonants may sound like they have English equivalents or at least are very similar. For example, the series of Cantonese initial stop consonants p-, t-, k- are essentially the same as in English; that is, they are voiceless and aspirated (i.e. followed by a puff of air upon the release of the stop closure). However, the initial stops b-, d-, g- are not actually voiced in Cantonese as they are in English; they are voiceless and unaspirated (no puff of air follows the release of

SUPRASEGMENTAL TONE T RIME or FINAL F ONSET or INITIAL Initial consonant Ci

NUCLEUS Nuclear vowel V or Syllabic nasal Csn

CODA Ending consonant Ce/Ge

Figure 1.1  The structure of the Hong Kong Cantonese syllable

The Cantonese language 15 the stop closure). Cantonese g-[k] is unvoiced and unaspirated, and aspiration is the only difference between the Cantonese velar stops g- and k-; Cantonese k- [kh] is also unvoiced, but it is aspirated. In English the distinction between /g/ and /k/ is one of voicing, while Cantonese has no voiced stops. This means that English-speaking learners of CanSL who want to sound native-like will need to stop voicing all of their Cantonese consonants (other than vowels and nasals) and will also need to learn to distinguish consonants based on aspiration. On a positive note, pronouncing these as if they were English speech sounds will still be perfectly understandable to native-Cantonese speakers, so learners need not worry about trying to accomplish this overnight. To produce the labialized velar initial consonants gw- and kw- the speaker’s lips are rounded and are represented in IPA as [kw] and [khw], respectively. These are single phonemes and are not equivalent to English /g/ + /w/ or /k/ + /w/. The superscript “w” in these phonemes represents the rounding of the lips, and again the distinction between these two initials is aspiration, indicated by the superscript “h”.

Nasal initial consonants m-, n-, ngCanSL learners’ first languages will determine which of the various sounds of Cantonese will be relatively difficult for them to master. Speakers of English who are learning Cantonese will be interested to know that some of the Cantonese initial consonants are essentially the same as their English counterparts, viz., the nasal initials m-, n-, ng-. One difference is that Cantonese ng can appear in the onset position of a syllable, as in a word like 啱 ngaam1 (“correct”); the coda position, as in a word like 行 haang4 (“to walk”); or in the nucleus position to form a syllabic nasal, as in a word like 五 ng5 (“five”). In English, in contrast, the consonant “ng” only occurs at the end of a syllable, as in “sing”, so learners will need to get used to pronouncing it at the beginning of the syllable or on its own (however, we will point out here that many speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese omit an initial ng-).5

Fricative initial consonants f-, s-, hThe fricatives f-, s-, h- are pronounced the same as in English; however, initial s- has a palatalized variant form or allophone [ɕ-] when it occurs before the front round vowel yu, e.g. syu1 書 (“book”).

Affricate initial consonants z-, cThe affricate initial consonants z- and c- may fool English speakers into thinking they are the same as English “j” (= IPA [ʤ]) and “ch” (= IPA [ʧ h]), respectively. In fact, these Cantonese affricates each have two pronunciations. More technically, they are each phonemes that include a pair of allophones that appear in complementary distribution. Put simply, this means that one pronunciation occurs when the consonant appears before certain vowels, and another pronunciation is

16  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. used when it appears before certain other vowels. We can illustrate this difference with a few examples: in Cantonese, z- has two pronunciations depending on the vowels that it occurs before – (1) IPA [ts-] and (2) IPA [tɕ-] – and both are pronounced similarly to English “j”. The first one resembles English “j” as in “jam” but without voicing and with the tongue almost touching the teeth whenever it precedes the Cantonese vowels i (e.g. 知 zi1 (“to know”)), e (e.g. 謝 ze6 (“to thank”)), a (e.g. 針 zam1 (“needle”)), aa (e.g. 揸 zaa1 (“to drive (a car)”)), and o (e.g. 左 zo2 (“left (hand)”)). Again, the second kind of z- is pronounced somewhat like English “j” but is unvoiced and the tip of the tongue is shifted slightly further back so that it touches the alveolar ridge (which is located right behind the upper front teeth), and the lips are rounded when it occurs before the front round vowels yu, (e.g. 豬 zyu1 (“pig”)) and oe (e.g. 張 zoeng1 (“surname”)) and the central round vowel eo (e.g. 准 zeon2 (“to allow”)). Just as explained for z-, the same allophonic contrast also exists for Cantonese initial c-, which has two pronunciations, namely IPA [tsh-] as ci3 次 (“instance, occasion”) and [tɕh-]) as cyu3 處 (“place”), depending on the vowels it precedes. The difference in tongue positions between Cantonese c- and English “ch” is also the same as the contrasts just explained for Cantonese z- and English “j”. Neither z- nor c- are voiced. The only difference between them is that z- is unaspirated and c- is aspirated – this is true for both tongue positions of each phoneme.

Approximant initial consonants w-, j-, lAn approximant is a voiced speech sound produced when the articulators (lips, tongue, teeth, hard palate, etc.) come close to each other but do not make actual contact to block the flow of air from the lungs. The Cantonese labial w-, palatal j-, and lateral l- approximants are pronounced very much as the corresponding English consonants (i.e. “w”, “y”, and “l”); however, both the Cantonese labial and palatal approximants are produced with some constriction, viz., tight rounding of the lips for w- and grooved tongue pressed against the hard palate for j-, so that they are articulated with friction. The lateral approximant l- is produced with the tongue tip touching the back of the upper front teeth, while the sides of the tongue are lowered (see Bauer and Benedict, 1997, pp. 31–33 for more details about the Cantonese approximant initial consonants).

Final stop consonants -p, -t, -k Cantonese syllable-final consonants -p, -t, and -k are similar to the corresponding English consonants when they occur in syllable-final position; however, the pronunciations are not identical, because in English they can be produced either with or without aspiration upon release of the stop closure, i.e. the lips or tongue move away from their place of contact after obstructing the flow of lung-air and this movement allows a puff of air to be produced or released. For example, the word “cut” can be said as [khʌt] or as [khʌth], with the second pronunciation

The Cantonese language 17 produced with aspiration of the final stop /t/, which releases air at the end of the syllable. The three Cantonese final stops, in contrast, are not aspirated because they are not released. What this means is that the lips (for -p) or the tongue (for -t and -k) must be held in their position to completely close off the airflow from the lungs, abruptly ending the pronunciation of the syllable. English speakers will tend to be influenced by the phonological rule of English, which says aspiration is optional for these three final consonants. This will not be a false equivalent for Mandarin speakers because Mandarin does not have any stop consonants in the syllable-final position.

Final nasal consonants -m, -n, -ng When the Cantonese nasal consonants occur in syllable-final position, they are pronounced essentially the same as in English.

Syllabic nasal consonants m, ng In addition to occurring as initial and final consonants, the two nasal consonants m and ng can also occur as independent syllables, which are termed syllabic nasal consonants. These speech sounds are not found as phonemes in English. As will be indicated in our section on phonetic variation, in the speech of some speakers, the syllabic velar nasal ng is pronounced as the syllabic bilabial nasal m, and this variant form is considered a non-standard pronunciation.

Cantonese vowels The inventory of Cantonese vowels can be divided into two subsets, according to whether or not they are produced with the speaker’s lips being rounded; viz., (1) four vowels are produced without rounded lips, i.e. i, e, aa, a, and (2) five vowels are made with rounded lips, i.e. yu, eo, oe, u, o. Technically speaking, yu is the high front rounded vowel [y], and it also occurs in French. The mid front rounded oe [œ] is vowel ɛ produced with rounded lips; this same vowel also occurs in German, and in German orthography is written as ö (umlaut o), as in möglich (“possible”). The Cantonese mid central round vowel eo corresponds to IPA [ɵ] (called barred o) and occurs in syllables followed by vowel i or final ­consonants -n or -t. The Cantonese back round vowels u [u] and o [ɔ] are essentially the same as in English. Cantonese has a vowel length contrast (for detailed analyses, see Bauer and Benedict, 1997, pp. 33–39; Bauer and Matthews, 2017, pp. 174–175), which is not found in either English or Mandarin (in Cantonese and some other Yue varieties vowel length has generally determined whether syllables with the final consonants -p, -t, -k carry the High Stopped or Mid Stopped tones, as will be discussed in the following section). This involves the first vowel in the rimes of syllables such as sai and saai or gau and gaau. Native speakers can easily and clearly hear

18  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. and pronounce this vowel length difference, but most speakers of a language that does not make such contrasts will find it difficult to make this distinction in the beginning and intermediate stages. They may, for example, accidently say 雞 gai1 (“chicken”) when trying to say 街 gaai1 (“street”), or the vulgar (also 㞗) gau1 (“cock (vulgar term for male sex organ)”) when trying to say 膠 gaau1 (“plastic”). Pronouncing these distinctions accurately will not only help the speaker avoid miscommunication, but also potential embarrassment.

Lexical tones A lexical tone language is one in which changes in the pitch of the speaker’s voice, such as its rise and fall, or fall and rise, or high and steady, or mid level, or low level, and so on, are used to distinguish the meanings of syllables (or, more technically, morphosyllables). These distinctive, contrastive pitch changes are called tones or tonemes, and they function just like other sound segments in the language, i.e. the consonant and vowel phonemes, that, combined together, form the phonological system. A toneme overrides (or is carried by) the whole syllable, as indicated in Figure 1.1 that displays the structure of the Cantonese syllable. When we hear someone speaking a tone language, we feel we are hearing numerous, continuous changes in the pitch of the speaker’s voice. While English does not distinguish lexical tones as does Cantonese, the phenomenon in English that most closely resembles lexical tone is intonation, which is also based on variations in the pitch of the speaker’s voice. In addition to conveying the speech-act functions of their utterances through distinctive intonation patterns, such as a typically falling pitch for a statement (i.e. declarative utterance) or a rising pitch for a question (i.e. interrogative utterance), English speakers also manipulate intonation to convey a variety of discourse-related meanings, such as the use of high-falling pitch for emphasis or rising pitch to express surprise or confusion.

Where do the lexical tones come from? Speakers of tone languages produce their tones by manipulating the number of times (or frequency) at which their vocal cords (located in the voice box or larynx) vibrate, i.e. open and close (in acoustic phonetics this is known as the Fundamental Frequency or F0 and is measured in cycles of openings and closings per second, or Hertz = Hz). By adjusting the number of vibrations of their vocal cords, speakers produce the various contrastive tones of their languages. The changes in pitch of the voice (the auditory aspect of tone) correspond to changes in the frequencies with which the vocal cords are vibrating (the acoustic aspect of tone). As the number of vibrations of the vocal cords increases, i.e. the number of openings and closings of the vocal cords per unit of time, we perceive a corresponding increase in the pitch height of the speaker’s voice. In other words, the higher the Fundamental Frequency, the higher the lexical tone is perceived to be. As the vocal cords become longer and more tense, there is a corresponding

The Cantonese language 19 increase in their frequency of vibration, and so there is also an increase in the pitch of the speech sounds being produced.

Contour tone languages in East and Southeast Asia Languages whose syllables distinguish the kind of tones just described are called contour tone languages, with contour referring to the shape of the tone, i.e. how the pitch changes by rising, falling, staying level, etc. over time. Contour tone is also called lexical tone. A lexical tone language uses complex tone contours as phonemes, also known as tonemes; such languages include all the various Chinese varieties, such as Mandarin and Cantonese, and some of China’s ethnic minority languages, such as Tibetan, Miao, Yao, Dai, Zhuang, etc. Some national languages of Southeast Asia, such as Thai, Lao, Vietnamese, and Burmese, are also tone languages that distinguish tone contours. The set of contrastive tonemes that differentiate the meanings of syllables in the tone language forms its tone system.

Analyzing the Cantonese tone system As the first step in our analysis of the Cantonese tone system, we recognize that the pitch range within which different speakers produce their tonemes is relative and not absolute. Most women’s and children’s voices are relatively higher in pitch than most men’s voices, so this means the absolute pitch values of their tones are also different. However, it is not the absolute Fundamental Frequency values of tonemes that matter, but their relative values within the pitch range of an individual speaker.

Speaker’s pitch range We can consider that the speaker’s voice has a pitch range from High to Low, i.e. the pitches associated with the lexical tones are all produced within this range. The pitch range can be divided into five levels as shown in Figure 1.2, and these levels are then numbered from 1 to 5 as follows: 1 = lowest level; 2 = mid low; 3 = mid level; 4 = mid high; 5 = highest pitch level

High

5

Mid High

4

Mid

3

Mid Low

2

Low

1

Figure 1.2  The five levels of a speaker’s pitch range

20  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. As a convenient and useful aid to our description and analysis of lexical tones in Cantonese, we utilize the following four basic terms:

1  Tone contour Each toneme (or tone phoneme) has its own distinctive linear shape as it moves through time with the following three dimensions: 1 2 3

Direction of pitch movement, i.e. level, falling, rising, falling-rising, risingfalling, etc. Duration of pitch movement: the tone contour is carried by the syllable and persists for the length of the syllable. Pitch height: i.e. high, mid-high, mid, mid-low, low.

The direction and duration of pitch movement combine together with pitch height to form the tone contour.

2  Tone category Each toneme is distinguished by its own particular tone contour that speakers automatically perceive and respond to, just as they do to the consonant and vowel phonemes. Each of the distinctive, contrastive tonemes functions as and constitutes a tone category. The finite set of tone categories together forms the tone system of the tone language.

3  Tone value The speakers’ tone contours can be positioned within the pitch (or tone) space, which has been divided into five levels from High to Low and correspondingly numbered from 5 to 1. Two or three numbers from 5 to 1 are then used to represent the relative height of the tone contour as it moves linearly through time in the tone space. These numbers indicate the tone value of the tone contour.

4  Tone letter, or tone symbol, or tone graph Small graphs that iconically resemble tone contours are used as symbols to represent either the tone contours or the tone categories (or sometimes both). Tone letters, which are also known as Chao tone letters, were invented by the ChineseAmerican linguist Chao Yuen Ren (趙元任) in 1930 and were later adopted by the International Phonetic Association as IPA symbols. Like other southern Chinese linguistic varieties, Cantonese has a rich inventory of contrastive tone contours, and there are several more than in Putonghua.

Contour tones In sum, the contour tones have direction of linear movement and duration as they move through time. By positioning a set of arrows within the speaker’s

The Cantonese language 21 pitch range, we can represent the speaker’s contour tones. The “tone arrows” concretely symbolize the tones’ linear movements, the shapes of their tone contours, and their durations. They are positioned relative to each other within the pitch range, which has been divided into five levels; this diagram is called the tone space. Tones carried by Cantonese syllables are just as important for articulating their correct pronunciations and distinguishing their meanings as are vowels in English words. Just as the English speaker must clearly distinguish between the vowels in bet and bat to avoid confusing these two words, so too must the Cantonese speaker use the correct Mid-low Falling tone on the first syllable of 埋馬 maai4 maa5 (“to bury a horse”) and the Mid-low Rising tone on the first syllable of 買馬 maai5 maa5 (“to buy a horse”). Luckily, learners don’t have to master the tones before they will be able to communicate. Context and common sense normally, though not always, enable listeners to know which tone(s) the speaker meant to use. The second author’s mother-in-law employs an Indonesian domestic worker who regularly uses a majority of incorrect tones in her L2-Cantonese. Occasionally clarification is needed, but she is nonetheless able to effectively communicate to the point that she is an equal participant in mealtime conversations. However, for learners who want to maximize their comprehensibility and minimize their accent, working hard to use tones accurately is an essential part of learning Cantonese.

How many tones in Cantonese? Six, nine, or ten? Nine phonetically distinctive tone contours can be identified in Cantonese, and these co-occur with two main types of syllables called live and dead (Bauer and Benedict, 1997, pp. 115–117). Six tone contours occur on the so-called live syllables, i.e. syllables that only have a nuclear vowel and no ending, syllables that end with a glide -i, -u or nasal endings -m, -n, -ng, and the syllabic nasals m, ng (see Figure 1.3). In addition, three tone contours occur on the so-called dead syllables, that is, syllables that end with the stop consonants -p, -t, -k (see Figure 1.4). The durations of tones that are carried by live syllables are relatively longer than for the tones that occur on dead syllables.

High 5 Mid High 4

Tone 1 High Level ˥55 堋 ji1 (“clothing”) Tone 2 High Rising ˨˥ 25 㢭 ji2 (“chair”)

Mid 3

Tone 3 Mid Level ˧33 シ ji3 (“idea”) Tone 5 Mid Low Rising ˨˧ 23 俛 ji5 (“ear”)

Mid Low 2

Tone 6 Mid Low Level ˨22 Ḵ ji6 (“two”)

Low 1

Tone 4 Mid Low Falling ˨˩ 21 䔹 ji4 (“suspicious”)

Figure 1.3  Six Hong Kong Cantonese tone contours occurring on live syllables Note: The tone arrows depict the tone contours’ linear movements, shapes, and durations within the tone space.

22  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. High 5

Tone 1 High Stopped ˥5 䙲 jik1 (“benefit”)

Mid High 4 Mid 3 Mid Low 2 Low 1

Tone 3 Mid Stopped ˧33 ╓ jaak3 (“to eat”) Tone 6 Mid-low Stopped ˨2 Ṏ jik6 (“also”), ˨22 ⇕ jit6 (“hot”)

Figure 1.4  Three Hong Kong Cantonese tone contours occurring on dead syllables. Note: The tone arrows depict the tone contours’ linear movements, shapes, and durations within the tone space.

However, based on the tone contours, Cantonese can be said to have six, nine, or even ten tones according to the following analysis: 1

2

Since the three 入聲 jap6 sing1 (“Entering Tone”) tone contours on syllables with the final stop consonants -p, -t, -k resemble the level tone contours on open syllables (no ending consonant) and syllables with glide endings -i and -u and nasal endings -m, -n, -ng, we can treat the tone contours on Stopped syllables as equivalent to the Tone 1 High Level, Tone 3 Mid Level, and Tone 6 Mid-low Level, and thus say that Cantonese has six tones. However, if the three 入聲 jap6 sing1 (“Entering Tone”) tone contours are regarded as separate tones, as is done in some analyses, then we can say that Cantonese has nine tones. In addition, there is a so-called 變音 bin3 jam1 (“changed tone”) with a rising tone contour (discussed in detail later) that can occur on some dead syllables; this tone could be regarded as the tenth tone.

Table 1.2 displays a variety of information about the contemporary Hong Kong Cantonese tone system; presented in this table are its contrastive tone categories, the Chinese and English names of the tone categories, the numbers of the tone categories, the tone symbols and tone values that are associated with the tone categories, and lexical items that exemplify the contrastive tones. Furthermore, Table 1.2 shows how the modern tone system has developed from the historical system of four tone categories of 平 Ping4 (“Level”), 上 Soeng5 (“Rising”), 去 Heoi3 (“Going”), and 入 Jap6 (“Entering”) that occurred in the Ancient Chinese language of ca. 7th century CE. In a section later on the origin of the Cantonese tones, we have included some additional details on how these two systems are related. In the far left column of Table 1.2 the terms 陰 Jam1 (“Upper Register”) and 陽 Joeng4 (“Lower Register”) refer to grouping the tone contours and their tone values into two sets of high (˥55, �52, �25, ˧33, ˥5, ˧3) and low (�21, �23, ˨22, ˨2) according to their relative heights as associated with the corresponding columns of tone categories to the right in Table 1.2.

The Cantonese language 23 Table 1.2 The contemporary Hong Kong Cantonese tone system: Tone categories, descriptive tone labels, tone symbols (= Chao tone letters), tone values, and lexical items that exemplify tones.

陰 Jam1 (“Upper Register”)

陽 Joeng4 (“Lower Register”)

平聲 Ping4 Sing1 (“Level Tone”)

上聲 Soeng5 Sing1 (“Rising Tone”)

去聲 Heoi3 Sing1 (“Going Tone”)

入聲 Jap6 Sing1 (“Entering Tone”)

High Level: 陰平 Jam1 Ping4 上陰平; Soeng5 Jam1 Ping4 (“High Upper Level”) 衣 ji1 ˥55 (“clothing”) 1a (Guangzhou) High Falling: 下陰平 Haa6 Jam1 Ping4 (“Low Upper Level”) 醫 ji1 �52 (“to cure”) 1b 1 Mid-Low Falling: 陽平 Joeng4 Ping4 (“Lower Level”) 疑 ji4 �21 (“suspicious”)

High Rising: 陰上 Jam1 Soeng5 (“Upper Rising”) 椅 ji2 �25 (“chair”)

Mid Level: 陰去 Jam1 Heoi3 (“Upper Going”) 意 ji3 ˧33 (“idea”)

High Stopped: 陰入 Jam1 Jap6 上陰入 Soeng5 Jam1 Jap6 (“High Upper Entering”) 益 jīk ˥5 (“benefit”) 7a 1 Mid Stopped: 下陰入 Haa6 Jam1 Jap6 Low Upper Entering 喫 jaak3 ˧33 (“to eat”)

2 4

3 2

Mid-Low Rising: 陽上 Joeng4 Soeng5 (“Lower Rising”) 耳 ji5 �23 (“ear”) 4 5

5 3

Mid-Low Level: 陽去 Joeng4 Heoi3 (“Lower Going”) 二 ji6 ˨22 (“two”) 6 6

Mid-Low Stopped: 陽入 Joeng4 Jap6 (“Lower Entering”) 亦 jik6 ˨2 (“also”)

7b 3

8 6

Note: These tone categories, descriptive tone labels, tone symbols (= Chao tone letters), tone values, and lexical items exemplify tones.

Naming tone categories The naming of the modern Cantonese tone categories follows at least two systems: (1) the traditional Chinese names are based on the descriptive names for the four historical tone categories in Ancient Chinese, as already stated earlier. (2) The English names are translations of the descriptive terms for the shapes of the tone contours.

24  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al.

Numbering tone categories The numbering of Cantonese tone categories follows two ways: (1) traditional Chinese dialectology first numbers the tone categories down the column and then up and across to the next column; in Table 1.2 these tone numbers are in regular font (and positioned above the numbers in bold font). (2) The 粵拼 Jyut6 Ping3 romanization system first numbers the tone categories across the upper columns and then down and across the lower columns; in Table 1.2 these tone numbers are in bold font. The tone values of the 入聲 Jap6 Sing1 (“Entering Tone”) categories that occur with dead syllables (with endings -p, -t, -k) closely resemble the tone values of the 1. High Level, 3. Mid Level, and 6. Mid-low Level tones that occur on the live syllables (with other endings); the three Entering tones of High Stopped, Mid Stopped, and Mid-low Stopped are therefore also numbered 1, 3, and 6, respectively.

Hong Kong high level tone vs. Guangzhou high falling tone The reader will observe that, in Table 1.2, the 陰平 Jam1 Ping4 (“Upper Level”) tone category has been subdivided into two other categories, namely 上陰平 Soeng5 Jam1 Ping4 (“High Upper Level”) 1a and 下陰平 Haa6 Jam1 Ping4 (“Low Upper Level”) 1b. The reason for this division is to reflect a difference between the Cantonese varieties of Hong Kong and Guangzhou; in Hong Kong Cantonese, only the High Level tone occurs; however, in Guangzhou among older, educated Cantonese speakers both the High Level and High Falling tones occur, with the former functioning as a so-called 變音 bin3 jam1 (“changed tone”) that marks concrete nouns and the latter as the default tone (in some versions of the Yale romanization system that use diacritics as tone symbols, this distinction may be made). In a later section, we will have more to say about the changed tone.

Origin of the Cantonese tone system The contemporary Cantonese system has evolved from the historical tone system of Ancient Chinese (ca. 6th–7th century CE) which had four tone categories that were named Ping 平 ping4 (“Even”), Shang 上 soeng5 (“Rising”), Qu 去 heoi3 (“Going”), and Ru 入 jap6 (“Entering”). Table 1.3 displays these four tone categories of Ancient Chinese. What is the relationship between the contemporary Cantonese tone system and the historical tone system of Ancient Chinese? The answer to this question lies in some early sound changes that occurred in Cantonese and that influenced the development of its tone system. In Ancient Chinese (ca. 700 CE, Sui–Tang dynasties) a major sound change caused syllables that originally had voiced stop and affricate initial consonants to lose their voicing and become voiceless; for example, the voiced bilabial stop initial b- became voiceless bilabial stop p-; as a result of this devoicing sound change, the number of Cantonese tone categories doubled from the historical four tone categories to eight (for details about the

The Cantonese language 25 Table 1.3 The historical four tone categories of Ancient Chinese with some representative Chinese characters 平聲 Ping4 Sing1 (“Level”)

上聲 Soeng5 Sing1 (“Rising”)

去聲 Heoi3 Sing1 (“Going”)

入聲 Jap6 Sing1 (“Entering”)

衣 醫 疑

椅 耳

意 二

益 亦

Table 1.4 Tonal assimilation: High Level ˥55 tone occurring on first syllable of a bisyllabic word can cause the second tone to change to High Level ˥55 Reading pronunciation with original basic tone: 今晚 gam1 maan5 聽晚 ting1 maan5 挨晚 aai1 maan5 孻尾 laai1 mei5 後尾 hau6/1 mei5 收尾 sau1 mei5

Colloquial pronunciation with assimilated changed tone ˥55:      

gam1 maan5/1 (“tonight”) ting1 maan5/1 (“tomorrow night”) aai1 maan5/1 (“evening”) laai1 mei5/1 (“last one”) hau6/1 mei5/1 (“finally, in the end”) sau1 mei5/1 (“finally, in the end”)

historical development of the contemporary Cantonese tone system from the original four tone categories of Ancient Chinese, the reader is referred to Bauer and Benedict, 1997, pp. 154–156).

Cantonese 變音 (“changed tones”) Under certain conditions, some Cantonese tones can change their tone values. This kind of tone change is called a changed tone, of which there are two kinds: (1) 變調 bin3 diu6 (“tonal assimilation”) and (2) 變音 bin3 jam1 (“morphological changed tone”). 1

2

Tonal assimilation 變調 bin3 diu6: This tone change is phonetic in origin and results from the tonal environment. The change in the tone value does not affect the meanings of the words. This kind of change is also called tone sandhi 連接變調 lin4 zip3 bin3 diu6. If in certain bisyllabic words one of the tones is High Level ˥55, then the other tone can assimilate (or sandhi) to become High Level (see Table 1.4). Morphological changed tone 變音 bin3 jam1: This kind of tone change affects word meaning by deriving new or different meanings for words. The original tone is changed to either High Rising �25 or High Level ˥55 to indicate that the word belongs to the colloquial language. More importantly, these changed tones (the tone contours of which are phonetically identical to those of the regular High Rising �25 and High Level ˥55 tones) derive

26  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. a new meaning for the word which usually functions as a concrete noun, or they give a special meaning to the word to indicate that it refers to something familiar or common. The change of the original (or basic) tone to High Rising �25 derives concrete nouns with meanings that are related to those of the original Chinese characters (words) (see Table 1.5). The change of the original tone to High Level ˥55 changed tone also derives words with new meanings or additional meanings (see Table 1.6).

Three distinctive features of the Hong Kong Cantonese tone system To wind up our analysis of Cantonese tones, we cite the following three features of the Hong Kong Cantonese tone system that we believe make it particularly distinctive: 1

In Cantonese the four tone categories of the historical Ancient Chinese tone system (ca. 700 CE, Sui–Tang dynasties) have split into two registers of 陰 Jam1 (“upper”) and 陽 Joeng4 (“lower”), which correspond to the historical

Table 1.5 Morphological changed tone: High Rising �25 changed tone deriving a concrete noun with meaning related to the original Chinese character Reading pronunciation with original basic tone 袋 doi6 (“bag”) 繩 sing4 (“string”) 皮 pei4 (“skin”) 相 soeng3 (“looks”) 蛋 daan6 (“egg”)

Colloquial pronunciation with morphological High Rising �25 changed tone doi6/2 (“bag”) sing4/2 (“string”) pei4/2 (“leather”) soeng3/2 (“photograph”) daan6/2 (“egg”), 雞蛋 gai1 daan6/2 (“chicken egg”)

    

Table 1.6 Morphological changed tone: High Level ˥55 changed tone deriving a word with new or additional meaning in relation to that of the original Chinese character Reading pronunciation with original basic tone 妹 mui6 (“younger sister”) + 仔 zai2 (“noun suffix”) 靚 leng3 (“pretty”) + 妹 mui6 (“younger sister”) 靚 leng3 (“pretty”) + 仔 zai2 (“son”) 尾 mei5 (“tail, end”) 毛 mou4 (“hair”)

Colloquial pronunciation with changed tone ˥55 

妹仔 mui6/1 zai2 (“maidservant”)



靚妹 leng3/1 mui6/1 (“young girl”)



靚仔 leng3/1 zai2 (“young boy”)

 

手指尾 sau2 zi2 mei5/1 (“little finger”) 眼挹毛 ngaan5 jap1 mou4/1 (“eyelashes”)

The Cantonese language 27

2

contrast of voiceless and voiced, respectively, initial consonants in Ancient Chinese. For syllables that are the literary readings of the standard Chinese characters that belong to 入聲 Jap6 Sing1 (“Entering Tone”), the 陰入 Jam1 Jap6 (“Upper Entering”) tone category has further split into two subcategories of 上陰入 soeng5 jam1 jap6 (“High Upper Entering”) and 下陰入 haa6 jam1 jap6 (“Low Upper Entering”). This development has been conditioned by the syllable’s vowel length as follows: a

Syllables with short vowels belong to 上陰入 soeng5 jam1 jap6 (“High Upper Entering”) and carry the High Stopped tone ˥5. b Syllables with long vowels belong to 下陰入 haa6 jam1 jap6 (“Low Upper Entering”) and carry the Mid Stopped tone ˧33.

3 The 變音 bin3 jam1 (“changed tone”) functions as a productive morphological device for word derivation.

Cantonese phonetic variation and 懶音 (“lazy pronunciation”) In our survey of Cantonese phonology so far, we have mainly focused the reader’s attention on the standard pronunciation of consonants, vowels, rimes, and tones. However, one especially noteworthy feature of the Hong Kong Cantonese speech community is the phenomenon of phonetic variation, which affects every component of the syllable. This is to say, in addition to the regular, standard pronunciations of certain words, there can also be alternative, commonly used pronunciations that are considered to be non-standard; these variant forms are stigmatized by language experts (some of whom are self-appointed) as 懶音 laan5 jam1 (“lazy pronunciation”), which is the object of correction by school teachers and others concerned about maintaining and promoting standard Cantonese pronunciation. Interestingly enough, from the point of view of a linguist, this so-called “lazy pronunciation” may indeed be motivated by the speaker’s subconscious attempt to save both time and articulatory effort by eliding sounds or replacing them with other sounds (in articulatory phonetics speakers saving articulatory effort are said to be following the Principle of Least Effort, or Principle of (Maximum) Ease of Articulation, Ladefoged, 2006, p. 262). For example, words that are pronounced with the labialized velar initial consonants gw- and kw- in standard Cantonese can be heard more often pronounced with the corresponding delabialized (or plain) velars g- and k- when they occur before the back round vowel – o- in the speech of many Hong Kong speakers (the same is true for speakers of other Yue varieties); for instance, 廣州話 gwong2 zau1 waa6/2 (“Cantonese speech”) is more frequently pronounced as gong2 zau1 waa6/2, so that the first Chinese character 廣 now rhymes with 講 gong2 (“to speak”); by not rounding the lips when producing the velar initial, the speaker does indeed save the effort needed to tense and round the lips (the speaker may also feel the articulatory gesture of lip-rounding is redundant and hence unnecessary, when these consonants are followed by the round vowel -o-, which is also produced with rounded lips). We observe that variation and change of the labialized velar initials

28  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. gw- and kw- to plain velars g- and k- when they occur before -o- have affected all characters that belong to this same lexical class of gwo(C) and kwo(C), where (C) represents a possible final consonant, e.g. 果 gwo2, 過 gwo3, 光 gwong1, 廣 gwong2, 國gwok3, 曠 kwong3, 狂 kwong4, 郭 kwok3, etc. We should note that for many speakers the non-standard variants have become completed sound changes. Table 1.7 lists a number of variations and changes that affect initial and final consonants, nuclear vowels, syllabic consonants, and tones. Table 1.7  Phonetic variations and changes in Hong Kong Cantonese   1 Labialized velar initial consonant varies with or changes to delabialized (plain) velar (delabialization): gw- ~/  g-/oC, kw- ~/  k-/oC (C = either final consonant -ng or -k): • • • • •

過 gwo3 (“to go across”) ~/ go3 光 gwong1 (“bright”) ~/ gong1 國 gwok3 (“nation, country”) ~/ gok3 狂 kwong4 (“crazy; violent”) ~/ kong4 郭 kwok3 (“outer wall of city; surname”) ~/ kok3

  2 Alveolar nasal varies with or changes to lateral approximant: n- ~/ l• •

你 nei5 (“you”) ~/ lei5 男 naam4 (“male”) ~/ laam4

  3 Voiceless velar stop varies with or changes to glottal fricative: k- ~/ h•

佢 keoi5 (“he, she, it”) ~/ heoi5   (only this one word)

  4 Velar nasal varies with or changes to zero initial: ng- ~/ 0 (zero) •

我 ngo5 (“I”) ~/ o5

  5 Zero initial varies with or changes to velar nasal initial: 0- ~/ ng•

愛 oi3 (“love”) ~/ ngoi3

  6 Velar nasal syllabic varies with or changes to bilabial nasal syllabic (bilabialization): ng ~/ m • •

五 ng5 (“five”) ~/ m5 吳 ng4 (“surname”) ~/ m4

  7 Velar nasal ending varies with or changes to alveolar nasal ending (alveolarization): – ng ~/ -n (a) -aang ~/ -aan •

橙 caang4/2 (“orange (fruit)”) ~/ caan4/2

(b) -ang ~/ -an •

燈 dang1 (“lamp”) ~/ dan1

(c) -ong ~/ -on •

光 gwong1 (“bright”) ~/ gon1

(d) -oeng ~/ -oen •

香 hoeng1 (“fragrant”) ~/ hoen1

(e) -eng ~/ -en •

聽 teng1 (“listen”) ~/ ten1

  8 Velar stop ending varies with or changes to alveolar stop ending – t (alveolarization) or weakens further to glottal stop -Ɂ: (a) -aak ~/ -aat/-aaɁ •

百 baak3 (“hundred”)

~/ baat3 / baaɁ3

(b) -ak ~/ -at/-a/ •

北 bak1 (“north”)

~/ bat1 / baɁ1

(c) – ek ~/ -et/-e/ •

石 sek6 (“rock, stone”)

~/ set6 / seɁ6

(d) -oek ~/ -oet/-oe/ •

腳 goek3 (“foot, leg”)

~/ goet3 / goeɁ3

(e) – ok ~/ -ot/-o/ •

角 gok3 (“horn; corner”) ~/ got3 / goɁ3

  9 The rimes of some high frequency words vary with or change to other rimes: (a) -i ~/ -ei (diphthongization): •

呢個 ni1 go3 (“this”) ~/ lei1 go3

(b) -ai ~/ -ei •

嚟 lai4 (“to come”) ~/> lei4

10 Certain tones vary with or change to certain other tones: (a) High Level Tone 1 ˥55 ~/ High Falling Tone �52 •

山 saan1 (“hill”) ~/ saan�52

(b) High Rising Tone 2 �25 ~/ Mid-Low Rising Tone 5 �23 •

椅 ji2 (“chair”) ~/ ji5

(c) Mid-Low Rising Tone 5 �23 ~/ High Rising Tone 2 �25 •

耳 ji5 (“ear”)

~/ ji2

(d) Mid Level 3 ˧33 ~/ Mid-Low Rising 5 �23 •

試 si3 (“try”)

~/ 考試 haau2 si5 (“test; to take a test”)

30  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al.

CanSL learners’ need to understand differences between Cantonese and their L1s Lastly, since much more could be said about Cantonese phonology, we recommend interested readers consult the following references for detailed analyses with explanatory examples: (Bauer and Benedict, 1997; Matthews and Yip, 2011, chapter 1; Bauer, 2016a, 124–131, 2016b; Bauer and Matthews, 2017, pp. 169–184). We believe it can be helpful to CanSL learners to understand how the phonemes and phoneme combinations that occur in their own first languages (L1) compare with the corresponding Cantonese sounds. The examples given earlier (mostly for English) are only a few of many possible differences. Ideally, teachers and language material designers should take the time to learn the key differences in relation to the target learners’ L1s, as in some cases they will be unfamiliar to the teacher or material designer. Most CanSL language materials have been designed for either English or Mandarin speakers, but there are a large number of South Asian immigrants in Hong Kong who would benefit from having language materials that are designed with their L1s in mind. Bauer (this volume) and Wee (this volume) talk about some of the contrasts between the Mandarin and Cantonese sound systems, including the tones, which will be very helpful to CanSL learners who already speak Mandarin and want to exploit the knowledge they already have. For Japanese speakers, Kataoka (this volume) contrasts many aspects of Japanese with Cantonese, focusing on the similarities. Chor (this volume) talks about the need for designing materials that are specifically aimed at South Asian CanSL learners and offers some suggestions for how to go about doing so.

Cantonese grammar It would of course be impossible for this single chapter to cover all of the remarkable features of Cantonese grammar. However, we selectively focus our readers’ attention on some salient grammatical features that we believe learners and teachers will be interested in learning more about. For readers who want detailed analyses of Cantonese grammar, we recommend Matthews and Yip (2011), and those who read Chinese can additionally refer to Cheung (2007) and Tang (2015). Just as we explained for the Cantonese sound system, we believe students and teachers will benefit from knowing some key contrasts between Cantonese grammar and grammars of the learners’ L1(s). One particularly interesting feature of Cantonese word order is the double-object construction, which is found in sentences that include a ditransitive verb. The example in (1) is taken from an advertisement on the internet site for Easy Pama: (1) 好多家長朋友都會問幾歲先應該畀零用錢小朋友。 Hou2 very do1 many

do1 gaa1 zoeng2 many parents seoi3 sin1. . . years first

pang4 jau5 friend

dou1 also

wui5 will

man6 ask

gei2 how

The Cantonese language 31  . . .  jing1 goi1 bei2 ling4 jung6 cin2 siu2 pang4 jau5 should give pocket-money children “Many parents ask how old children should be before we give them pocket money”. (http://www.easypama.com.hk/nurturing/art/20180716/21442/ retrieved March 15, 2019) The underlined portion of the Cantonese and English versions of this sentence use a different word order. The Cantonese word order is verb, direct object, indirect object: 畀零用錢小朋友 bei2 ling4 jung6 cin2 siu2 pang4 jau5 (glossed as: “give pocket money children”). In contrast, the order of the English translation is verb, indirect object, direct object: “give them pocket money”. Interestingly, Mandarin double-object constructions use the same word order as English. In contrast to the double-object construction, a major portion of the grammatical features of Cantonese are shared with Mandarin and other Chinese languages, and this gives both L1 and L2 speakers of Chinese languages an advantage for learning Cantonese grammar (as well as vocabulary). But of course, such learners should be careful to note all the differences, and ideally teachers should be able to point these differences out. Additional aspects of Cantonese grammar that are worth focusing attention on in the classroom are discussed in the following sections.

Adverbials The position of adverbials of time, place, and manner normally go between the subject and the verb and virtually never follow an object. Consider the following sentence: (2) 我哋琴日喺旺角睇戲。 Ngo5 dei6 kam4 jat6 hai2 Wong6 gok3 tai2 hei3. we yesterday at Mongkok see movie “We watched a movie in Mongkok yesterday”. Note the word order shown in the English glosses. The adverbial of time (i.e. 琴日 kam4 jat6 (“yesterday”)) and the adverbial of place (i.e. 喺旺角 hai2 Wong6 gok3 (“in Mongkok”)) appear between the subject and the verb in Cantonese, but follow the object in English. There is some flexibility in both English and Cantonese as to where adverbials can go (e.g. sometimes at the front of the sentence), but the two languages cannot exchange the two contrasting positions shown in (2).

Topic-comment constructions Topic-comment constructions are very common in Cantonese. More types of these constructions are allowed in Cantonese than in English. In English, topicalization

32  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. is limited to moving a grammatical constituent, usually the object, to the front of the sentence. And because this is not so common in English, it is typically done in a contrastive manner. For example, if someone says, “I heard you don’t like apples”, you might respond by saying, “No, apples I like. It’s oranges I don’t like”. The first sentence is now a topic-comment sentence. The object “apples” has moved to the front of the sentence to become the “topic”, and the subject-verb, i.e. “I like”, forms the “comment” that says something about the topic. The topic-comment type of sentence occurs with such frequency in the Chinese languages that they are classified as topic-prominent languages; this is in contrast to English, which is subject-prominent. CanSL learners must therefore get used to understanding and producing topic-comment sentences. Many of them, if translated directly into English, are not grammatical because they are not simply the result of a constituent having moved to the front of the sentence. Consider this example: (3) 錢我幫你唔到嘞。 Cin2 ngo2 bong1 nei5 m4 dou2 laak3. money I help you NEG PRT SFP “As far as money’s concerned, I can’t help you”. (Matthews and Yip, 2011, p. 86) Note that the topic is 錢 cin2 (“money”) and the comment is 我幫你唔到 ngo5 bong1 nei5 m4 dou2 (“I can’t help you”). In this case there is no position in the comment where the topic can be seen as having moved from. It is neither the object nor an adverbial, and it therefore does not translate directly into English (i.e. “*Money, I can’t help you” is not grammatical, as indicated by the*). The best way to translate this is shown in the translation of (3), where “money” is placed inside a prepositional phrase. In sentences like these, the relationship between the topic and the comment has to be figured out pragmatically, which can be confusing to CanSL learners, especially in the beginning stages, unless their L1 is also a topic-prominent language.

Null subjects and objects The presence of null (i.e. unpronounced) subjects and objects, and the people or things to which they refer, must be understood pragmatically. This is similar to the need to figure out pragmatically who or what any given pronoun refers to, but in this case, the pronoun is silent. In English if someone asks, “Where’s David?”, one could respond “He left”, but could not normally just say “Left”. Cantonese, in contrast, allows for the pronoun to be optionally silent: “(佢)走 咗啦” (Keoi5) zau2 zo2 laa3 (“(He) left”). (Note that 啦 laa3 is an optional sentence-final particle (SFP) that marks the completion of the event.) Now consider the example in (4), which is said in response to someone asking when the speaker will return her book to the library.

The Cantonese language 33 (4) 琴日已經還咗啦。 Kam4 jat6 ji5 ging1 waan4 zo2 laa3. yesterday already return PERF SFP “(I) already returned (it) yesterday”. As indicated with parentheses in the English translation of (4), the subject and object are not included in this Cantonese sentence. It would sound perfectly normal to include the subject pronoun (i.e. 我ngo5 (“I”)), but it would sound odd to include an object pronoun to refer to the inanimate object. The pronoun keoi5 can refer to “he”, “she”, or “it”, but is only used to refer to “it” in rare and special circumstances.

Right dislocation Right dislocation refers to when a word or phrase from within the sentence is moved to the end of the sentence, following the SFP if one is included. Here is an example: (5) 冇料到嘅，本書。 Mou5 liu6/2 dou3 ge2, bun2 syu1. NEG-substance SFP CL book “Pretty vacuous, that book”. (Matthews and Yip, 2011, p. 82) In this case the subject 本書 bun2 syu1 (“that book”) appears at the end of the sentence, after the SFP 嘅 ge2. Notice that the English translation uses right dislocation and that it is also grammatical. The difference is that this is done much more often in Cantonese and for many more types of grammatical constituents – even for multiple constituents at once. Unlike the example in (5), this next example cannot translate into English using right dislocation. (6) 好快做完㗎喇，應該。 Hou2 faai3 zou6 jyun4 gaa3 laa3, jing1 goi1. very fast do finish SFP SFP should “(subject) should be finished very soon”. (Matthews and Yip, 2011, p. 264) We note in this example that the subject is missing, and so it must be identified based on the discourse context. We also note that in Cantonese the subject could occur at the front of the entire sentence or it could occur in front of the modal auxiliary “should” at the end of the sentence. In either case, the result is an ungrammatical word order in English. The two sentences “*We be finished very soon, should” and “*Be finished very soon, we should” are both ungrammatical in English.

34  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al.

Sentence-final particles One more aspect of Cantonese grammar worth discussing here is SFPs, which are a ubiquitous feature of colloquial speech, especially informal speech. SFPs are bound morphemes that attach to the ends of sentences (or sentence fragments). They express meanings similar to those expressed by discourse intonation (Wakefield, 2012, 2014). Probably all languages have sentence-final particles; most varieties of English, for example, use sentence-final “huh”, and Canadian English uses the well-known particle “eh”. Chinese languages all have significant numbers of SFPs, which is arguably because they distinguish lexical tones and are thus constrained in how they use intonation. Mandarin has roughly 11 SFPs (Shei, 2014, p. 206), but this is relatively few compared to Cantonese, which has more than 30 SFPs, and which uses discourse intonation to a lesser degree than both English and Mandarin. All CanSL learners must learn to suppress the use of intonation from their L1, and instead learn to express such meanings through other means (i.e. words, vowel lengthening, and/or SFPs) in the way that nativeCantonese speakers do. Teaching the forms and functions of connotative meaning is probably the language teacher’s most challenging task, especially when dealing with students who speak an L1 with which the teacher is not familiar. The linguistic examples given in (7) and (8) complement examples (1) and (2) given in Wakefield (this volume), which are also related to intonation. All of these examples demonstrate how the intonational system of a learner’s L1 (in this case English) might cause problems for a CanSL learner. The context of (7) and (8) is a wife asking her husband which dress he likes better, the red one or the blue one. The husband tells her he likes the blue one, but then the wife’s mobile phone rings. After she finishes talking on the phone, she again asks her husband whether he likes the red or the blue dress better. Before the phone call, he had already told her he likes the blue dress better, so he thinks she should already know that he likes the blue dress better. He therefore includes this connotative meaning, i.e. “you should know this”, in his response. In English, as shown in (7), this connotative meaning is expressed with a high-falling pitch on the word within the sentence that would get prominent stress if the sentence carried neutral intonation. In Cantonese, as shown in (8), this meaning is expressed with the SFP 囉 lo1 that carries the High Level tone and functions as an evidential particle of obviousness: (7) The blue one! [with a high-falling pitch on “blue”] (8) 藍色囉! Laam4sik1 lo1! blue LO “The blue one!” An English-speaking learner of Cantonese will be tempted to pronounce laam4sik1 using the High and Mid Level tones laam1sik3, which is the result of using what sounds like a high-falling pitch across the word. This will seem meaningful in the mind of the CanSL speaker, but the system of Cantonese intonation does

The Cantonese language 35 not include a discourse tone with this meaning, so native-Cantonese speakers, especially those with lower levels of English, will only hear and interpret this as a mistake in the pronunciation of the lexical tones. Learners whose L1s are not English will likewise be inclined to use the intonation of their native languages on their L2 Cantonese. Being aware of this is the first step towards making the conscious effort to avoid doing it. In combination with suppressing this urge to use L1 intonation, CanSL learners must then learn how to express those same meanings in Cantonese. In the example just given, the learner must switch from using a high-falling pitch to using the SFP 囉 lo1 with High Level tone (see Wakefield, this volume, for another example). Yip and Matthews (2001) have observed that SFPs are perhaps the most difficult aspect for CanSL speakers to learn and that they are probably best learned through use, as opposed to explanation. Having said that, they still devoted a very informative chapter to explaining SFPs to learners, and included a number of exercises for practice. It should be very helpful to students if teachers could expand on this effort by creating learning materials for teaching SFPs in an effective manner.

Written Cantonese It should come as no surprise to the reader to learn that the Cantonese language has its own written form; after all, authors of Cantonese textbooks must write down on the page Cantonese texts, and they typically do this with romanization plus the corresponding Chinese characters. If there is just one characteristic that makes the Hong Kong Cantonese language unique, special, and remarkably different among all other regional Chinese varieties, then that would be Hong Kong’s written Cantonese language, which can be found widely used in publications of various kinds, including newspapers, advertisements, magazines, comic books, personal letters, government public notices and posters, etc. Written Cantonese is primarily a Hong Kong phenomenon; based on the first author’s personal observations, written Cantonese seems not to be in common use in Guăngzhōu, as only the odd, scattered example can be found there. Hong Kong can be said to have essentially two kinds of literacy in the Chinese language, namely modern standard written Chinese and written Cantonese. Cheung and Bauer (2002, pp. 1–2) have characterized written Cantonese as follows: writing in Cantonese, viz., transcribing a text with standard and nonstandard Chinese characters, and even letters of the English alphabet, as if it had been spoken or was to be read by a Cantonese speaker. Today written Cantonese is a uniquely Hong Kong phenomenon: Nowhere else can one now observe on the same scale as in Hong Kong the widespread use of a form of written Chinese that has been so strongly influenced by the local Chinese variety and in so many different domains of written language.

36  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. As just pointed out, Cantonese writers combine together standard Chinese characters, non-standard Cantonese characters, and even letters of the English alphabet to write down the vocabulary and grammar of Cantonese speakers’ utterances; this process has been aptly and succinctly expressed in Chinese as 我手寫我口 ngo5 sau2 se2 ngo5 hau2 (“my hand writes my mouth”). As for why Cantonese speakers feel motivated to transcribe their speech, Cheung and Bauer (2002, p. 4) made the following observation: [W]riting in Cantonese is perceived by writers and readers as conveying the writer’s message with a greater degree of informality, directness, intimacy, friendliness, casualness, freedom, modernity, and authenticity than writing it in standard Chinese, which is the formal language the Hong Kong Cantonese-speaker learns to read and write in school, but its spoken counterpart s/he does not ordinarily use when speaking with coworkers, friends, and family members. Writing the Cantonese language has its own special problems that still require satisfactory solution, because written Cantonese has never been standardized. It is well known that Cantonese and Mandarin are two mutually unintelligible Chinese varieties, that is, a Cantonese speaker and a Mandarin speaker cannot understand what each other is saying even in simple conversation, and this phenomenon is due in large part to their major differences in vocabulary. Completely different but semantically equivalent lexical items, as well as differences in the usages, meanings, and collocations of identical words that are shared by both Cantonese and Mandarin have created the need for the publication of Cantonese–Mandarin dictionaries and glossaries over the years. Although written Cantonese is based on conventions that have been accumulated over the years, nonetheless, the lack of any formal standardization means that one Cantonese word can have two or more different written forms. Snow’s (2004) book on written Cantonese is recommended for readers interested in a detailed description of the subject. Bauer (this volume) and Guest (this volume) both discuss the advantages of taking on the challenging task of learning to read Cantonese in addition to learning to speak it. Lastly, in regard to teaching written Cantonese, we draw attention to Christensen (this volume) and Chan (this volume) who both discuss issues related to teaching Cantonese literacy, that is, how to read and write Cantonese speech; the former chapter is in relation to adult CanFL learners in America, and the latter in relation to children CanSL learners in Hong Kong.

The future of the Hong Kong Cantonese language Due to the prestigious position of Putonghua as China’s language of national unification, its practicality as the national and regional lingua franca, and its increasing use as the medium of instruction in Hong Kong schools, we must frankly recognize that any threat to the future survival of the Cantonese language

The Cantonese language 37 in Hong Kong comes from Putonghua. Furthermore, based on our conversations with Cantonese speakers, along with our reading of publications focused on the future of Cantonese that have appeared in the past few years, we sense that the Hong Kong community feels genuinely apprehensive that at some point down the road Putonghua could replace Cantonese as Hong Kong’s predominant spoken language. In considering how Cantonese will fare into the future, let us first examine the most recently available facts about the Cantonese-speaking population in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong 2016 By-Census inquired into what languages people ordinarily speak in their daily lives. Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2017) has provided us with its most recent findings that indicate Cantonese is spoken as the “usual, daily language” by 88.9 percent of Hong Kong’s ethnic Chinese population who are aged 5 years and older; by including people who speak Cantonese as another linguistic variety, then 94.6 percent of Hong Kong’s residents, numbering just over 7 million, are Cantonese speakers. So, very clearly we must acknowledge at the present time the Hong Kong Cantonese language fares well as far as the total population of speakers is concerned. Liu (2017), who reports for the BBC, has accurately observed that “Cantonese may not entirely enjoy the ‘prestige’ of a national language, but it is quite important – and indispensable for anyone living and working in Hong Kong”. We quite agree with Liu’s observations and would also point out that based on our own personal experiences with and observations of Cantonese speakers over the past decades, we firmly believe that Cantonese speakers not only in Hong Kong, but also in overseas communities where it is spoken, regard their language as holding much prestige as a major regional Chinese variety. In 2015 researchers from the University of Hong Kong conducted a telephonesurvey on Hong Kong’s languages; they discovered that some Hongkongers perceive that Cantonese has already become an endangered language. Participants in the survey were asked the question, How seriously endangered is Cantonese at present? About one-quarter or 23.1 percent of those surveyed responded with Not at all. However, it was revealed that a total of 77 percent of the respondents believed that the language was endangered: 31.8 percent replied a little, 30.1 percent indicated moderately, 11.7 percent said a lot, and 3.4 percent said critically (Bacon-Shone, Bolton, and Luke, 2015, p. 27). In considering the future state of Cantonese in Hong Kong, we may discover a portent of the future fate of Hong Kong Cantonese by looking north to its current poor state of health in Guăngzhōu; simply put, Cantonese there may be the harbinger of things to come for Hong Kong. There is no question that in Guăngzhōu the Cantonese language has fallen into steep decline and has become essentially marginalized, as some years ago it disappeared from official domains and the schools. As reported by He (2018), what has caused much alarm for some Cantonese speakers about the fate of Cantonese in Guăngzhōu is that [i]ncreasing numbers of Guăngzhōu primary school pupils are now reportedly refusing to speak to their parents and grandparents in their mother

38  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. tongue. Not only have they become accustomed to speaking Mandarin at school, but they can even face punishment if they are caught speaking Cantonese in the classroom or playground. Let us conclude by observing that in Hong Kong the Cantonese language is thriving. However, it conceivably could become endangered within a few generations due to the increasing numbers of schoolchildren learning their lessons through Putonghua; sadly, this means that it could eventually even die out. We also need to consider how Hong Kong’s increasing integration and assimilation with mainland China would seem to imply the ascendancy of Putonghua and the decline of Cantonese in Hong Kong. Recently, the Pearl River Delta, the regional home of the Cantonese language and its related varieties, was dubbed the Greater Bay Area by Chinese mainland government officials; it is now being promoted as an integrated economic scheme for increasing Hong Kong’s links to mainland China.6 It is reasonable to query, how will this scheme for increased economic and social integration impact the development of the Hong Kong Cantonese language? While the ultimate fate of Cantonese may seem to be potentially bleak, we should stress that even under the worst-case scenario there will still be a significant number of speakers over the next few generations, enough so that learning CanSL or CanFL would by no means be a waste of one’s time and effort. In fact, we encourage people to learn it, and we believe that this can potentially even play a part in its preservation. If native-Cantonese speakers see that a large number of people value Cantonese enough to learn it, this will likely influence their own sense of pride in being Cantonese speakers, which in turn should increase the likelihood that they will want their children speak it. Matthews and Yip (2018) concluded that the key to maintaining Cantonese is, ultimately, the practice of parents speaking it to their children. In light of this, we hope that more and more people will choose to learn Cantonese as a second language and that this will in turn inspire native Cantonese-speaking parents to pass on their language to the next generation.

Notes 1 www.ethnologue.com/language/zho 2 www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/facts.htm (accessed February 14, 2017) 3 https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/student-parents/ncs-students/about-ncs-students/ index.html (accessed March 14, 2019) 4 www.ethnologue.com/language/yue. Bauer regards this estimate as highly dubious, given the highly successful but historically heavy-handed promotion of Putonghua in mainland China. As far as we know, Ethnologue’s population for Yue speakers has not been based on any kind of specific survey. 5 Some language educators in Hong Kong take a prescriptivist stance on this issue and think that this particular aspect of language change, along with others, should be changed back to the original pronunciation. They would therefore probably not teach CanSL learners that the initial -ng is optional. However, we don’t see any good reason for adopting this prescriptive stance.

The Cantonese language 39 6 www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/2147478/ greater-bay-area-leader-calls-guangdong-province

English bibliography Bacon-Shone, J., Bolton, K. and Luke, K. K. (2015). Language use, proficiency and attitudes in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Social Sciences Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Bauer, R. S. (1988). Written Cantonese of Hong Kong. Cahiers de Linguistique – Asie Orientale, XVII(2), 245–293. Bauer, R. S. (1996). Identifying the Tai substratum in Cantonese. In Proceedings of the fourth international symposium on languages and linguistics, Pan-Asiatic linguistics (Vol. V, pp. 1806–1844). Bangkok: Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University at Salaya, Thailand. Bauer, R. S. (2000). Hong Kong Cantonese and the road ahead. In D. C. S. Li, A. Lin, and W. K. Tsang (Eds.), Language and education in postcolonial Hong Kong (pp. 35–58). Hong Kong: Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. Bauer, R. S. (2005). Two 19th century missionaries’ contributions to historical Cantonese phonology. In G. P. Smith and S. Matthews (Eds.), Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, Special Issue, Chinese Pidgin English: Texts and Contexts 十九 世紀廣東番話: 原文及背景, 10(1), 21–46. Bauer, R. S. (2006a). The stratification of English loanwords in Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 34(2), 172–191. Bauer, R. S. (2006b). The Cantonese script. In F. Bottéro and R. Djamouri (Eds.), Écriture chinoise Données, usages et représentations (pp. 167–183). Paris: Centre de Recherche Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale, Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Bauer, R. S. (2010). The graphemic representation of English loanwords in Cantonese. 載張洪年 In H. S. Cheung and 張雙慶 S. H. Chang (Eds.), 《歷時演變 與語言接觸 – 中國東南方言, Diachronic change and language contact – dialects in South East China》. Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph (Series Number 24, pp. 227–246). Hong Kong: Chinese University Press of Hong Kong. Bauer, R. S. (2015). The Hong Kong speech community’s Cantonese and other languages. Global Chinese, 1(1), 27–55. Bauer, R. S. (2016a). The Hong Kong Cantonese language: Current features and future prospects. Global Chinese, 2(2), 115–161. Bauer, R. S. (2016b). Cantonese colloquial rimes, syllables, and tones. In A. C. Chin, B. Kwok, and B. K. Tsou (Eds.), Commemorative essays for Professor Yuen Ren Chao: Father of modern Chinese linguistics, 現代漢語語言學之父 – 趙元任先生生紀 念論文集 (pp. 39–63). Taibei: Crane 文鶴出版有限公司. Bauer, R. S. (2017). The ABC Cantonese dictionary [ABC粵語英語詞典]. Retrieved from https://wenlin.co/wow/Project:Jyut Bauer, R. S. (2018). Cantonese as written language in Hong Kong 香港書面粵語. Global Chinese, 4(1), 103–142. Bauer, R. S., and Benedict, P. K. (1997). Modern Cantonese phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bauer, R. S., and Cheung, K. H. (2005). Database of Cantonese words derived through diminutive bianyin 粵語小稱變音詞語派生的詞彙. 載鄧景濱. In J. Deng

40  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. (Ed.),《第九屆國際粵方言研討會論文集》[Proceedings from the 9th international Yue dialects conference (2003)] (pp. 174–179). 澳門: 澳門中國語文學會 Macau: Macau Chinese Language Association. Bauer, R. S., and Matthews, S. (2017). Cantonese. In G. Thurgood and R. LaPolla (Eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages (Revised 2nd ed., pp. 169–184). London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Bolton, K. (2011). Language policy and planning in Hong Kong: Colonial and postcolonial perspectives. Applied Linguistics Review, 2, 51–74. Chambers, J. K. (1997). Sociolinguistic theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Chao, Y-R. 趙元任 (1947). Cantonese primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cheung, K. H., and Bauer, R. S. (2002). The representation of Cantonese with Chinese characters. Journal of Chinese linguistics. Monograph Series. Number 18. Berkeley: Journal of Chinese Linguistics. Ethnologue, Languages of the World (2018). Chinese Yue. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://www.ethnologue.com/language/yue He, H. (2018, October 21). Meet the Cantonese activist fighting to keep the language alive in its southern Chinese heartland. South China Morning Post. Retrieved from www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2169520/meet-cantonese-acti vist-fighting-keep-language-alive-its-southern Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2017) 2016 Population By-census. Table A107 population aged 5 and over by usual language and year, and table A111 proportion of population aged 5 and over by able to speak selected languages/ dialects and year. Retrieved from www.bycensus2016.gov.hk/en/bc-mt.html Hutton, C., and Bolton, K. (2005). A dictionary of Cantonese slang. London: Hurst & Company. Kataoka, S., and Lee, Y. C. (2008). A system without a system: Cantonese romanization used in Hong Kong place and personal names. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(1), 79–98. Kataoka, S., and Lee, Y. C. (2014). Putonghua Cantonese English converter, the Cantonese words you need today. Hong Kong: Greenwood Press. Kwok, H. (1984). Sentence particles in Cantonese. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies. Ladefoged, P. (2006). A course in phonetics. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth. Lau, S. 劉錫祥. (1977). A practical Cantonese–English dictionary 實用粵英詞典. Hong Kong: The Government Printer. Lee, Y. C., and Choi, M. H. (2003). CantonEase: A practical guide to mastering Cantonese sounds and tones. Hong Kong: Greenwood Press. Lee, Y. C., and Kataoka, S. (2004). Fun with Cantonese: Sounds and tones. Hong Kong: Greenwood Press. Li, D. C. S. (2001). Phonetic borrowing: Key to the vitality of written Cantonese in Hong Kong. Written Language & Literacy, 3(2), 199–213. Liu, J. (2017, June 29). Cantonese v Mandarin: When Hong Kong languages get political. BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-40406429 Mair, V. (2013). The classification of Sinitic languages: What is “Chinese”? In C. Guangshun, H. Chappell, R. Djamouri, and T. Wiebusch (Eds.), Breaking down barriers: Interdisciplinary studies in Chinese linguistics and beyond (pp. 735–754). Taipei: Institute of Language and Linguistics, Academia Sinica.

The Cantonese language 41 Matthews, S. (2006). Cantonese grammar in areal perspective. In A. Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon (Eds.), Grammars in contact (pp. 220–236). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Matthews, S., and Yip, V. (2011). Cantonese: A comprehensive grammar (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Matthews, S., and Yip, V. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of Cantonese in a multilingual context. Paper presented at the 4th Workshop on Innovations in Cantonese Linguistics (WICL-4), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Norman, J. (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shei, C. (2014). Understanding the Chinese language: A comprehensive linguistic introduction. Oxon: Routledge. Snow, D. (1993). A short history of published Cantonese: What is a dialect literature? Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 4(3), 127–148. Snow, D. (2004). Cantonese as written language: The growth of a written Chinese vernacular. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Snow, D. (2008). Cantonese as written standard? Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 18(2), 190–208. Tang, C., and van Heuven, V. J. (2009). Mutual intelligibility of Chinese dialects experimentally tested. Lingua, 119(5), 709–732. Wakefield, J. C. (2012). A floating tone discourse morpheme: The English equivalent of Cantonese lo1. Lingua, 122(14), 1739–1762. Wakefield, J. C. (2014). The forms and meanings of English rising declaratives: Insights from Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 42(1), 109–149. Wikipedia. (2018). Cantonese. Retrieved December 1, 2018, from https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese Wong, M. (1982). Tone change in Cantonese (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. Yan, M. M. (2006). Introduction to Chinese dialectology. Muenchen: Lincom. Yeung, H. S-W. (1980). Some aspects of phonological variation in the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong (Unpublished MA dissertation), University of Kong Kong. Yip, V., and Matthews, S. (2000). Basic Cantonese: A grammar and workbook. London: Routledge. Yip, V., and Matthews, S. (2001). Intermediate Cantonese: A grammar and workbook. London: Routledge. Yoshikawa, M. 吉川雅之 (2014). The phonological representation of Cantonese in two books by Joshua Marshman: The Macao dialect in the late eighteenth century 馬士曼所記錄之粵語音 – 十八世紀末的澳門方言. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 42(2), 431–460. Yue-Hashimoto, A. 余靄芹 (1991). The Yue dialects. In W. S-Y. Wang (Ed.), Languages and dialects of China (pp. 294–324). Monograph Series Number 3. Hong Kong: Journal of Chinese Linguistics. Yue-Hashimoto, O-K. (1972). Studies in Yue dialects 1: Phonology of Cantonese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zee, E. (1991). Chinese (Hong Kong Cantonese). Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 21(1), 46–48. Zee, E. (1999). Change and variation in the syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants in Hong Kong Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 27(1), 120–167.

42  Robert S. Bauer (包睿舜) et al. Zhang, H. 張洪年 (= Samuel Cheung Hung-nin). (1990). Terms of address in Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 18(1), 1–43.

Chinese bibliography Beijing Daxue Zhongguo Yuyan Wenxuexi, Yuyanxue Jiaoyanshi 北京大學中國語言 文學系, 語言學教研室編 (1995). 《漢語方言詞滙》 [Lexicon of Chinese dialects]. 北京: 語文出版社. 第二版. Cheung, H. N. (2007). 香港粵語語法的研究 [A grammar of Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong] (Revised ed.). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Gan, Y. 甘于恩主編 (Ed.) (2007). 《粵語與文化研究參考書目》. 廣州: 廣東科技出 版社. He, W. 何文匯, and Zhu, G. 朱國藩. (2001). 《粵音正讀字彙》 [Dictionary of correct Cantonese reading pronunciations of Chinese characters]. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishing Company. Leung, C-S. 梁仲森 (2005). A study of the utterance particles in Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong 當代香港粵語語助詞的研究. Monograph Series Computational and Linguistic Analysis of Asian Languages, No. 2. Hong Kong: Language Information Sciences Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong. Li, J. 李敬忠 (1994a). “粵語是漢語族群中的獨立語言” [Yue language is an independent language within the Chinese language family]. 《語言演變論》. 廣州: 廣 州出版社. 79頁–115頁. Li, J. 李敬忠 (1994b). “粵語中的百越語成分問題” [Problem of Bai Yue language elements in Yue language]. 《語言演變論》. 廣州: 廣州出版社. 116頁–134頁. Li, X. 李新魁, Huang, J. 黃家教, Shi, Q. 施其生, Mai, Y. 麥耘, and Chen, D. 陳定 方 (1995). 《廣州方言研究》 [Studies in Guangzhou dialects]. 韶關: 廣東人民出 版社. Linguistic Society of Hong Kong 香港語言學學會. (2002). 《粵語拼音字表 Guide to LSHK Cantonese Romanization of Chinese Characters》. 香港: 香港語言學學會 粵語拼音字表編寫小組. 第二版. Mai, Y. 麥耘 (2009). 從粵語的產生和發展看漢語言形成的模式 [Looking at the pattern of formation of Chinese language from the emergence and development of Yue]. In A. C. Chin, B-C. Kwok, P. P-l., M. G. Lee, and B. K. Tsou (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to Cantonese Studies: Papers from the 13th international conference on Cantonese and Yue dialects (23頁–40頁). Hong Kong: Language Information Sciences Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong. Mai, Y. 麥耘, and Tan, B. 譚步雲編著 (Eds.). (2011). 《實用廣州話分類詞典》 [Practical Cantonese dictionary arranged by semantic areas]. Hong Kong: Commercial Press 商務印書館. Ouyang, J. 歐陽覺亞 (1993). 《普通話廣州話的比較與學習》 [Comparison and study of Putonghua and Cantonese]. 北京: 中國社會科學院. Rao, B. 饒秉才, Ouyang, J. 歐陽覺亞與, and Zhou, W. 周無忌 (2016). 《廣州話方言 詞典》 [Dictionary of Cantonese dialect]. 香港: 商務音書館. 修訂版. Shi, F. 石鋒 (1994). 廣州方言的聲調格局 [Structure of tones in Cantonese dialect]. 《語文建設通訊》. 66頁–71頁. Tang, S-W. (2015). 粵語語法講義 Lectures on Cantonese Grammar. 香港 Hong Kong: 商務印書館 The Commercial Press. Wu, K. 吳開斌 (1997). 《香港話詞典》 [Dictionary of Hong Kong language]. 廣 州:花城出版社.

The Cantonese language 43 Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn (1972). 《Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn 新华字典》. 北京: 商务印书馆. Yuan, J. 袁家驊等著 (1983). 《漢語方言概要》[Outline of Chinese dialectology], 第 九章, 粵方言 [chapter 9, Yue dialects]. 北京: 文字改革出版社. 第二版. Yue-Hashimoto, A. 余靄芹 (1991). 粵語方言分區問題出探. 《方言》.第三 期.164–181頁. Zeng, Z. 曾子凡 (2008). 《香港粵語慣用語研究》 [A study of idiomatic expressions in Hong Kong Cantonese]. 香港: 香港城市大學出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧主編 (Ed.). (2002a). 《廣東粵方言概要, An outline of Yue dialects in Guangdong》. 廣州: 暨南大學出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧主編 (Ed.) (2002b). 《廣州話正音字典》 [Dictionary of correct Cantonese pronunciation]. 廣州: 廣東人民出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧, and Zhang, R. 張日昇主編 (Eds.). (1987). 《珠江三角洲方言字 音對照, A survey of dialects in the Pearl River Delta, comparative Morpheme – Syllabary, vol. I》. 香港: 新世紀出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧, and Zhang, R. 張日昇主編 (1988). 《珠江三角洲方言詞匯對照, A survey of dialects in the Pearl River Delta, comparative Lexicon, vol. II》. 香港: 新 世紀出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧, and Zhang, R. 張日昇主編 (1990). 《珠江三角洲方言綜述, A survey of dialects in the Pearl River Delta, a synthetic review, vol. III 》. 香港: 新世紀 出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧, and Zhang, R. 張日昇主編 (1994). 《粵北十縣市粵方言調查報告, A survey of Yue dialects in North Guangdong》. 廣州: 暨南大學出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧, and Zhang, R. 張日昇主編 (1998). 《粵西十縣市粵方言調查報告, A survey of Yue dialects in West Guangdong》. 廣州: 暨南大學出版社. Zhan, B. 詹伯慧, and Zhang, R. 張日昇主編 (2007). 《香港粵語語法的研究, A grammar of Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong》. (增訂本). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Zhang, J. 張均如, Liang, M. 梁敏, Ouyang, J. 歐陽覺亞, Zheng, Y. 鄭貽青, Li, X. 李 旭練, and Xie, J. 謝建猷 (1999). 《壯語方言研究》 [Studies in Zhuang dialects]. 成都: 四川民族出版社. Zhang, L. 張勵妍, and Ni, L. 倪列懷 (1999). 《港式廣州話詞典》 [Hong Kong Cantonese dictionary]. 香港: 萬里機構. Zhang, L. 張勵妍, and Zhang, S. 張賽洋 (1987). 《國音粵音索音字彙》 [Indexed Chinese characters with Putonghua and Cantonese pronunciations]. 香港: 中華書局. Zhang, R. 張日昇, and Gan, Y. 甘于恩主編 (Eds.). (1993). 《粵方言研究書目, A bibliography of Yue dialect studies》. 香港: 香港語言學學會. Zheng, D. 鄭定歐 (1997). 《香港粵語詞典》[Hong Kong Cantonese dictionary]. 南 京: 江蘇教育出版社. Zhi, F. 植符蘭 (1994). 廣州方言的語綴 [Suffixes in Cantonese]. 載單周堯, 主編, 《第 一屆國際粵方言研究會論文集》 [Proceedings from the 1st international Yue dialects conference]. 香港: 現代教育研究社出版. 145頁–163頁. Zhou, Z. 周振鹤, and You, R. 游汝杰 (1986). 《方言與中國文化》 [Dialects and Chinese culture]. 上海: 上海人民出版社. Zhu, Y. 朱永鍇 (1997). 《Xiangganghua Putonghua Duizhao Cidian 香港話普通話 對照詞典》 [Hong Kong Language and Putonghua contrastive dictionary]. 上海: 漢語大詞典出版社. Zong, F. 宗福邦 (1964). 關於廣州話陰平調的分化問題 [Regarding the problem of the split of Yinping tone in Cantonese]. 《中國語文》, 5, 376–389.

Part I

The teaching and learning of Cantonese

2 Teaching and learning Cantonese as a second language Learners’ attitudes and learning hurdles Siu-lun Lee (李兆麟) Introduction “Is Cantonese difficult to learn”? This is a question posed by most learners of Cantonese as a second language (CanSL) and even some native Cantonese speakers. A common response to this question is that Cantonese is indeed difficult for CanSL learners. As a language teacher and course administrator, I think it is important to know what the difficulties are. The answers are useful for curriculum development, for materials preparation, and for the planning of teacher training. The research in this chapter elicited views from adult CanSL learners in Hong Kong. The research used questionnaire surveys and focus group discussions to investigate CanSL learners’ attitudes towards Cantonese and the hurdles they have come across while learning the language. The results show that the CanSL learners of this study think that Cantonese is “a language full of local taste”. They reported that, on the one hand, it is “a fun language to learn”, but on the other hand, it is hard and takes a long time to learn. The research results identified three major hurdles, namely a “linguistic hurdle”, a “psychological hurdle”, and a “sociocultural hurdle”. The first hurdle relates to difficulties encountered while learning the linguistic forms, such as pronunciation, grammatical structure and different register-style forms, etc. The second hurdle comes from the psychological pressure experienced while learning the language. The third hurdle appears when adult learners tried to use the target language with native speakers in actual social environments. This chapter discusses these three hurdles in detail.

The history and development of teaching and learning Cantonese as a second language The history of teaching and learning Cantonese as a second language can be traced back to the 19th century. Learners’ dictionaries and teaching guidebooks were produced and published beginning at that time (Bolton, 2003; Lee, 2017), and CanSL started to develop. Learners included diplomats, missionaries, and traders. In modern times, Hong Kong provides an advantage for developing CanSL teaching because it has a large majority of Cantonese

48  Siu-lun Lee (李兆麟) speakers among its population. In Guangzhou, the ratio of Cantonese speakers to speakers of other dialects (especially Mandarin) has diminished significantly (Bauer, 2016). In Hong Kong, however, Cantonese is still the major language variety used by people in daily life (Cheung, 1984; Bacon-Shone, Bolton, and Luke, 2015). According to Hong Kong’s 2011 Population Census and 2016 Population By-census Results, around 90 percent of Hong Kong’s population use Cantonese as their usual spoken language (Hong Kong SAR Government, 2011, 2016). Learners of CanSL in the 19th to mid-20th century learnt the language mainly for practical reasons, such as for doing business, for doing clinical work, for working in government, for missionary work, for diplomatic services, or for working in the field of education. Motivations of CanSL learners have now become more complex. Some learners are motivated by practical needs and learn the language for work-related reasons. There are also heritage links, which motivate overseas Cantonese descendants to learn Cantonese, and there are expatriates with Cantonese-speaking spouses and in-laws. In addition, there are cultural reasons for admirers of the Hong Kong local culture to learn the language (Lee, 2018a). CanSL learners can be categorized into two major groups. The first group of CanSL learners contains non-Chinese-speaking people with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, including learners from Asian and South(east) Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, etc., and learners from the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Australia, Britain, and other European countries, as well as African countries. The second group of CanSL learners is Chinese/Mandarin speaking (Lee, 2014). The first group of learners needs to grasp linguistic knowledge together with pragmatic skills and cultural awareness in order for them to use the target language for communication (Lee, 2005). Although the second group of learners also needs to learn linguistic knowledge, such as pronunciation, syntactic structure, and the use of lexical items, their learning focuses differ from the first group (Lee, 2014). Lee (2014) discussed characteristics of the second group of CanSL learners, while this chapter focuses on the first group of CanSL learners. As a teacher and a course administrator, understanding learners’ needs and learning difficulties is important for curriculum design, textbook development, and innovations in teaching pedagogy, as well as for teacher training. This chapter presents research that studied learners’ needs, attitudes, and learning difficulties.

Needs analysis The research in this chapter adopted the process of needs analysis to look into learners’ needs and learning difficulties. Needs analysis is a tool for understanding students’ needs and for helping the implementation of educational policies (Munby, 1978; Richterich and Chancerel, 1980; Van Els and Orisouw, 1991). According to Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2000), “needs analysis” or “needs

Teaching and learning Cantonese 49 assessment” has existed in the education field for decades. It is useful for identifying learners’ instructional needs, program provision needs, and weaknesses in learners’ achievements. Needs analysis can provide information for future plans of the language program, including curriculum design, teaching material preparation, and even expenditure for educational development. Needs analysis also helps learners to awaken their own awareness of what they need. Richterich and Chancerel (1980) mentioned that there are many research tools for gathering information for needs analysis. Using more than one research method can triangulate the data and check its accuracy (Johnson and Ransom, 1994; Gillham, 2000a, 2000b). To study the needs and difficulties of the CanSL learners of this study, the primary data relied on questionnaire surveys and focus group discussions. Li and Richards (1995) carried out a study of Cantonese learners’ needs in Hong Kong and evaluated Cantonese course books. Their research concluded that there were three major groups of expatriates in Hong Kong with different attitudes towards learning Cantonese. The first group makes no attempt to learn Cantonese. This group thinks that Cantonese is useful but difficult to learn, and not essential because they can get along fine without it. The second group focused on Mandarin rather than Cantonese. This group viewed learning Mandarin more prestigious and useful. The third group made an effort to learn Cantonese but with varying degrees of success. This chapter looks closely at this third group described in Li and Richards’ (1995) paper and further analyzes the difficulties faced by learners of CanSL today. The research presented in this chapter has an instrumental purpose, which is to identify learners’ needs and learning difficulties in order to provide information for teachers to select or develop appropriate teaching materials and to adopt suitable teaching approaches, and for curriculum planners, materials developers, and administrators to match the available resources with learners’ expectations and needs.

Data collection This study aimed at eliciting the needs and learning difficulties of existing learners taking formal Cantonese courses at university level. The subjects of this study included students taking credit-bearing university courses as well as adult learners studying in diploma programs (registered in the Qualifications Framework in Hong Kong). Questionnaires were sent to these students, and they were invited to focus group discussion sessions to further explain their learning needs, learning objectives, and the factors that affect their learning.

Questionnaire survey A set of pilot questionnaires was designed and sent to ten CanSL learners. The pilot questionnaires were adopted from Li and Richards’ (1995) study. The main purpose of the pilot study was firstly to make sure the questions were clear and

50  Siu-lun Lee (李兆麟) suitable in the current context, and secondly to make sure a reasonable amount of time was given for answering the questions. After the piloting phase, some questions were adjusted and a set of finalized questionnaires was sent to 300 CanSL learners in one tertiary institution. The questionnaire survey focused on four major areas. 1

What language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) learners think are most important when they are learning CanSL. 2 The reason why learners choose to learn Cantonese, and the situations in which they intend to use Cantonese. 3 Learners’ comments about textbooks, curriculum, and teaching approaches. 4 Actual use of Cantonese in learners’ daily life, which includes whether they use Cantonese at home, with whom they used the language, and other factors which might affect their learning attitudes and motivation. The questions in the questionnaire survey consisted of both closed and open questions. The closed questions asked about the domains and actual situations where Cantonese was used. These questions used a four-point Likert scale that included “always”, “most of the time”, “sometimes”, and “never”. The open-ended questions asked about the learners’ reasons for learning, asked for comments about textbooks, and asked about curriculum and teaching approaches. The questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools. Of the 300 questionnaires sent out, 282 were returned, which was a response rate of 94 percent. At the end of the questionnaires, students were invited to provide their contact information for follow-up focus group discussions. First, the focus group discussions are discussed, and then, questionnaire results are discussed in the section on data analysis.

Focus group discussions Twenty-two CanSL learners consented to participate in the focus group discussions, of which 12 were university undergraduates (including exchange students) and 10 were working professionals in the diploma program. Table 2.1 shows the biographical data of the focus group discussions’ participants. There were two focus groups formed, namely UG and D. The UG group consisted of 12 university or exchange students. The D group consisted of 10 working professionals in Hong Kong. The focus group discussions were organized in casual settings, in a private room in a restaurant. Each discussion session lasted about 2 hours. The discussion content was recorded and transcribed for analysis. The data gathered in the focus group discussions were used to supplement the results from the questionnaire survey. The focus group discussions gave the subjects a chance to further elaborate on certain points through probing and prompting and permitted greater depth.

Teaching and learning Cantonese 51 Table 2.1  Biographical data of the two focus group discussions’ participants Focus groups

Group 1 (UG group)

Number Education/work In Hong Kong Came from coding of status for (approx. (country) participants years)

Gender Age

UG1 UG2 UG3 UG4 UG5 UG6 UG7 UG8 UG9 UG10 UG11 UG12

D1 D2 D3 D4 Group 2 D5 (D group) D6 D7 D8 D9 D10

UG student UG student UG student UG student UG student UG student UG student Exchange student Exchange student Exchange student Exchange student Exchange student

2 years 1 years 2 years 1 year 2 years 1 year 3 years => => => => => => => => =>

High Rising [�25] High Level [˥55] High Level [˥55] High Rising [�25] High Level [˥55] High Rising [�25] High Level [˥55] High Rising [�25] High Level [˥55] High Rising [�25]

Appendix 2 Putonghua (Mandarin) romanization 普通話拼音

The Pinyin letters used to represent Putonghua consonants, vowels, and rimes are shown here in 1, 2, and 3 with corresponding IPA symbols [enclosed in brackets]. This is based on Beijing University (1989) and Xīnhuá Zìdiăn (1972).

1  Initial consonants b = [p], p = [ph], d = [t], t = [th], g = [k], k = [kh], m = [m], n = [n], f = [f], h = [x], zh = [tʂ], ch = [tʂh], sh = [ʂ], z = [ts], c = [tsh], s = [s], j = [tɕ], q = [tɕh], x = [ɕ], l = [l], r = [ʐ ], w [ʔ = Ø], y = [ʔ = Ø].

2  Final consonants in rimes n = [n], ng = [ŋ]

3  Vowels and rimes i = [i], [ɿ], [ʅ], ia = [ia], iao = [iau], ie = [ie], iu = [iou], in = [in], ing = [iŋ]. u = [u], u [y], ua = [ua], ue = [ye], ui = [uei], uo = [uo], uan = [uan], [yæn], un = [uən]. ü = [y], üe = [ye]. e = [e], [ɤ], ei = [ei], en = [ən], eng [ʌŋ], er = [ɚ]. a = [a], ai = [ai], au = [au], an = [an], ang = [aŋ]. o = [o], ou = [ou], ong = [uŋ]. wa = [ua], wai = [uai], wan = [uan], wang = [uɑŋ], wei = [uei], wen = [uən], weng = [uəŋ], wo = [uo], wu = [u]. ya = [ia], yan = [iæn], yang = [iɑŋ], yao = [iau], ye = [ie], yi = [i], ying = [iŋ], yo = [io], yong = [iuŋ], you = [iou], yu = [y], yuan = [yan], yue = [ye], yun = [yn].

4 Putonghua tone numbers, tone categories, Pīnyīn labels, descriptive labels, Chao tone letters, tone values 1

陰平 Yīn Píng High Level ˥55

278 Appendices 2 3 4 5

陽平 Yáng Píng High Rising �35 上聲 Shăng Shēng Falling-Rising (Dipping) �214 陰去 Yīn Qù High Falling �51 輕聲 Qīng Shēng Neutral tone ·|

Appendix 3 Cantonese romanization 粵語拼音 (Jyutping) with corresponding Yale romanization contrasts

The contrasts between the Jyutping and Yale romanization systems are shown below. Only those letters that differ are shown. Jyutping is shown first with Yale (in parentheses). The contrast in how tones are marked is shown in the middle two columns of the table in 3.

1  Initial and final consonants z = (j), j = (y), c = (ch)

2  Vowels in rimes eu = (ew) (Note: ew was not originally in the Yale system, the spelling for this rime is taken from Matthews and Yip (2011, p. 26). This diphthong actually consists of e + u, but ew is used instead of eu to distinguish it from the vowel spelled eu – a problem that does not exist in Jyutping.) eoi = (eui), eon = (eun), eot = (eut) oe = (eu), oem = (eum), oeng = (eung), oek = (euk) (Note: eo and oe are not distinguished in Yale)

3  Tones (Tones are illustrated using the two syllables si (si) and jau (yau). Note that an “h” is not pronounced in Yale romanization system unless it is used as an initial consonant. If an “h” appears in a non-syllable-initial position, it is not pronounced, and its purpose is to indicate that the syllable uses one of the three low register tones.) Tone

Jyutping

Yale

Sample characters

High level High rising Mid level Low falling Low rising Low level

si1 / jau1 si2 / jau2 si3 / jau3 si4 / jau4 si5 / jau5 si6 / jau6

sī/yāu sí/yáu si/yau sìh/yàuh síh/yáuh sih/yauh

司/優 史/油 試/幼 時/魷 市/有 是/右

280 Appendices

Chinese bibliography Beijing University 北大中文系語言學教研室編著. (l989).《漢語方音字匯 Hànyŭ Fāngyīn Zìhuì》[Pronunciation of Chinese characters in Chinese dialects]. 北大: 文 字改革出版社. (2nd ed.). Linguistic Society of Hong Kong 香港語言學學會. (2002). 《粵語拼音字表 Guide to LSHK Cantonese Romanization of Chinese Characters》. 香港: 香港語言學學會 粵語拼音字表編寫小組. 第二版. Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn. (1972). 《Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn 新华字典》 [Chinese dictionary of new China]. 北京: 商务印书馆.

Index

Note: page numbers in italics indicate figures and page numbers in bold indicate tables on the corresponding pages. ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary, The (Bauer) 11, 75, 127 About Hong Kong-For Intermediate Cantonese Learners (Hung, Si) 90 adverbials 31 affricate initial consonants 15 – 16 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) 67, 81, 102 Ancient Chinese 23, 26, 122 anti-Communist Taiwan 149 AoA effect 244 – 245 Apple Daily 104, 126 approximant consonants 16 assessment of learner 80 – 81 attendance requirements in learning 260 Balcombe, Sharon 180 – 181 Bauer, Robert S. 75 Benedict, Paul K. 128 Brigham Young University (BYU) see Cantonese literacy at Brigham Young University Cantonese as a foreign language (CanFL): CanSL vs. 86 – 87; colloquial Cantonese 107; course content and materials 89 – 90; future of 38; heritage language (HL) students 89, 92, 92 – 94, 93; inaugural year of program 87 – 89, 88; introduction to 1 – 6, 85 – 86, 86; motivation for learning 96 – 97; second year of program 90 – 92; summary of 97 – 98; third year of program 95 – 96; see also Cantonese Language Program

Cantonese as a second language (CanSL): attitude toward 53; biographical data 52; CanFL vs. 85 – 86; data analysis 52 – 59; data collection 49 – 51; demotivating experiences 176 – 181; domains of use 53 – 54; experience and advice from advanced learners 3 – 4; first languages difference vs. 30; focus group discussions 50 – 51, 51; future of 38; history and development of 47 – 48; in Hong Kong learning system 4 – 5; implications for teaching/learning 59 – 63; introduction to 1 – 6, 47, 168 – 169; language skills 50, 53; learning difficulties 55 – 56; learning habits 55; learning success 168 – 169; linguistic hurdles 56, 56 – 57, 60 – 61; motivation and social integration 175 – 186; needs analysis 48 – 49; personal experiences 169 – 175; phonemes and lexical tones 169 – 173; psychological hurdles 47, 57, 61 – 62; questionnaire survey 49 – 50, 52; reallife situations 54, 54 – 55, 61; social networks 181 – 186; sociocultural hurdles 47, 57 – 59, 62 – 63; summary of 63, 186 – 187; words/word order 173 – 175 Cantonese heritage language (HL) students 89, 92, 92 – 94, 93 Cantonese language: adverbials 31; as Chinese 9 – 10; classification of 8 – 9; colloquial Cantonese 13, 72 – 73, 103 – 107, 118, 124, 127, 219 – 220, 224; final consonants 13 – 14, 16 – 17;

282 Index grammar 30 – 35, 61; Hong Kong Cantonese 8; initial consonants 13 – 16, 122 – 123; introduction to 8 – 11; lexical tones 18 – 19; as mutually unintelligible language 9 – 10, 36; native-Cantonese speakers 3, 15, 34 – 38, 58, 106 – 108, 160 – 164, 170 – 171, 175, 180, 185 – 186, 233; null subjects and objects 32 – 33; phonetic correspondences 121 – 122; phonology of 11 – 30, 128; right dislocation 33; rimes 13, 13 – 14, 123; romanization of transcribing sounds 11 – 13; self-learning 78; sentence-final particles 34 – 35; speaker’s pitch range 19, 19; syllabic structure 191 – 195, 192, 193, 194; topic-comment constructions 31 – 32; vowels 13 – 14, 17 – 18; worldwide demographics of 10 – 11; written Cantonese 35 – 36; see also Japanese view of Cantonese language Cantonese language, personal learning narrative: formal study of 114 – 116; in Hong Kong 116 – 118, 129 – 132; Hongkongers’ reactions to 118 – 119; introduction 113; learning experiences 117 – 118; phonetic variations 117; phonology of 128; professional research 127 – 129; pronunciation of Mandarin and Cantonese 121 – 125, 124, 125; pronunciation through romanization 119 – 121; in San Francisco 113 – 118; summary of 132; written Cantonese 35 – 36, 125 – 127 Cantonese Language Program at University of British Columbia: inaugural year of program 87 – 89, 88; introduction to 1 – 6, 3, 85 – 86, 86; overview of 87 – 98; second year of program 90 – 92; third year of program 95 – 96 Cantonese Language Program in Vancouver 93 Cantonese literacy at Brigham Young University: challenges for teaching 104 – 105; context of 101 – 102; general education foreign language requirements 100 – 101; Hong Kong Chinese 103 – 104; introduction to 100; issues with 102 – 103; learning materials 105 – 107, 107; summary

of 108 – 109; teaching strategies 107 – 108 Cantonese role in Chinese reading and writing pedagogy: inclusive education dilemma 211 – 214; introduction to 209 – 211; language choice 214 – 216; non-standard continuum in 217 – 223; summary of 223 – 224 Cantonese romanization system 255, 275 – 276, 279; see Jyutping; see Yale Cantonese Sounds and Tones (Huang) 169 – 170 Cantonese tones/tone system: changed tones 25 – 26; contour tones 19, 20 – 21; correct use of 60 – 61; drills 176; Hong Kong system features 26, 26 – 27; identifying correspondences 123 – 125, 124, 125; Japanese view of 195, 195 – 197, 198; lexical tones 18 – 19, 164, 169 – 173; naming categories 23; non-Canto Han Chinese language speakers 142 – 144, 143; numbering categories 24; number of 21, 21 – 22, 22, 23; origin of 24 – 25, 25; phonetic variation 27 – 28, 28 – 29; second-language acquisition 161, 164; Yin/Yang tonal groups 196, 196 – 197 Cantonese Worlds Workshop 95 Chamberlain, Corinna 181 Chao Yuen Ren 20 Character Reader in Cantonese Pronunciation, Volume One (Man) 106 character recognition 260 Cheung Kwan Hin 127 Chi-kwong, Law 81 Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) 237 Chinese as a second language (CSL) 1, 61 Chinese language: in Hong Kong classrooms 12; introduction to 9 – 10; orthography 253 – 254; tonal observations 142 – 144, 143; written Chinese 217 – 223, 252 – 254 Chinese reading and writing pedagogy see Cantonese role in Chinese reading and writing pedagogy Chinese-speaking (CS) students 210 – 211, 213 – 214 Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) 116

Index  283 clausal complement (CC) 242 Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts (CHAT) 237 collaborative tasks 62 colloquial Cantonese 13, 72 – 73, 103 – 107, 118, 124, 127, 219 – 220, 224 Colloquial Cantonese: The Complete Course for Beginners (Bourgerie, Tong, James) 88, 90, 106 colloquial Cantonese expressions 72 Communist China 149, 214 Complete Cantonese (Baker, Ho) 107 computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) 61 connectives 240 consonants: affricate initial consonants 15 – 16; approximant consonants 16; final consonants 13 – 14, 16 – 17, 193, 193 – 194; final nasal consonants 17, 193 – 194, 194; final stop consonants 16 – 17, 194, 194 – 195; fricative initial consonants 15; initial nasal consonants 15; syllabic nasal consonants 17 contour tones 19, 20 – 21 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 212 Council of Europe 75 Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) 233, 235 CVC structure 145 Defense Language Institute 56 demotivating experiences 176 – 181 dialect, defined 9, 132 domestic helpers, case study 76 – 80, 77 East Asians 209 – 210 Eastern Publications 105 Education Abroad Program (EAP) 116 eLearning activities 61, 76 end-at-high-point narrative 233 English for work-related issues 58 ethnic minorities (EM) studies: age of arrival impact 232 – 233; Cantonese role in Chinese reading and writing pedagogy 209 – 211, 214; Chinese characters for 253; instrumentation 237 – 240, 238 – 239; literature review 233 – 236; methodology 236 – 240; participants 236, 236 – 237; results 240 – 242, 241, 242, 243; summary of 244 – 246

final consonants 13 – 14, 16 – 17, 193, 193 – 194 final nasal consonants 17, 193 – 194, 194 final stop consonants 16 – 17, 194, 194 – 195 first languages vs. CanSL differences 30 focus group discussions 50 – 51, 51 foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) 209 – 210 Foreign Service Institute (FSI) 56, 56 – 57 formal register of Cantonese 163 – 164 fricative initial consonants 15 Fundamental Frequency 18 Go-Globe 69 Google Translator 80 grammar 30 – 35, 61 Guangzhou variety of Cantonese 11 Han Chinese 138 Heritage Foundation 67 heritage language (HL) students 89, 92, 92 – 94, 93 High Level tone 24 – 26 Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC): assessment of learner 80 – 81; domestic helpers, case study 76 – 80, 77; expatriates and 68 – 70; future of 36 – 38, 129 – 132; introduction to 8, 10 – 11, 67 – 68; learning obstacles and challenges 75 – 76; opinions on written Cantonese 126; resources for learning 70 – 75; summary of 81 – 82; tone system 26, 26 – 27 Hong Kong Cantonese Oral Language Assessment Scale (HKCOLAS) 235 – 237, 244 Hong Kong Chinese 103 – 104, 182 – 183 Hong Kong’s Education Bureau 4, 10 Hong Kong Students Association (HKSA) 182 Illustrated Hong Kong Cantonese – Putonghua Tagalong & Bahasam, Indonesia, English Parallel Translated 79 inclusive education dilemma 211 – 214 Index of Economic Freedom 67 Indonesian domestic helpers, case study 76 – 80, 77

284 Index initial consonants 13 – 16, 115, 122 – 123, 191 – 192, 192 initial nasal consonants 15 Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) pattern 217 – 221 input method engines (IMEs) 255 – 256, 258 – 259 instrumental motivation 175 – 176 integrative motivation 159, 176 Intermediate Cantonese: Grammar & Workbook (Yip, Matthews) 90 International English Language Testing System (IELTS) 67 International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 12, 20 intrinsic motivation 176 IPA vowel chart 145 Japanese view of Cantonese language: introduction to 189; politeness strategies 202 – 203, 203; sentencefinal particles 198 – 202; sounds and tones 191 – 197; summary of 203 – 204; syllabic structure 191 – 195, 192, 193, 194; tones/tone system 195, 195 – 197, 198; vocabulary 197, 197 – 198, 198; word order 190 – 191 JyutJyuSi (JJS) work group 81 Jyutping romanization 11 – 13, 170, 174 Jyutping romanization pedagogy for NCS students: background 251 – 256, 252; CantoKey 263, 263; changes made 262 – 263, 265 – 266; Chinese writing system difficulties 252 – 254; discussion 268 – 270; error analysis 264, 267 – 268; evaluation 268; first intervention 258 – 262, 259, 261; general study design 256 – 258, 257, 258; interventions 256 – 268; introduction to 251; mapping issues 260 – 261, 261; perception issues 261 – 262; pronunciation issues 261; proposed solution 254 – 256, 255; results 266, 266 – 267; second intervention 262 – 265, 263, 264; summary of 270 – 271; third intervention 265 – 268, 266 KANA system 195, 197 Kok, Gerard P. 115, 120 L1 learning 35, 171 – 172, 213, 234

L2 learning see second-language acquisition language, defined 9 Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) 79 Language Policy Unit of the Council of Europe 75 language skills 50 – 53, 62, 96, 100 – 101, 150, 160 Lau, Sidney 129 lazy pronounciation 27 – 28, 28 – 29, 261 learners’ dictionaries 47 learning difficulties 48 – 49, 55 – 56, 59, 150 learning habits 52, 55, 63 Lexical Lists for Chinese Learning in Hong Kong 255 lexical tones 18 – 19, 164, 169 – 173 linguistic hurdles to CanSL 47, 56, 56 – 57, 60 – 61 Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) 11, 12, 73, 81 logographic writing system 57, 252 Mandarin language: identifying correspondences in tone system 123 – 125, 124, 125, 144; initial consonant correspondences 122 – 123; as mutually unintelligible 9 – 10, 36; narrative development 234; phonetic correspondences 121 – 122; phonetic symbols 115; rime correspondences 123; vowels in 146 manner modifier (MM) 242 Maturational Constraint 233 medium of instruction (MOI) 211, 214 – 217, 221 – 223 Microsoft Cantonese Jyutping IME 258 Modern Cantonese Phonology (Bauer, Benedict) 128 monolingual environments 163 morphological changed tone 25 – 26 Morrison, Robert 119 mother tongue confusion 214 – 215 motivation for learning 96 – 97, 175 – 186, 260 mutually unintelligible language 9 – 10, 36 Narrative Assessment Profile 234 Nationalist China 214 National Taiwan University 116

Index  285 native-Cantonese speakers 3, 15, 34 – 38, 58, 106 – 108, 160 – 164, 170 – 171, 175, 180, 185 – 186, 233 native-English speakers 56, 69, 158, 161, 164, 180, 185 – 186 native-Mandarin speakers 92, 102, 107 needs analysis in learning CanSL 48 – 49 needs-based learning 3 New Asia Yale-in-China Chinese Language Center 106 non-Canto Han Chinese language speakers: introduction to 138; personal encounters with 139 – 142; phonological reflections 142 – 149; phonotactic observations 145 – 146; reflections 149 – 150; social observations 146 – 149; tonal observations 142 – 144, 143 non-Chinese-speaking (NCS) students 4, 10, 48, 58, 181, 210 – 214; see also Jyutping romanization pedagogy for NCS students non-English speaker 69, 76, 155, 178 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 210, 232 non-standard continuum 217 – 223 null subjects and objects 32 – 33 Official Language Ordinance 69 Ohio State University 109 out-going personalities 61 – 62 Peking dialect 222 phonemes 15 – 20, 30, 165, 169 – 173, 193, 267 – 268 Phonetic Alphabet (Jyut Jyu Ping Jam) 12 phonetic correspondences 121 – 122 phonetic symbols 115 phonology of Cantonese language 11 – 30 phonotactic observations 145 – 146 Po-fei, Parker Huang 115, 120 politeness strategies 202 – 203, 203 A Practical Cantonese–English Dictionary (Lau) 129 prepositional phrase (PP) 242 pronunciation learning 61, 161, 261 psychological hurdles to CanSL 47, 57, 61 – 62 Putonghua as the medium of instruction (PMI) 215 – 216, 217 – 223, 277 – 278

Qualifications Framework (QF) 57 questionnaire surveys 49 – 50, 52 real-life situations in Cantonese use 54, 54 – 55, 61 referential expressions 240 relative clause (RC) 242 The Representation of Cantonese with Chinese Characters (Cheung, Bauer) 127 resources for learning Hong Kong Cantonese 70 – 75 Ricci, Matteo 119 right dislocation 33 rimes 13, 13 – 14, 123 romanization: Cantonese system 11 – 13, 255, 275 – 276, 279; Jyutping system 11 – 13, 170, 174; of transcribing sounds 11 – 13; Yale system 11, 71, 73, 106, 120, 169, 174; see also Jyutping romanization pedagogy for NCS students second-language acquisition (SLA): age factor 233 – 236; aspects of L1 into 172; background of 154 – 159; basic course and workplace interactions 155 – 156; challenges 163 – 165; formal register of Cantonese 163 – 164; implications for SA children 245 – 246; integrative motivation 159; introduction to 1, 154; language environment 162 – 163; learning fulltime 156 – 158; personal experiences of 154 – 155; phonotactic complications in 150; post-course life 158 – 159; recommendations for 165 – 166; sentence-final particles 164 – 165; social networks 183 – 184; success of 159 – 163; tactics in 159 – 161; tones and pronunciation 161, 164 Second Language Learning Framework 213 self-learning Cantonese 78, 157 self-reflective ethnography 138 self-sustaining rewards 176 Sensitive Period Hypothesis 233 sentence-final particles (SFPs) 34 – 35, 164 – 165, 198 – 202 Simple View of Reading (Gough, Tunmer) 246 social integration 175 – 186

286 Index social networks and motivation 181 – 186 social observations 146 – 149 sociocultural hurdles to CanSL 47, 57 – 59, 62 – 63 South Asian (SA) immigrant children 4, 209 – 210, 232, 235 – 237, 240 – 245, 241, 242, 243 South China Morning Post 69 Southeast Asians 209 – 210 Speak Cantonese (Po-fei, Kok) 105, 115, 120 speaker’s pitch range 19, 19 special educational needs (SEN) 212, 213 spelling requirements in learning 260 Standard Chinese 219 – 220 Standard Written Chinese (SWC) 102 – 103, 107 – 109, 221 Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) 69, 221 Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) language 190 – 191 Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language 190 – 191 syllabic nasal consonants 17 syllabic structure of Cantonese language 191 – 195, 192, 193, 194 syllables 13 – 14, 14 syntactic complexity 240 Teaching Assistant (TA) training 95 teaching guidebooks 47 Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) 67 Timeout Hong Kong magazine 131 tonal assimilation 25 tone category 20 tone contour 20 tone letter 20 toneme 18 tones/tone system see Cantonese tones/ tone system

tone value 20 topic-comment constructions 31 – 32 Trigault, Nicolas 119 Tsang, Donald 148 Tung Chee Hwa 147 Twenty Lectures on Chinese Culture: An Intermediary Chinese Textbook (Huang, Chang, Chao, Hsia, Wang) 106 two-event narrative 233 typing requirements in learning 260 UNESCO 212 United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child 212 University of British Columbia (UBC) see Cantonese Language Program at University of British Columbia University of Hong Kong (HKU) 156, 158 University of Texas (UTA) 182 vocabulary 197, 197 – 198, 198 vowels 13 – 14, 17 – 18, 145, 146 Wall Street Journal 67 Weinreich, Uriel 9 Whole School Approach to Integrated Education program 212 Williams, Samuel Wells 119 Workplace English Campaign (WEC) 69 workplace interactions 155 – 156 work-related issues and English 58 Workshop on Innovations in Cantonese Linguistics (WICL) 95, 109 written Cantonese 35 – 36, 125 – 127 written Chinese 217 – 223, 252 – 254 Yale system of romanization 11, 71, 73, 106, 120, 169, 174 Yale University Press 105 Yin/Yang tonal groups 196, 196 – 197 Yue Chinese 8