Bilingual and Multilingual Acquisition of Chinese PDF

LT3216_Group3 Reference: 1. Huang, C.-T. J., Li, Y. H. A., & Simpson, A. (2014). Bilingual and Multilingual Acquisition of Chinese. In S. Matthews & V. Yip (Eds.), The handbook of Chinese linguistics (First Edition, pp. 495-510). Wiley-Blackwell. 2. Yip, V., & Matthew...

LT3216_Group3 Reference: 1. Huang, C.-T. J., Li, Y. H. A., & Simpson, A. (2014). Bilingual and Multilingual Acquisition of Chinese. In S. Matthews & V. Yip (Eds.), The handbook of Chinese linguistics (First Edition, pp. 495-510). Wiley-Blackwell. 2. Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (2000). Syntactic transfer in a Cantonese–English bilingual child. Bilingualism (Cambridge, England), 3(3), (pp.195-196). https://doi.org/10.1017/S136672890000033X It defines the meanings of null objects. 3. Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (2000). Syntactic transfer in a Cantonese-English bilingual child. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 3(3), (pp.207). This provides the information about the mean length of utterance (MLU). 4. Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (2007). Vulnerable domains in Cantonese and the directionality of transfer. The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620744 This provides extra examples of the vulnerable domains. Topic: Bilingual and Multilingual Acquisition of Chinese Summary: 1. Introduction The definition of Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) “The Concurrent acquisition of 2 languages in a child who is exposed to them from birth and uses both regularly in early childhood1.” (Matthews & Yip, 2014, p.496) ∵ To exclude passive bilinguals who are exposed to two languages but produce only one or those who start exposing a language after they have already acquired one language →It is necessary to establish a clear definition “Chinese” languages “Chinese encompasses a family of dialect groups that are structurally at least as diverse as the Romance or the Germanic languages families (Norman 1988).” However, most “Chinese languages” have not been studied in the context of bilingual and multilingual development →Our main focus will be on Mandarin and Cantonese only 1 The period of early childhood is defined as the preschool years up to around age 5 here. LT3216_Group3 Theoretical significance of bilingual acquisition -Provide an understanding of human cognition How the bilingual child’s mind works and develops over time -Create “The Logical Problem of Bilingual Acquisition”: How does the child develop grammar on the basis of limited input which underdetermines the target grammar? (Yip and Matthew’s 2007b) -The Poverty of the Dual Stimulus (Yip and Matthew’s 2007b: 30; Francis 2011:79) A result of input Contexts for the bilingual and multilingual acquisition of Chinese -A diverse range of “Chinese languages” in different regions of China →Create a bilingual and multilingual environment Individuals may acquire Mandarin or Cantonese alongside a minority language / Learn Putonghua in an educational setting while having conversations in a local dialect at home / Concurrently acquire Taiwanese Southern Min or Hakka while learning Mandarin Extension: The idea of Bidialectalism No method to differentiate language and dialects →No exact means to distinguish bidialectalism and bilingualism -Immigrant communities Individuals who speak Chinese, immigrate to countries where spoken languages are different from Chinese, thereby constructing a bilingual and multilingual environment. In the United States: Immigrant children speak Cantonese and English. Some of them even acquire Hakka. In Australia: Immigrant children acquire Mandarin or Cantonese together with English. In South America: Children grow up with three languages, namely Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. -Multilingual communities :(Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong) In Malaysia, various dialects are spoken (eg. Hokkien, Hakka, Mandarin and Cantonese) In Penang, children grow up with at least three and as many as seven languages. In Singapore, a variety of languages and dialects are spoken. →Promotion of multiple language usage LT3216_Group3 2. Findings on the acquisition of Chinese in multilingual contexts Separate system Much research has concluded that children can distinguish their languages and have distinct linguistic systems for them from the earliest stages of development. ↳ Each language has an independent language system. In the case of bilingual acquisition, the two languages develop independently without exerting influence on one another. → Qi (2011) found evidence for separate development of Mandarin and English. The child’s grammars were clearly distinct, with word order patterns and subject use differing between English and Mandarin. → A single system hypothesis and the views that interpret transfer as seen in (1) below as “confusion”, would predict the same grammar to apply to both the child’s languages. ↳ For example, wh-questions should behave similarly in both languages (Yip and Matthews 2000: 207). The child’s English showed variation between wh in situ as in (1) and wh-movement as in (2): (1) Say what? (Timmy 2;05) (2) What doing? (Timmy 2;04;15) The child’s Cantonese showed no such variation, with wh-phrases consistently placed in situ following the target grammar. The child thus shows a target-like grammar in Cantonese and a non-target grammar showing cross-linguistic influence in English. ↳ (1) and (2) demonstrate that both variations are applicable to English; however, there is no corresponding change in Cantonese. ∴ If the child were operating with a single grammatical system for both languages, the frequency of null objects should be similar across both languages. Interactive development In the context of bilingual and multilingual acquisition, there exist two distinct perspectives on interactive development. 1. Supporting the Separate Development Hypothesis → Several studies have reported that the child’s two languages develop without systematic interaction (supporting the Separate Development Hypothesis, De Houwer, 2009). LT3216_Group3 → Chang-Smith (2010) conducted a comparative study between a bilingual child and a monolingual child regarding the acquisition of Mandarin. She found that noun phrase structure developed similarly in both children, without errors that could be attributed to cross-linguistic influence. In this case the bilingual child’s development was described as balanced (Chang-Smith 2010: 13). 2. Supporting the interactive development → The studies of Yip and Matthews (2000, 2007b) show that there was a dominant or stronger language. → In this context, the interactions between the two languages were asymmetrical, leading to cross-linguistic influence, including language dominance and vulnerable domains. Language dominance In the study of Yip and Matthews (2007b), interactions between English and Cantonese were shown to be strongly asymmetrical. ↳ Influence of Cantonese on the developing English grammar was pervasive, while influence of English on Cantonese was limited to certain “vulnerable domains”. →The mean length of utterance (MLU) is one of the ways to measure language dominance. The MLUw of Cantonese is higher than English in general. It allows Cantonese to develop at a faster pace and with greater complexity, which favours transfer of Cantonese structures into English (Yip and Matthews, 2000). → Dominance has been implicated as a causal factor in cross-linguistic influence. ∴ The prevalence of transfer from Cantonese is greater in children where the dominance of Cantonese is stronger (Yip and Matthews 2007b: 150). Vulnerable domains In the context of bilingual and multilingual acquisition, the Chinese language exhibits certain vulnerable domains, which mean the specific grammatical areas that are particularly susceptible. The examples of vulnerable domains are as follows: - Classifiers → The general tendency to substitute a general classifier for a specific one (Erbaugh 2002), such as 个 ge in Mandarin and go3 in Cantonese. - Word order properties → The configuration [PP V NP], which is apparently unique to Chinese among major languages (Hawkins 1994). → The prepositional phrases may appear either before or after the verb. This property interacts with English such that bilingual children prefer the post-verbal option, which matches English. LT3216_Group3 ↳ Light (1977) observed this preference in a child growing up in the USA, whose Cantonese showed non-target PPs such as the following: (3) Keoi5 sai2 wun2 bei2 ngo5 佢 洗 碗 俾 我 3sg wash bowl give me “S/he washes the dishes for me.” ↳ In English, the prepositional phrases usually appears after a verb, which forms the word order [V PP]. (3) illustrates that the Cantonese of the bilingual speaker may be influenced by English. ↳ Yip and Matthews (2007b) found that even children with Cantonese as their dominant language preferred the post-verbal order, resulting in non-target placement of the PP as in (4): (4) Jau6 sik6 hai2 li1dou6 aa4, lei5? again eat at here SFP you “Eating here again, are you?” (Alicia 4;00;21) Extra example: (5) Ngo5 saang1-zo2 hai2 ji1jyun2 go2dou6 I born-PFV at hospital there. “I was born in the hospital.” (Timmy 2;08;07) ↳ The occurrence of non-target order in Cantonese may be attributed to the influence of English. - The double-object dative construction with bei2 “give” Contrasting with both Mandarin and English, the target order in Cantonese is [verb-theme-recipient]: (5) Lei5 bei2 cin2 ngo5 (你 俾 錢 我) you give money me “You give me money.” Bilingual children commonly produce the non-target order [verb-recipient-theme]: (6) Bei2 keoi5 zyu1gwu1lik1 laa1 (俾 佢 朱 古 力 啦) give 3sg chocolate SFP “Give him chocolate.” (Timmy 2;04;04) LT3216_Group3 Extra example: (7) Je4sou1 bei2 (ng)o5 cin2 aa3 (耶 穌 俾 我 錢 啊) Jesus give me money SFP “Jesus gave me money.” (Sophie 2;05;02) ↳ The non-target order [verb-recipient-theme] also occurs in the monolingual acquisition of Cantonese. Chan (2010) attributes this developmental error to properties of the input. The direct object is omitted, as in the following dialogue: (8) Child: Ngo5 m4 bei2 lei5 gaa3 I not give you SFP “I’m not giving you (any).” Adult: M4 bei2 ngo5? not give me “(You’re) not giving me (any)?” Child: Ngo5 m4 bei2 lei5 ice cream aa3 I not give you ice cream SFP “I’m not giving you any ice cream.” (Sophie 2;05;16) ↳ It is not clear whether the missing theme object belongs before or after the recipient. ↳ The verb-recipient sequence as in bei2 ngo5 “give me” is liable to become entrenched (Chan 2010: 82). ↳ In bilingual children, these properties of the Cantonese interact with the English input to favor the word order in English, the non-target order [verb-recipient-theme]. 3. Influence of Chinese on English Several grammatical properties of Chinese have been observed to undergo transfer, indicating the principles caused by significant cross-linguistic influence. wh in situ “In wh-questions, the wh-phrase remains “in situ” where the corresponding constituent would occur in a declarative sentence (Matthews & Yip, 2014, p.502).” Extra examples in English contain the phenomenon of wh-in situ. Question form)What is for dinner today? declarative sentence form) I wonder what is for dinner today. Question form) What is your major? declarative sentence form) I want to know what your major is. LT3216_Group3 How wh-in situ is influenced by the transfer of Chinese to English: When forming a question with a wh-phrase, rather than moving the wh-word to the initial position, children often do not make a change. They tend to use declarative sentence structure, resulting in the wh-word remaining in the same place. eg) Case study of Singaporean children -Produced wh-questions with the wh-phrase in situ eg) You are doing what? (Elvoo 3;06) The correct syntactic structure should be: What are you doing here? Nevertheless, it is not a concrete example as it is difficult to distinguish whether influence is taking place in the child’s developing grammar itself, or results from wh- in situ constructions instantiated in the input in Singapore Colloquial English, a contact language strongly influenced by Chinese. (Lim,2004) →Indicate a limitation in identifying the cause of wh- in situ Solution: To focus on children who have standard English as input The cause of transfer: ambiguous input Example of the wh in situ in English: eg)“echo” questions and clarifications from a father to a child Child: Po4po2 have ’ ready.[i.e. “Grandma has some already”] Father: Po4po2 have what? Child: medicine. (Alicia 2;10) →In the sentence produced by the father, he used the structure of wh in situ. →wh in situ, which is a consistent way of forming a question in Chinese, causes confusion of English structure among the children. →It also inferred the significance of the ambiguous English input. Simultaneous acquisition of Chinese and Norwegian Norwegian has wh-movement but does not have in situ questions that is similar to English. While speaking in Norwegian, Norwegian-Chinese children tend to move wh-words in the initial position, without passing through the wh in situ stage. (Fife’s Jin, pers,comm.,2011) → It shows the importance of clear input Null arguments Definition: It refers to referents previously mentioned in the discourse or otherwise recoverable from the context of utterance. (Matthews & Yip, 2000, p.195) LT3216_Group3 ∵Involve the interface between syntax and pragmatics ∴→fulfilled the proposed condition of cross-linguistic influence: It must take place at an interface domain. (Hulk and Muller 2000) Depending on different languages, cross-linguistic influence is observed in different domains, namely null subjects and null objects. Null subjects Null objects absent part The subject of the sentence The object of transitive verbs Languages that observe European languages, such as Chinese cross-linguistic influence Spanish Example eg) Hablaron de política. eg) Be careful, don't break! ‘[They] spoke about (cautioning the adult not to break politics.’ a toy cup) (Sophie 3;06;06) → The toy cup, which represents the object with the transitive verb, break here, is omitted. Arguments by Yip and Matthews (2007b) People who acquire Chinese grammar do not omit objects as a general propensity. Instead, they omit them intentionally and carefully. The object ni1 di1 (this) in Cantonese Age of acquisition: 2 years old eg) Ngo5 jiu3 sik6 [ni1 di1] aa3. [Topic] Lei5 zing2 bei2 ngo5 sik6 laa1 I want eat this CL SFP you make give me eat SFP “I want to eat this. Can you make (it) for me to eat?” (Timmy 2;04;17) →Although a null object is represented, it is an appropriate usage for Cantonese speakers. The transfer of null objects from Cantonese to English: Extra eg) It’s so delicious! Have you tried [this] (food)? →The food, representing the object with the verb eat, is omitted, indicating the structure with a null object. →” This” becomes the topic of the sentence. → However, it is not appropriate in English as it is expected that a noun is followed behind ‘this’. LT3216_Group3 It is claimed that when the language dominance is stronger, the influence of transfer becomes greater and the percentage of null objects from Cantonese to English will be increased significantly. eg) Adult: Let’s eat. type of analysis The target’s English The Chinese-based analysis: analysis: referents generic co-referential with a discourse topic supposed position of the Let’s eat [+generic] [Topic] Let’s eat object Relative Clause a. Cross-linguistic influence and Developmental Asynchrony Hypothesis Paradis and Genesee(1996) distinguished two views on cross-linguistic influence might occur when one of a child’s grammars is more advanced than the other: (a) Because one language is more developed than the other in the child. (b) Because such development is typical of monolingual development in the language concerned. The view (b) was formulated as the Developmental Asynchrony Hypothesis by Matthews and Yip(2002) *Developmental Asynchrony Hypothesis: given a property Pa which develops at an earlier stage in monolingual children acquiring Language A than a corresponding property Pb in monolingual children acquiring Language B. In a bilingual child acquiring Languages A and B simultaneously, property Pa is expected to develop in Language A before Pb in Language B. This creates a developmental asynchrony between the two languages, allowing property Pa to be transferred to Language B. B. Transfer of prenominal of relative clauses from Cantonese to English There are a Cantonese sentence and an English sentence produced by a child who seems to have more well-developed in Cantonese than English. LT3216_Group3 (I) Jan maai5 go2 tiu4 (jyutping) Jan 買 嗰 條 (Cantonese) Jan buy that CL “The pair [of trousers] that Jan bought.” (Timmy 2;07;04) (IIa) Where’s the Santa Claus give me the gun? (Timmy 2;07;05) Extra example: Child: Timmy take that one, I want. Father: Which one do you want? Child: She take that one. Timmy take that one. (3;03;12) From (i), the Cantonese sentence shows the prenominal relative clause. However, when we read the (IIa), it is found that the child imitated the Cantonese form and applied it to English sentences. C. Object relatives and Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy(NPAH) (IIb) Where’s the gun that Santa Claus gave me? (IIb) is assumed as the meaning that the child intended to express. From all sentences the child produced, there are some findings: →At this stage of development, the child does not have adult-like English relative clauses, but, in his English, produces relative clauses preceding the head noun. → the child ‘s earliest relative clauses, both the target Cantonese constructions as in (I) and their counterparts transferred to English(IIa) are object relatives *object relatives: the modified noun is understood as the object of the modifying clauses. ↳The fact that object relatives emerge before subject relatives disagrees the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy which suggests that subject relatives should be acquired earlier and processed more easily than object relative clauses. D. Language features in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese has a typologically rare combination of prenominal relative clauses with VO order. LT3216_Group3 (IIIa) S V O (main clause) Ni shuo hua 你 說 話 =You speak (IIIb) S V… O (object relative clause) Ni shuo de hua 你 說 的 話 =What you say →From (IIIa) and (IIIb), it is observed that both main clause and object relative clause have the same SVO structure in Mandarin. (IV) Lei5 sik6 go2 di1 je5 你 食 嗰 啲 嘢 you eat DEM CL thing = “You eat those things” or “The things you eat” (V) Alicia waak6 go2 di1 je5 (Alicia 2;01;21) Alicia 畫 嗰 啲 嘢 Alicia draw DEM CL thing = “Alicia drew those things” or “The things Alicia drew” → (IV) (V)can be considered as either main clause or object relative clause →The Cantonese colloquial form of object relative also shows SVO structure. → The isomorphism between object relatives word order and main clause word order facilitates the acquisition and processing of object relatives in Cantonese than in Mandarin. 4. Trilingual and multilingual development ⭐The acquisition of three languages including one or more Chinese languages is not unusual. ⭐Research on trilingual development is at an early stage, compared with bilingual development. ⭐There are some suggestive findings that have emerged from the research of trilingual development. Case Study of Wang 2008 LT3216_Group3 Children’s family background: →Father of French →Mother of Mandarin →living in a English-speaking community Phenomena same with bilingual development: ⭐overgeneralization of classifier ge in Mandarin E.g. “wu ge tian” -> “five CL day” →the classifier is redundant between the numeral and the noun. (Wang 2008:79) →This shows the children overgeneralize the classifier to the nouns that do not take the classifier Case study of Yang and Zhu(2010) Child linguistic background: Spanish, Mandarin and Taiwanese. Phenomena different from bilingual development: In phonological systems, the child ⭐ omitted the final -s of Spanish, under the influence of Mandarin and / or Taiwanese. ⭐replaced /y/ with /i/ in Mandarin, which is missing in both Spanish and Taiwanese →Two languages sharing a certain property influencing the third → called “ganging up” effects. Prediction from “ganging up” effects Since both Mandarin and English have the order verb-recipient-theme → the verb-theme-recipient order with Cantonese bei2 “give” will be even more vague in trilingual acquisition. (8) Child: Ngo5 m4 bei2 lei5 gaa3 I not give you SFP “I’m not giving you (any).” Adult: M4 bei2 ngo5? LT3216_Group3 not give me “(You’re) not giving me (any)?” Child: Ngo5 m4 bei2 lei5 ice cream aa3 I not give you ice cream SFP “I’m not giving you any ice cream.” (Sophie 2;05;16) 5. Conclusions → Observe the relationship between Chinese linguistics and bilingual development which constitutes a two-way street, with the fields mutually informing each other. → For Chinese linguistics, bilingual development shows how properties of Chinese interact with another language, and which properties are vulnerable to cross-linguistic influence. → Interactions that do not arise with other language pairs, such as those between Cantonese and English relative clauses, enrich the picture of possible interactions and our understanding of their causes. LT3216_Group3 Multiple Choice Questions: 1. Which is not the grammatical principle of Chinese caused by the cross-linguistic influence? A: Relative cause B: Null subject C: Wh in situ D: Null object 2. Which of the following is not a mentioned example of the vulnerable domains in Cantonese? A: Classifiers B: Double-object dative construction C: Verb-particle construction D: prepositional phrases Open-ended Questions: 1. Can people who speak a dialect alongside a native language be considered as bilingual? 2. Under the bilingual environment, which approach do you prefer for language development: Separate System or Interactive Development? LT3216_Group3 Further Research Questions: Potential Research Questions / Unsettled Issues: 1. In vulnerable domains, does the variation in the word order of Cantonese arise from the influence of English, or is it a natural development of the linguistic system? In this chapter, the vulnerable domains of Cantonese are discussed, referring to specific grammatical areas that are susceptible to the influences of other languages. One such area pertains to the word order properties in Cantonese and English. For instance, the placement of the prepositional phrases and the double-object dative construction with bei2 “give”. In general, English uses the non-target order of [V PP]. The placement of the prepositional phrases usually appears after a verb. Conversely, prepositional phrases in Cantonese may occur either before or after a verb. Thus, some researchers propose that the use of non-target word order in Cantonese is influenced by English. Yip and Matthews (2007b) notes that this situation mostly occurs to bilinguals; however, it also arises among the monolinguals. Is it possible to speculate that the variation in word order may be the natural development within the language system, rather than being influenced by English? Currently, our understanding of this subject remains limited, and we have not achieved a more profound comprehension. Therefore, we aspire to have the opportunity to engage in further research on this matter in the future, to review more relevant research articles for analysis. 2. Will a pair/pairs of bilingual and trilingual children who learn two common languages show new or different phenomena? We have discussed and shared cases about bilingual and trilingual children, to analyze the situation of both linguistic backgrounds. However, we think a further study to compare bilingual and trilingual is needed. It can be studied on a pair/pairs of children who are studying two common languages, like observing a bilingual child who is studying English and Cantonese, and a trilingual/multilingual child who is learning English, Cantonese and maybe Japanese, in order to have a more precise observation of whether any undiscovered linguistic phenomena that no or only one common language cannot be found.