Patrick Chu, PhD
Research on Bilingual tone acquisition
The Acquisition of Cantonese Tones in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children
Patrick Chun Kau Chu Chinese University of Hong Kong
This study investigates the longitudinal tonal development of three Cantonese-English bilingual children aged 2;0 to 3;4, 1;8 to 3;0 and 3;1 to 4;6 respectively. The utterances produced by the children were taken from the multimedia Hong Kong Bilingual Child Language Corpus (Yip and Matthews, 2007). We compare our bilingual children’s tonal development with monolingual children in terms of (1) age of first emergence of tones, (2) age of stabilization (accuracy measure) and (3) acquisition order of tones.
Previous studies showed that Cantonese-speaking monolingual children normally master their tonal system by the age of two in both longitudinal studies (So and Dodd, 1995; Tse, 1978) and cross-sectional studies (So and Dodd, 1995), although some studies reported that the low rising tone is still not acquired at the age of three (Tse, 1992). Regarding the acquisition order of tones, these studies show that tones in the high register are generally acquired earlier than tones in the low register, and level tones are acquired earlier than contour tones. Law (2006) investigated the tonal development of an English dominant Cantonese-English bilingual child and reported that a longer period was needed for a complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system in bilingual children due to prosodic transfer from English.
Our empirical findings show that the stabilization of the Cantonese tonal system by the bilingual children was observed at age 3;7, using the 66.7% accuracy criterion. The acquisition order of tones follows a similar hierarchy as in Cantonese monolingual children. With respect to the errors made by the bilingual children, the mid-level tone (tone 3) seems to be an unmarked tone which was used frequently by the children to substitute the target tones. Theoretical issues related to the under-differentiation of the Cantonese tonal system by bilingual children will be discussed. In the literature on phonological acquisition, consonant and vowel harmony are frequently used to explain the segmental errors produced by the children. In this study, tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns at the prosodic level.
References:
Law, C.W. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Lydia K.H. So & Barbara Dodd. (1995). The acquisition of phonology by Cantonese speaking children. Journal of Child Language 22: 473-495.
Andrew Tse. (1992). The acquisition process of Cantonese phonology: a case study. MPhil. thesis, University of Hong Kong.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
Virginia Yip & Stephen Matthews. (2007). The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Previous studies showed that Cantonese-speaking monolingual children normally master their tonal system by the age of two in both longitudinal studies (So and Dodd, 1995; Tse, 1978) and cross-sectional studies (So and Dodd, 1995), although some studies reported that the low rising tone is still not acquired at the age of three (Tse, 1992). Regarding the acquisition order of tones, these studies show that tones in the high register are generally acquired earlier than tones in the low register, and level tones are acquired earlier than contour tones. Law (2006) investigated the tonal development of an English dominant Cantonese-English bilingual child and reported that a longer period was needed for a complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system in bilingual children due to prosodic transfer from English.
Our empirical findings show that the stabilization of the Cantonese tonal system by the bilingual children was observed at age 3;7, using the 66.7% accuracy criterion. The acquisition order of tones follows a similar hierarchy as in Cantonese monolingual children. With respect to the errors made by the bilingual children, the mid-level tone (tone 3) seems to be an unmarked tone which was used frequently by the children to substitute the target tones. Theoretical issues related to the under-differentiation of the Cantonese tonal system by bilingual children will be discussed. In the literature on phonological acquisition, consonant and vowel harmony are frequently used to explain the segmental errors produced by the children. In this study, tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns at the prosodic level.
References:
Law, C.W. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Lydia K.H. So & Barbara Dodd. (1995). The acquisition of phonology by Cantonese speaking children. Journal of Child Language 22: 473-495.
Andrew Tse. (1992). The acquisition process of Cantonese phonology: a case study. MPhil. thesis, University of Hong Kong.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
Virginia Yip & Stephen Matthews. (2007). The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tonal Development in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children
Patrick Chun Kau Chu Chinese University of Hong Kong
This study investigates the longitudinal tonal development of two Cantonese-English bilingual children aged 2;0 to 3;4 and 1;8 to 3;0 respectively. The utterances produced by the children were taken from the multimedia Hong Kong Bilingual Child Language Corpus (Yip and Matthews, 2007). We compare our bilingual children’s tonal development with monolingual children in terms of (1) age of first emergence of tones, (2) age of stabilization (accuracy measure) and (3) acquisition order of tones.
Previous studies showed that Cantonese-speaking monolingual children normally master their tonal system by the age of two in both longitudinal studies (So and Dodd, 1995; Tse, 1978) and cross-sectional studies (So and Dodd, 1995). Regarding the acquisition order of tones, these studies show that tones in the high register are generally acquired earlier than tones in the low register, and level tones are acquired earlier than contour tones. Law (2006) investigated the tonal development of an English dominant Cantonese-English bilingual child and reported that a longer period was needed for a complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system due to prosodic transfer from English.
Our empirical findings show that complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system by the bilingual children was still not observed at age 3;4. The acquisition order of tones follows the same hierarchy as in Cantonese monolingual children. With respect to the errors made by the bilingual children, the mid-level tone (tone 3) seems to be an unmarked tone which was used frequently by the children to substitute the target tones. Theoretical issues related to the under-differentiation of the Cantonese tonal system by bilingual children will be discussed. In the literature on phonological acquisition, consonant and vowel harmony are frequently used to explain the segmental errors produced by the children. In this study, tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns at the prosodic level.
References:
Chung-wa Law. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Lydia K.H. So & Barbara Dodd. (1995). The acquisition of phonology by Cantonese speaking children. Journal of Child Language 22: 473-495.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
Virginia Yip & Stephen Matthews. (2007). The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Previous studies showed that Cantonese-speaking monolingual children normally master their tonal system by the age of two in both longitudinal studies (So and Dodd, 1995; Tse, 1978) and cross-sectional studies (So and Dodd, 1995). Regarding the acquisition order of tones, these studies show that tones in the high register are generally acquired earlier than tones in the low register, and level tones are acquired earlier than contour tones. Law (2006) investigated the tonal development of an English dominant Cantonese-English bilingual child and reported that a longer period was needed for a complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system due to prosodic transfer from English.
Our empirical findings show that complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system by the bilingual children was still not observed at age 3;4. The acquisition order of tones follows the same hierarchy as in Cantonese monolingual children. With respect to the errors made by the bilingual children, the mid-level tone (tone 3) seems to be an unmarked tone which was used frequently by the children to substitute the target tones. Theoretical issues related to the under-differentiation of the Cantonese tonal system by bilingual children will be discussed. In the literature on phonological acquisition, consonant and vowel harmony are frequently used to explain the segmental errors produced by the children. In this study, tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns at the prosodic level.
References:
Chung-wa Law. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Lydia K.H. So & Barbara Dodd. (1995). The acquisition of phonology by Cantonese speaking children. Journal of Child Language 22: 473-495.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
Virginia Yip & Stephen Matthews. (2007). The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tonal Development in a Cantonese-English Bilingual Child
Patrick Chun Kau Chu Chinese University of Hong Kong
This study investigated the tonal development of a Cantonese dominant Cantonese-English bilingual child from age 2;0 to age 3;4. Previous studies showed that Cantonese monolingual children normally master their tonal system before the age of two (Tse, J.K.P., 1978; Tse, A., 1992) whereas study on an English dominant English-Cantonese bilingual child reported that a longer period is needed for a complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system due to prosodic interference from English (Law, 2006). Our findings are consistent with Law’s on tone acquisition in bilingual children: complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system was still not observed at age 3;4. While Law’s data showed a decrease in errors in some of the tonal categories as age increases, our results showed that the error rate of each tone category was fluctuating with no sign of decrease. In our study, the mid-level tone (tone 3) seems to be an unmarked tone which was used frequently by the child to substitute the target tones. Methodological issues will be discussed to account for the difference in our findings and the previous studies. Tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns in tone production by the child.
References:
Law, C.W. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Andrew Tse. (1992). The acquisition process of Cantonese phonology: a case study. MPhil thesis, University of Hong Kong.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
References:
Law, C.W. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Andrew Tse. (1992). The acquisition process of Cantonese phonology: a case study. MPhil thesis, University of Hong Kong.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
Tone Development in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: A Case Study
Patrick Chun Kau Chu Chinese University of Hong Kong
This study investigated the tonal development of a Cantonese dominant Cantonese-English bilingual child from age 2;00.12 to age 3;04.14. Previous studies showed that Cantonese monolingual children normally master their tonal system before the age of two (Tse, J.K.P., 1978; Tse, A., 1992) whereas studies on English-Cantonese bilingual children reported that a longer period is needed for a complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system due to prosodic interference from English (Law, 2006). Our findings are consistent with Law’s on tone acquisition in bilingual children: complete mastery of the Cantonese tonal system was still not observed at age 3;04.14. While Law’s data showed a decrease in errors in some of the
tonal categories as age increases, our results show that the error rate of each tone category was fluctuating with no sign of decrease. Among all the tonal categories, tone 2 and tone 4 were the most difficult tones in the bilingual data. Methodological issues will be discussed to account for the difference in our findings compared with the previous studies. Tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns in tone production by the child.
Reference:
Law, L.C.W. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Andrew Tse. (1992). The acquisition process of Cantonese phonology: a case study. MPhil thesis, University of Hong Kong.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
tonal categories as age increases, our results show that the error rate of each tone category was fluctuating with no sign of decrease. Among all the tonal categories, tone 2 and tone 4 were the most difficult tones in the bilingual data. Methodological issues will be discussed to account for the difference in our findings compared with the previous studies. Tonal harmony is proposed to account for some of the error patterns in tone production by the child.
Reference:
Law, L.C.W. (2006). Tonal Characteristics of Early English-Cantonese Bilinguals. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Andrew Tse. (1992). The acquisition process of Cantonese phonology: a case study. MPhil thesis, University of Hong Kong.
John K.P. Tse. (1978). Tone acquisition in Cantonese: a longitudinal case study. Journal of Child Language, 5 191-204.
