Cover not available
Article published In:
Regional Chinese in Contact
Edited by James A. Walker
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 5:1] 2019
► pp. 84–108

Classifier use in Heritage and Hong Kong Cantonese

| University of Toronto
| University of Toronto

Heritage language speakers have frequently been reported to have language skills weaker than homeland (monolingual) speakers. For example, Wei and Lee (2001, p. 359), a study of British-born Chinese-English bilingual children’s morphosyntactic patterns (including classifier use), report “evidence of delayed and stagnated L1 development.” However, many studies compare heritage speaker performance to a prescriptive standard rather than to spontaneous speech from homeland speakers. We compare spontaneous speech data from two generations of Heritage Cantonese speakers in Toronto, Canada, and from Homeland Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. Both groups are similar in a strong preference for general and mass classifiers, and classifier choice being primarily governed by the noun’s number. We observe specialization of go3 個 to singular nouns, a grammaticalization process increasing with each generation. The similarity between homeland and heritage patterns replicates previous studies utilizing the same corpus.

Keywords: heritage language, Cantonese, classifiers, variationist sociolinguistics, attrition, lexical variation, ethnic orientation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What is a classifier?
  • 3.Hypotheses and expectations
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Distributional patterns
    • 5.2Patterns of go3 個 use
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.17001.nag
References
Census and Statistics Department
(2014) Hong Kong monthly digest of statistics: Use of language in Hong Kong in 2012. Accessed on April 15, 2017, from [URL]
Cheung, Ching-wan
(2002) Classifier use by children with specific language impairment. Unpublished BS thesis, University of Hong Kong. [URL]
Cummins, Jim
(1991) Introduction. Canadian Modern Language Review, 47(4), 601–5. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ennser-Kananen, Johanna, & King, Kendall
(2018) Heritage languages and language policy. In Carol A. Chapelle (Ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics (pp. 1–6). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Stephen
(2016) The English language in Hong Kong: Diachronic and synchronic perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erbaugh, Mary S.
(1986) The development of Chinese noun classifiers historically and in young children. In Colette Craig (Ed.), Noun classes and categorization (pp. 399–436). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2002) Classifiers are for specification: Complementary functions for sortal and general classifiers in Cantonese and Mandarin. Cahiers de Linguistique – Asie Orientale, 31(1), 33–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jia, Gisela, Chen, Jennifer, Kim, HyeYoung, Chan, Phoenix-Shan, & Jeung, Changmo
(2014) Bilingual lexical skills of school-age children with Chinese and Korean heritage languages in the United States. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 381, 350–358. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra
(2015) Rbrul [Software] (Version 2.3.2). Available from [URL]
Kang, Yoon-Jung, & Nagy, Naomi
(2016) VOT merger in Heritage Korean in Toronto. Language Variation and Change 281, 249–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keefe, Amado, & Padilla, Susan
(1987) Chicano Ethnicity. University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Killingley, Siew-Yue
(1983) Cantonese classifiers: Syntax and semantics. Newcastle upon Tyne: Grevatt & Grevatt.Google Scholar
Labov, William
(1972) Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.Google Scholar
(1984) Field methods of the project on linguistic change and variation. In John Baugh & Joel Sherzer (Eds.), Language in use: Readings in sociolinguistics (pp. 28–53). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Lapidus, Naomi, & Otheguy, Ricardo
(2005) Overt nonspecific ellos in Spanish in New York. Spanish Context 21, 157–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Teresa
(2014) Dominant language transfer in the comprehension of L2 learners and heritage speakers. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 261, 190–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Hui, Wong, M., & Chin, Eileen Chin Mei
(2014) Comparing classifier use in 1995 and 2010 early child Cantonese to explore social change in Hong Kong. Chinese Language and Discourse, 51, 79–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Loke, Kit Ken, & Harrison, Godfrey
(1986) Young children’s use of Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) sortal classifiers. In Henry S. R. Kao & Rumjahn Hoosain (Eds.), Linguistics, psychology and the Chinese language (pp. 125–146). Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Lyons, John
(1977) Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Łyskawa, Paulina, Maddeaux, Ruth, Melara, Emilia, & Nagy, Naomi
(2016) Heritage speakers follow all the rules: Language contact and convergence in Polish devoicing. Heritage Language Journal 131, 219–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyskawa, Paulina, & Nagy, Naomi
(2019) Case marking variation in Heritage Slavic Languages in Toronto: Not so different. Language Learning. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mak, David L. W.
(1991) The acquisition of classifiers in Cantonese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Reading.Google Scholar
Matthews, Stephen, & Yip, Virginia
(1994) Cantonese: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nagy, Naomi
(2009) Heritage languages in Toronto. SSHRC Standard Research Grant 410-2009-2330.Google Scholar
(2011) Lexical change and language contact: Faetar in Italy and Canada. Journal of Sociolinguistics 151, 366–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016) Heritage Languages speakers in Toronto – What do they tell sociolinguists? SSHRC Insight Grant 435-2016-1430.Google Scholar
Nagy, Naomi, Chan, Ariel, Lo, Samuel, Wu, Alfred, & Wang, Elaine
(2015) Toronto Cantonese heritage speakers’ use of classifiers. Meeting of the Atlantic Pacific Linguistic Association, St. John’s, NF, Nov. 6–7.Google Scholar
Nagy, Naomi, Chociej, Joanna, & Hoffman, Michol
(2014) Analyzing Ethnic Orientation in the quantitative sociolinguistic paradigm. In Lauren Hall-Lew & Malcah Yaeger-Dror (Eds.), Special issue of Language and Communication: New perspectives on the concept of ethnic identity in North America 351, 9–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, Zentella, Ana-Celia, & Livert, David
(2007) Language and dialect contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the formation of a speech community. Language, 831, 770–802. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Development Core Team
(2008) R: A language and environment for statistical computing (version 3.2.2) [software] Available from [URL]
Statistics Canada
(2016) Census of Population, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-400-X2016060.Google Scholar
(2017) Focus on geography series, 2016 census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-404-X2016001. Ottawa, Ontario. Data products 2016 Census.Google Scholar
Tan, Ziwen Tracy, & Nagy, Naomi
(2017) VOT in heritage and Hong Kong Cantonese. Association canadienne de linguistique [Canadian Linguistic Association], Toronto, May 29.Google Scholar
Tse, Shek Kam, Li, Hui, & Leung, Shing On
(2007) The acquisition of Cantonese classifiers by preschool children in Hong Kong. Journal of Child Language, 341, 495–517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wei, Li, & Lee, Sherman
(2001) L1 development in an L2 environment: The use of Cantonese classifiers and quantifiers by young British-born Chinese in Tyneside. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 61, 359–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wittenburg, Peter, Brugman, Hennie, Russel, Albert, Klassmann, Alex, & Sloetjes, Han
(2006) ELAN: A Professional Framework for Multimodality Research. In Proceedings of LREC 2006, Fifth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (pp. 1556–1559).Google Scholar
Wong, Sin Peng
(2000) How Cantonese-speaking two-year-olds fend for themselves through the thicket of classifiers. In Eve V. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the Thirtieth Annual Child Language Research Forum, (pp. 149–58). Stanford: Centre for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Yip, Virginia, & Matthews, Stephen
(2000) Basic Cantonese: A grammar and workbook. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Kisselev, Olesya
2021. Corpus-Based Methodologies in the Study of Heritage Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 520 ff. DOI logo
Kupisch, Tanja & Maria Polinsky
2022. Language history on fast forward: Innovations in heritage languages and diachronic change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 25:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Nagy, Naomi
2021. Heritage Languages in Canada. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 178 ff. DOI logo
Nagy, Naomi, Holman Tse & James N. Stanford
2024. Have Cantonese Tones Merged in Spontaneous Speech?. In The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages, ► pp. 302 ff. DOI logo
Tsehaye, Wintai, Tatiana Pashkova, Rosemarie Tracy & Shanley E. M. Allen
2021. Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Research Approaches to Heritage Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 373 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Heritage Languages around the World. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.