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Article published In:
Regional Chinese in Contact
Edited by James A. Walker
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 5:1] 2019
► pp. 67–83

Vowel shifts in Cantonese?

Toronto vs. Hong Kong

| University of Pittsburgh

This paper addresses Labov’s principles of vowel chain shifting in Toronto and Hong Kong Cantonese based on sociolinguistic interviews from the Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Project. The analysis is based on normalized F1 and F2 values of 33,179 vowel tokens from 11 monophthongs produced by 32 speakers (8 from Hong Kong, 24 from Toronto). In Toronto, results show retraction of [y] by generation but fronting of [i] by age. In Hong Kong, age is a significant predictor for the lowering of [ɪ], [ʊ], [ɔ], and for the fronting of [ɔ] and [i]. Overall, there is more vowel shifting in Hong Kong than in Toronto and the shifting is consistent with Labov’s Principles.

Keywords: heritage languages, bilingualism, sociophonetics, contact linguistics, Chinese language – Yue, sound change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Vowel space overview
    • 4.2Generation
    • 4.3Age
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.19001.tse
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Tse, Holman
2022. Chapter 5. What can Cantonese heritage speakers tell us about age of acquisition, linguistic dominance, and sociophonetic variation?. In Variation in Second and Heritage Languages [Studies in Language Variation, 28], ► pp. 97 ff. DOI logo
Tse, Holman
2024. Functional Load and Vowel Merger in Toronto Heritage Cantonese. In The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages, ► pp. 280 ff. DOI logo

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