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Interlanguage pragmatic features in Hong Kong non-Chinese speaking students’ spoken cantonese
Date Issued
2023
Citation
Lam, C. M. F., Chan, K. K. W., & Wong, S. P. (2023 Dec 2). Interlanguage pragmatic features in Hong Kong non-Chinese speaking students’ spoken Cantonese. The 27th International Conference on Yue Dialects, The Ohio University.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students in the Hong Kong public school system face the
challenge of developing language abilities in both Cantonese and written Chinese. Previous studies
have acknowledged the significant gap between their oral and literacy skills, yet few have paid
attention to their Cantonese oral abilities. While assessing reading and writing skills and discussing
teaching reforms have been the primary focus (Tang, 2018; Wong, 2010), little attention has been
given to NCS students’ Cantonese oral proficiency. Furthermore, previous surveys have relied on
subjective analyses (Ku et al., 2005; Li & Chuk, 2015) rather than empirical measures to assess oral
performance.
This study addresses the research gap surrounding the Cantonese oral proficiency of NCS
students by analyzing a cohort recruited from a single secondary school in Hong Kong. The sample
comprised sixteen senior secondary students of Pakistani heritage, thirteen of whom were Urdudominant speakers, aged between 15 and 19 (mean age = 16.44 years). These students had an average
of 12.50 years of Cantonese learning experience, ranging from intermediate to advanced levels. To
assess their oral proficiency, students participated in an oral storytelling task using the wordless
illustrated storybook Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). The narratives were transcribed by a native
Cantonese speaker to facilitate the analysis of prominent microstructural linguistic features present in
the different renditions of the story.
Based on preliminary findings, the respondents exhibited a series of distinct errors in their
spoken Cantonese language usage. In terms of lexicon, students demonstrated code-mixing by
incorporating English lexical items in situations where no Cantonese equivalents exist or where
Cantonese equivalents are not commonly used, such as deer and owl. Additionally, some students
employed standard Chinese terms instead of vernacular Cantonese; noteworthy examples include
substituting 小狗 (siu2gau2) for 狗仔 (gau2zai2) when referring to “little dog”, using 小鳥 (siu2niu5)
instead of 雀仔 (zoek3zai2) for “birdie”, and 好開心地 (hou2 hoi1sam1 dei6) instead of 好開心噉
(hou2 hoi1sam1 gam2) for “happily”. Syntactically, certain students tended to overuse a particular
connective throughout their narrations, sometimes in inappropriate contexts, such as 噉 (gam2, “then”).
These features, which are consistently observed and shared among this group of NCS students, are rare
among native speakers, suggesting the emergence of a new interlanguage variant in Cantonese among
South Asian speakers in Hong Kong.
This study is significant in delving into naturalistic spoken data for L2 Cantonese, focusing on
the production of near-native learners. The finding suggested systematic patterns and offers valuable
curriculum design insights, e.g., targeted vocabulary instruction and contextual factors, to enhance
students’ oral proficiency.
Availability at HKSYU Library
