CHILDES Cantonese Lee/Wong/Leung Corpus

	Thomas Lee Department of English Chinese University of Hong Kong thomaslee@cuhk.hk
Colleen Wong Department of English Hong Kong Polytechnic
	Sam Leung School of General Education and Languages Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong

Participants:	8
Type of Study:	longitudinal
Location:	China
Media type:	not available
DOI:	doi:10.21415/T57W2Z

Citation information

Lee, T. H.T., Wong, C. H., Leung, S., Man. P., Cheung, A., Szeto, K., and Wong, C. S. P. The Development of Grammatical Competence in Cantonese-speaking Children, Report of RGC earmarked grant 1991-94.

In accordance with TalkBank rules, any use of data from this corpus must be accompanied by at least one of the above references.

Project Description

This corpus was collected by Thomas Hun-tak Lee (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Colleen H. Wong (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and Samuel Leung. This database contains longitudinal data on the language of eight Cantonese-speaking children, each recorded for approximately 1 year.

These children were observed in their interactions with the caretakers, the investigator, and occasionally other adults who chatted with the children during the visits. Three research students carried out the observations and the recording. Patricia Man recorded Bohuen and Gakie; Alice Cheung recorded Bernard, Tsuntsun and Tinfaan; and Kitty Szeto recorded Johnny, Jenny and Chunyat. The names of the children and the ages during which they were recorded are as follows:

Name Sex Ages Files
Bohuen (wbh) F 2;03;23 – 3;04;08 27
Gakei (cgk) F 1;11;01 – 2;09;09 19
Bernard (mhz) M 1;07;00 – 2;08;06 26
Tsuntsun (ckt) M 1;05;22 – 2;07;22 25
Tinfaan (ltf) F 2;02;10 – 3;02;18 16
Johnny (hhc) M 2;04;08 – 3;04;14 16
Jenny (lly) F 2;08;10 – 3;08;09 20
Chunyat (ccc) M 1;10;08 – 2;10;27 22
Each file name is made up of the initials of the child (the first three characters) and his or her age at the time of recording, in terms of year (1 character), month (2 characters), and day (2 characters). For instance, the file wbh20322.cha contains tagged utterances of Bohuen (whb) when she was 2 years, 3 months, and 22 days old.

The Children

Bohuen was raised in a monolingual Cantonese-speaking working-class family. Her father worked in the warehouse of a mass transport company and her mother was a part-time piano teacher. She had a brother who was about 2 years younger. They lived with the child’s grandmother and uncle. The child had already started attending a nursery school when data collection started. After school, she was taken care of by her parents and grandmother.
Gakei was also raised in a monolingual Cantonese-speaking working class family. Her father was a technician in a electronic company and her mother was a housewife. They lived with the child’s grandmother. Gakei’s parents were both born in Hong Kong. The child was not yet enrolled in a nursery during the whole period of data collection. She was taken care of entirely by her mother.
Tsuntsun was the only son of a Cantonese-speaking family, living in Hong Kong. His father was a Census and Survey Officer working in the government and his mother a secondary school teacher teaching Chinese and Religious Studies. Since his birth, he had been living in his maternal grandparents’ house during weekdays and was taken care of by his grandmother. His parents visited him occasionally during the weekday evenings and took him back home on Friday nights to stay over the weekend. They communicated in Cantonese. When Tsuntsun was 1;10, his mother went to study for a year in the United Kingdom. He started to attend a nursery at 2;1.
Bernard was born in Kent, United Kingdom. He was the only son of the family. His father was a lecturer in the Division of Construction and Land Use of the Hong Kong Polytechnic. His mother was a lecturer of the English Language Teaching Unit of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Bernard’s mother brought him back from the United Kingdom at the age of 8 months. He was then taken care of by his maternal grandmother at her house until the age of about 1;1. From that time to the age of 2 years 6 months, he was taken care of by a caretaker during the weekdays. He communicated in Cantonese, though his parents occasionally introduced to him some English terms. He started to attend the nursery play-groups at the age of 2 years 6 months.
Tinfaan was the youngest child in a Cantonese-speaking family living in Hong Kong. She had a sister who was four years older. Her father was an engineer working in the government and her mother was a piano teacher teaching at home. During the first one-and-a-half years from her birth, she was taken care of mostly by a Filipino helper while her mother worked as a school music teacher. After her mother had stopped working in school, Tinfaan was mostly taken care of by her mother, except at times when her mother had to give piano lessons or had to go out, when Tinfaan would be looked after by her Filipino helper. She communicated in Cantonese except when speaking to her Filipino helper, for which she used “something English-like” (as described by her mother). She started to attend kindergarten at the age of 2 years 9 months.
Jenny was the youngest child in the family. She was born in Hong Kong and her family spoke Cantonese. She had an elder brother who was ten years older and an elder sister who was four years older. Jenny’s father was a businessman and her mother was a housewife. The family employed a Filipino helper, who spoke some Cantonese and English to the children. She had not started going to a nursery during the period of data collection.
Johnny was the youngest child in the family. He was born in Hong Kong and his family spoke Cantonese. He had an elder sister who was seven years older. His father was an engineer and her mother was a typist. The family employed a Thai helper and she spoke Cantonese to the children. He had not started going to a nursery during the period of data collection.
Chunyat was the only son in the family. He was born in Hong Kong and his family spoke Cantonese. His father was a merchant and his mother taught English in a secondary school. They lived with the child’s maternal grandparents. He had not started going to a nursery during the period of data collection.

Codes

Below is a summary list of the syntactic categories used in coding the corpus. The romanizations are based on the Cantonese romanization scheme of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) (Matthews & Yip,1994, pp. 400-401).

Category Example
1. adj = adjective hung4
2. adv = focus adverb zung6, dou1, jau6, zoi3
3. advi = adverb of intensity hou3, gei2, gam3, zan1
4. advm = adverb of manner maan6maan6dei2, ma4ma4dei2
5. advs = sentential adverb bat1jyu4, gam2(joeng2), jat1cai4
6. asp = aspectual marker zo2, zyu6, gan2, gwo3, hoi1
7. aux = auxiliary / modal verb jing1goi1, hang2, ho2ji5, wui, sai2
8. cl = classifier go3, zek3, bun2, bui1, di1
9. com = comparative morpheme gwo3 (as in dai6 gwo3), di1 (as in hung4 di1)
10. conj = connective dan6hai6, tung4maai4, waak6ze2
11. corr = correlative jut6...jut6, jau6...jau6, gam2...gam3, jat1...jat1
12. ctc = clitic dak1, dou3
13. det = determiner nei1, go2, dai6
14. dir = directional verb lok6, soeng5, ceot1, jap6, lai4
15. ex = expressive utterance baai1baai3, zou2san4
16. gen = genitive marker ge3
17. ins=emphatic inserted marker gwai2 (as in hou3 gwai2 leng3)
18. nn = noun ping4gwo2, ba4ba1
19. nnloc = locative noun phrase soeng6mien6, leoi3mien6
20. nnpr = pronoun ngo5, nei3, keoi3
21. nnpp = proper name tin1faan4, zeon3zeon3
22. neg = negative morpheme m4, mai6, mou5
23. prt = postverbal particle faan1, sai3, can1, maai4, gwo3, ha2
24. prep = preposition tung4maai2, hai2, bei2
25. q = quantifier jat1, saam1, sap6, gei2, mui5
26. rfl = reflexive pronoun zi6gei2
27. sfp = sentence final particle &la3, &ga1 &ma3, &ge3 &le1

Acknowledgements

The creation of this corpus was made possible by a three-year grant (RGC earmarked grant CUHK 2/91) to Thomas Hun-tak Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Colleen H, Wong of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Samuel Leung of the University of Hong Kong. The project was supported by two studentships from the Hong Kong Polytechnic awarded to Patricia Man and Alice Cheung, and a studentship from the University of Hong Kong awarded to Kitty Szeto. In addition, funding for the later stages of the project was provided by a direct grant from Faculty of Arts, Chinese University of Hong Kong, a grant from the Freemason’s Fund for East Asian Studies, as well as research assistantships from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The support of these funding agencies is hereby acknowledged. Further details are given in the report in "Citation information" above.