30.893, Diss: Chinese, Yue; Sino-Tibetan; Historical Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Phonetics; Phonology; Sociolinguistics: Holman Tse: ''Beyond the Monolingual Core and out into the Wild: A Variationist Study of Early Bilingualism and Sound Change in Toronto Heritage Cantonese''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-893. Mon Feb 25 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.893, Diss:  Chinese, Yue; Sino-Tibetan; Historical Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Phonetics; Phonology; Sociolinguistics: Holman Tse: ''Beyond the Monolingual Core and out into the Wild: A Variationist Study of Early Bilingualism and Sound Change in Toronto Heritage Cantonese''

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Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:01:33
From: Holman Tse [hbt3 at pitt.edu]
Subject: Beyond the Monolingual Core and out into the Wild: A Variationist Study of Early Bilingualism and Sound Change in Toronto Heritage Cantonese

 
Institution: University of Pittsburgh 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2018 

Author: Holman Tse

Dissertation Title: Beyond the Monolingual Core and out into the Wild: A
Variationist Study of Early Bilingualism and Sound Change
in Toronto Heritage Cantonese 

Dissertation URL:  http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/35721/

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Language Acquisition
                     Phonetics
                     Phonology
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): Chinese, Yue (yue)

Language Family(ies): Sino-Tibetan


Dissertation Director(s):
Scott Kiesling

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation focuses on variation and change in the vowel system of
Toronto Heritage Cantonese with the goal of pushing variationist research on
sound change beyond its monolingually oriented core (Nagy 2016) and in
approaching the study of heritage languages from the perspective of
spontaneous speech. It addresses the possibility of contact-induced
inter-generational vowel shifts, mergers, and splits in native vocabulary. It
also addresses the extent to which demographic, ethnic orientation, or
language use factors may account for these changes. The data comes from the
Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Project (Nagy 2011) and
includes hour-long sociolinguistic interviews from Toronto residents of
different age, sex, and generational backgrounds speaking in Cantonese along
with Ethnic Orientation Questionnaire data and a picture description task from
each speaker. The mean F1/F2 of each vowel category from each of 32 speakers
were measured in native (and integrated English) vocabulary. The results show
lack of vowel shifts, evidence for merger in progress of /y/ ~ /u/, and
evidence for a pre-nasal split in /ɛ/. The speakers who lead in this merger
and split are the ones who used the least amount of Cantonese in the interview
samples. The lack of the same structural changes from Hong Kong speakers
further supports an account based on contact-induced change. These findings
challenge Labov’s (2007) Transmission and Diffusion model and suggest more
sociolinguistic engagement with theoretical models of contact-induced change
(cf. Thomason & Kaufman 1988, van Coetsem 2000).




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