Identity | lmac

Speak mostly Cantonese, sometimes Chiuchownese

Influenced by Lee's parent, Lee did not have a high chance in using Chiuchownese, as reflected from the domain analysis. Lee spoke with her family usually in Cantonese, though sometimes she still spoke Chiuchownese with her parents. However, she rarely spoke Chiuchownese to her brothers and sisters since they did not have much knowledge on Chiuchownese. In addition, since Lee was born in Hong Kong, her involvements with friends, education and employment are usually in Cantonese, the dominant language in Hong Kong but not Chiuchownese, a minority language in Hong Kong. Regarding her language choice, Lee has once said : “In recent years, I had a dramatic decrease in the usage of Chiuchownese. The only time I use Chiuchownese is during the Chinese New Year when I communicate or chitchat with relatives who speak Chiuchownese fluently.”

Profile - Lee Siu Po (Lee)

Lee Siu Po (Lee) is the mother of Pauline, our interviewee in the younger generation. She was born in Hong Kong and is currently living in Hong Kong. Cantonese is the first language she learnt and is most frequently used in her daily life. Apart from Cantonese, She can also speak Chiuchownese because her parents were born in Chiu Chow and Chiuchownese is her parents’ first language. Lee’s parents learn Cantonese as their L2 when coming to Hong Kong to work. However, they use Cantonese more than Chiuchownese nowadays.

Key features Discovered from lee's profile

From the profile of Lee, we can see that Cantonese is a dominant language in the Hong Kong Community, which means Hong Kong community shares a language and a collective consciousness. According to Barnard (2016), the definition of collective consciousness refers to the following: "Each speaker, with the language, “can access to all the experiences, knowledge and wisdom of the other speakers of the language” (p. 57). In other words, for people living in Hong Kong, they need to equip themselves with Cantonese in order to exchange their experiences within other Cantonese speakers.

Before looking at Lee's language choice and her identity acceptance in her Chiu Chow identity, from Lee's profile we can discover certain key features in the background of Lee's parents.

Lee's parents learn Cantonese when they come to Hong Kong to work. Since it is mentioned in the profile that they learn Chiuchownese as their first language (L1) and Cantonese as their second language (L2), Lee's parents experience a language shift from Chiuchownese to Cantonese. According to Lucas (2001), the definition of language shift refers to the following: "Language shift occurs when speakers in a community give up speaking their language and take up the use of another in its place" (p. 47). In other words, in the case of Lee's parents, they give up speaking Chiuchownese and speak Cantonese instead. To understand more, we asked Lee about her parents' language practices. Lee mentioned that her parents speak both Chiuchownese and Cantonese at first when they came to Hong Kong to work, but eventually they decreased their usage of Chiuchownese and switched to use mainly Cantonese in their daily lives. They go beyond just learning the language but in fact, according to Myer Scotton (2006), assimilates to use Cantonese only. This language choice also influences Lee's language choice as well, which is going to be shown below in the domain analysis, where Lee uses mostly Cantonese nowadays.

So what are the reasons behind for this language shift? According to Myer Scotton (2006), we believe that we can sum up two reasons for this language shift. First, Lee's parents want to work in Hong Kong and to communicate with other speakers in Hong Kong, they need to learn Cantonese. That means they need to accommodate to Hong Kong community by altering themselves to become an in-group member in the Hong Kong community. In other words, it is to develop themselves with the sense of belonging. Second, as mentioned by Myer Scotton (2006), "choosing an appropriate language can open gate for chances for socio-economic mobility" (p. 111). In Hong Kong community, Cantonese is the appropriate language since it is the majority language. Referring to the words of Myer Scotton (2006), we can interpret that if Lee's parents choose the appropriate language, Cantonese, their economic, social and cultural capitals can increase.

After knowing the reasons behind the language shift, we can also notice the status-changing for Chiuchownese. In Hong Kong community, the status of Cantonese is much stronger than that of Chiuchownese. Chiuchownese in Hong Kong can only hold the minority status.

Below we are going to show the domain analysis of Lee, which as mentioned in previous paragraph, we can see the influences from Lee's parents to Lee in terms of the language choice:

Parental Generation

Domain Analysis

Language Choices

Speak almost Cantonese all the time

Speak Cantonese only

Speak mostly Cantonese, sometimes English

identity Acceptance

Identity

Chiu Chow Identity

Hong Kong Identity

Chinese Identity

Ratings

Rating Criteria

From 1 to 10, with 1 as the least important and 10 as the most important

When Lee was asked about the identities she accepted, there were three identities she accepted, including Chiu Chow, Hong Kong and Chinese, with different ratings as shown above. When we asked her reasons to accept Chiu Chow identity, she replied : "knowing to speak Chiuchownese is an important reason for me to accept my Chiu Chow identity." However, Lee preferred her Hong Kong identity more than Chiu Chow identity now because she claimed that she was now living in Hong Kong.