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Now, let
us look at real life examples of Cantonese families - The
Wong Family and the Tham Family. We will be observing inter
as well as intra generational communication patterns within
the family, focusing on language choice for communication.
We observe
a family gathering during the recent mid-Autumn Festival celebrations
at a Condominium void-deck.
The Wong
Family comprises of:
A. Grandmother
B. Husband
and wife
C. 3 Daughters
( aged 11, 13 and 16)
The Tham
Family comprises of:
A. Grandfather
and Grandmother
B. Husband
and wife
C. 1 Son
(aged 16), 1 Daughter (aged 18)
*Also
noteworthy is that the wives in the Wong and Tham families
are sisters.
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Background:
The two
families have close ties and meet every Sunday in church as
well as on weekends for family gatherings and meals.
The grandmother
in the Wong Family is also the maternal grandmother in the
Tham family. She was educated in a Chinese school in the early
days and knows how to speak other dialects other than Cantonese
and can speak Colloquial Singapore English as well as halting
Mandarin with a Cantonese accent.
The husband
and wife in the Wong family hold managerial positions in different
companies and are fluent in Cantonese, English as well as
a little Malay, but not Mandarin.
The three
daughters in the Wong family are fluent in only English Language
although they study Mandarin in school. All three cannot speak
Cantonese but can understand simple Cantonese phrases.
The grandfather
in the Tham family was English educated and thus is able to
speak English fluently in addition to Cantonese, Mandarin
and Malay. The Grandmother speaks simple English and Mandarin,
and is fluent in Cantonese.
The husband
in the Tham family had University education and thus is fluent
in English but not Mandarin, and fluent in Cantonese. The
wife who holds a managerial post and speaks English fluently
but not Mandarin, speaks Cantonese fluently too.
The son
and daughter in the Tham family speak English fluently, but
not Mandarin unless required. They cannot speak Cantonese
but understand simple conversation.
* Both
families speak English as the home language
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Inter-Generation
Communication
It is
interesting to see that in the case of these two families,
the Grandparents are more effectively bilingual than the grandchildren
- perhaps due to their efforts in order to break down the
communication barriers for their grandchildren.
We observe
that grandparents from both sides call out to their grandchildren
in English and continue to speak to them in simple English.
But when trying to ask or talk about a topic beyond their
limited grasp of English, they switch to halting Mandarin
with occasional lexical borrowings from Cantonese. It is interesting
to note that although the grandparents make an effort to speak
the language that their grandchildren are comfortable in,
the grandchildren cannot do the same for them and sometimes
have difficulty answering even in Mandarin. This seems to
be a trend amongst many students from English speaking families
today. This trend is problematic as reduced communication
with their grandparents all result in the reduction of the
family to transfer traditional and cultural values from one
generation to another. No doubt that this trend is the effect
of government Language planning policies in the public domain,
yet, it will also contribute to the decline of the Cantonese
language as there is no imparting of the language to the younger
generation.
As the
grandchildren get bored by adult conversation and huddle off
to have candle light conversations among themselves, we see
inter-generational communication between "grandparents" and
"parents" - 1st and 2nd generation. The conversation is carried
out comfortably in Cantonese and Cantonese poems about the
mid-Autumn festivities and Cantonese jokes are shared and
laughed over. The 1st generation (grandparents) seem more
at ease and comfortable within this sphere of communication
and express themselves fluently in Cantonese. The 2nd generation
(parents) also speaks fluent Cantonese, sharing in the Cantonese
poems and old sayings.
The parents
from both families call out to their children to come over
for some mooncakes and cold drinks. The volume of conversations
go up as the whole family try the mooncakes that one of the
aunties made specially for the gathering. In comparison, when
the parents speak to the 3rd generation (children), they speak
only in English with occasional basic, simple Cantonese phrases.
The children speak to their parents only in English and do
not switch to Mandarin or Cantonese except when emphasizing
something funny or something that is unique to the language.
The contrast
between inter-generational communication points to a trend
of young people who are not able to speak in their dialects
but are only fluent in English - their first language in school
and the language that they are most comfortable in. This switch
to English, and to a lesser degree - Mandarin, reflects the
switch in the medium if education in schools. This also points
to the fast diminishing role of Cantonese even in the home
domain, which will definitely result in language death for
Cantonese in a few generations. The younger generation is
not able to take part or understand the old Cantonese sayings
or the Cantonese poems that were shared among the adults -
a loss of culture and communion.
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Intra-Generation
Communication
The mid-Autumn
festivities carry on into the night as once again, the youngsters
go off for their own activities and leave the adults to themselves.
The in-laws have a good time reminiscing and joking - all
these in Cantonese. The parents chit chat over tea and mooncakes
while the youngsters are off by themselves and their own conversations.
Here,
we see three groups of intra-generational communication going
on - 3 different age groups, 2 different languages.
In the
grandparents group, we eavesdrop on their conversation…. Grandchildren,
health, great grandchildren, CPF, Medishield… the list goes
on. The conversation is in Cantonese. We observe that the
older folks are definitely more comfortable and are able to
express themselves to a much greater extent in Cantonese.
A language they grew up with and have spoken ever since. It
is sad to note that this is not so when we eavesdrop on the
youngsters.
The cousins
are happily talking and laughing about boyfriends, girlfriends,
corny jokes, about the things they used to do when they were
young and lamenting about their studies and homework…. etc
etc. They speak in English and occasionally code-switch to
Mandarin but not Cantonese. When we asked them why they do
not speak Cantonese, they say that it is not needed for daily
life and thus, is not worth the effort to learn. Communication
with their grandparents is sustainable although certain topics
are out of the scope as it is difficult to explain in simple
English or Mandarin. Furthermore, the youngsters lamented
that they were already having problems with speaking Mandarin
fluently, let along learn to speak Cantonese fluently.
Interestingly,
when we move on to the parents, they are speaking in Cantonese.
Although when the fathers discuss share prices and business,
they switch to English. From this, we see evidence that Cantonese
has limited functions even in the 2nd generation of speakers.
This is the start of the decline of Cantonese as the speakers'
limited lexicon does not allow the use of Cantonese within
certain topics of conversation. When asked if they were more
comfortable with Cantonese or English and Mandarin, they reflected
that it depended on the topic of conversation. They also felt
that the younger generation no longer needed to speak Cantonese
as it had no value outside the home domain, but that it would
be nice if the youngsters could speak Cantonese for sake of
keeping the language of their ancestors alive.
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