文章基本信息

标题：Grandparents in Minority Language Maintenance: Mandarin Chinese in Canada
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作者：Qin Xiang ; Veronika Makarova
期刊名称：Open Journal of Modern Linguistics
印刷版ISSN：2164-2818
电子版ISSN：2164-2834
出版年度：2021
卷号：11
期号：3
页码：380-394
DOI：10.4236/ojml.2021.113029
语种：English
出版社：Scientific Research Publishing
摘要：This article investigates the role of grandparents in Mandarin Chinese retention by children in Saskatchewan, Canada. The materials for the study come from interviews with 60 Mandarin Chinese/English bi-multilingual children between the ages of 6 and 13 in the families of immigrants from China residing in Saskatchewan, Canada. Additional materials describing bilingual children’s Mandarin language proficiency come from a picture description as well as Chinese characters reading and writing tasks. The interview responses and language proficiency parameters were analyzed with the help of correlation analysis, chi-square (for nonparametric data) and univariate ANOVAs (for parametric data). The results are highly controversial, as on the one hand, they demonstrate that the presence of grandparents residing in the same household as their grandchildren is associated with the grandchildren having fewer non-canonical forms (NCFs referred to in earlier research as errors) in their narratives and fewer phonological NCFs. On the other hand, children who have grandparents residing with them are more likely to have a lower ability to read Mandarin texts with PinYin, spend fewer hours reading in Mandarin, produce more incomplete sentences per utterance, and shorter narratives.
关键词：Mandarin Chinese;Immigrant Language Maintenance;Heritage Language;Grandparents;Canada