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Ziyin Mai Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages Chinese University of Hong Kong maggiezymai@cuhk.edu.hk website |
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Yuqing Liang Deaprtment of Linguistics and Translation City University of Hong Kong yuqiliang7-c@my.cityu.edu.hk |
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Zhuang Wu Faculty of English Language and Culture Guangdong University of Foreign Studies woodblcu@gdufs.edu.cn |
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Virginia Yip Linguistics and Modern Languages Chinese University of Hong Kong vcymatthews@cuhk.edu.hk |
| Participants: | 61 |
| Type of Study: | longitudinal, naturalistic |
| Location: | Hong Kong |
| Media type: | audio |
| DOI: |
Mai, Z. & Yip, V. (2022). Caretaker input and trilingual development of Mandarin, Cantonese and English in early childhood (1;6-2;11). International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. 25:9, 3389-3403.
Mai, Z., Liang, Y., Wu, Z., & Yip, V. (2025) Trilingual toddlers strategically draw on closely-related languages to catch up. Paper presented at the 15th International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB15), June 9-13, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain.
In accordance with TalkBank rules, any use of data from this corpus must be accompanied by at least one of the above references.
The Early Additive Child Multilingual Corpus (EACMC) is a result of a series of linked research projects led by Ziyin Mai at the Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong since 2016. An overarching objective of the projects is to examine multilingual input and early language development in toddlers raised in multilingual communities (e.g., Hong Kong, Guangzhou) in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in southern China. In this part of China, young children are speakers of Cantonese, Mandarin and English to different extents, ranging from near-monolinguals and functional bilinguals to highly proficient trilinguals. Many of them receive Chinese input from (grand)parents who speak Cantonese or Mandarin as their first and dominant language, and also English input from parents or live-in foreign domestic helpers who speak English as an additional and usually weaker language. With the increasingly popular practice of introducing English to young children through daily interactions at home, additive bilingualism or trilingualism is becoming the goal and the norm.
The projects aim to document and analyze the developmental trajectories of bilingual and trilingual children learning Cantonese, Mandarin and/or English through interacting with parents and other caretakers at home before age 3, with matched monolinguals for comparison. So far, the project has been conducted in four phases and is still expanding. We will release the data from Phases 1 and 2 in this first installment.
Phase 1 features two longitudinal studies tracking the trilingual development of two brothers in Hong Kong:
Leo: The Leo Corpus documents the simultaneous development of Mandarin, Cantonese and English in a Hong Kong child from 1;6-2;11. Leo was born and raised in Hong Kong. His parents are native speakers of Mandarin (and Cantonese is also his mother’s native language), and second language speakers of English. Before 1;1, the family adopted the “one parent-one language” practice, where the father and paternal grandmother addressed the child in Mandarin, and the mother addressed him in Cantonese consistently. From 1;1 to 3;4, the family introduced an innovative “one day-one language” system on top of the “one parent-one language” system, in which the father and the grandmother continued to speak Mandarin to the child, whereas the mother began to interact with the child in English every other day in a week and Cantonese the rest of the days. Leo also had exposure to the three languages through attending playgroups and nursery schools. The parents and research assistants began to video-tape their interactions with Leo on a weekly basis at 0;6. The current corpus contains monthly audio recordings and corresponding transcripts in three languages for 18 months from 1;6 to 2;11 (54 files, 27 hours in total), featuring Leo interacting with his main providers of input in the three languages: Mandarin from father and grandmother, Cantonese from mother, and English from mother, domestic helper and school teachers who are native speakers of English (represented by an American research assistant in the recordings).
Louis: Louis is three years younger than Leo. He was raised in a similar trilingual input model, hearing Mandarin from his father and grandmother, English from his mother, brother and domestic helper, and Cantonese from his mother. His trilingual development in Cantonese, Mandarin and English from 2;0 to 2;11 was documented through monthly 15-minute video recordings of dyadic adult-child interactions at home, featuring all primary input providers (mother, father, grandmother, foreign domestic helper, brother) in each language routinely used between the adult and Louis. The current corpus includes 58 recordings in total (12 with Cantonese as the intended language of interaction, and 23 with Mandarin or English as the intended language of interaction).
Phase 2 studies the relation between input and developmental outcomes among 59 Cantonese monolingual (n = 21), Cantonese-English bilingual (n = 31) and Cantonese-Mandarin-English trilingual (n = 7) children at 3;0. The study was carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic. All participants were ethnically Chinese, born and raised in Hong Kong, and had no suspected or known language or neurobiological disorders based on parental report. The bilingual and trilingual children typically received Chinese input (Cantonese and/or Mandarin) from (near)native speakers and English input from non-English-dominant speakers with varying proficiency. The bilingual and the monolingual group do not differ in terms of maternal education or family income. Caretaker-child dyads were invited to participate in a 10-minute standard kitchen toy play task at home at 3;0 or 3;1 using their routine language(s). The dyadic play was recorded remotely via ZOOM by a research assistant. The current corpus includes a total of 104 transcripts of the recordings in three languages. For potential collaborations in analyzing the audio and video data, please contact Ziyin Mai.
All recordings were manually transcribed and cross-checked for accuracy by trained research assistants and students, and in the cases of Leo and Louis, double-checked by the mother.
We would like to express our gratitude to Brian MacWhinney, Director of CHILDES for his expertise, advice and technical support. We thank all the children and their caretakers for contributing valuable data.
The following students and assistants have made important contributions in collecting, transcribing and processing the data: Zishu Yu, Yuqi Wu, Hannah Lam, Jieyu Zhou, Vaness Tsz Yan Law, Shiyu He, Qiuyun Cai, Ashley Chan, Jingyao Liu, Xuening Zhang, Katherine Chang, Yingyu Su, Jiaqi Nie, Le’an Luo, Huilin Li, Lu Zhao, Lu Zou, Zhiyin Yu, Yuchen Zhao, Mulin Cao, Yuxi Wu, Suihua Zhan, Jinyan Zeng, Huihong Huang, Junlin Zhu, Ashlyn Tsz Ching Chan, Yue Cao, Yue Chen, Ranee Cheng, Kelly Mak, Yuki Wong, Eunice Wong, Amanda Tang, Esther Tsz Ki Chau, Ka Hin Ng, Jing Huang, Jiayu Chen, Shuying Chen, Sze Wing Li, Peng Ye, Wenjing Tian, Yi Gu, Mingwei Liang, Elena Vermeer.
We are grateful for the following colleagues and collaborators, who have provided kind advice and practical support for these projects over the years: Stephen Matthews, Kay Wong, Vanessa Pang, Jiangling Zhou, Lydia Catedral, Cecilia Chan, Peggy Mok, Regine Lai, Patrick Wong.
The research was supported by the General Research Fund from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (“Input and experience in early trilingual development”, Project no. 14615820; Input and caretaker proficiency in early bilingual development: mothers, helpers and toddlers, Project no. 21604522), and several internal research grants from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, City University of Hong Kong, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.