Mrs. Lai (Yizhang Hunan)

 

 

Birth place:

Xinzhouzhen (Hunan, China)

Native language (L1): 

Yizhang Hunan

Status of L1: 

Low in China

Low in Hong Kong

Language(s) spoken other than L1: 

Cantonese (L2) (paternal language)

Putonghua (L3)

Duration of residence in Hong Kong: 

8 years

Occasions of using the languages: 

Cantonese (L2) (paternal language)

Putonghua (L3)

Number of children: 

1 daughter (13 years old)

 

Perception towards Yizhang Hunan

 

Raised in Hunan by a Yizhang Hunan-speaking mother and a Cantonese-speaking father, Mrs. Lai was fluent in three languages before coming to Hong Kong. Mrs. Lai’s husband is a Hongkonger but they raised their daughter until she was 4 years old in the mainland. At home, Mrs. Lai usually spoke Putonghua to her daughter as it is the medium of instruction in the mainland, so her daughter could understand very little Yizhang Hunan. Though she finds that Yizhang Hunan is not stigmatized in Hong Kong, she prefers teaching her daughter Mandarin to teaching her her native language. Mrs. Lai believes that her daughter can learn Yizhang Hunan very quickly through communicating with relatives in her hometown; there is no need to teach her the language deliberately.

 

Mrs. Lai does not think that Yizhang Hunan is under threat as people of her age in her hometown speak the language as their mother tongue. Even though the medium of instruction at school has always been Putonghua, most parents still use Yizhang Hunan to communicate with their children, making them highly proficient in it. Children whose parents choose not to speak the language to them can still acquire it through communicating with friends outside the classroom and other people in Hunan.