Family Language Tree

  Family Language Tree

                                                                                                 Qingqing Liu & Ting Bai  Oct.16^th

   

	Grandmother	Grandfather	Grandmother	Grandfather
Name Called	Petunia	Brady	Edna	Hyle
Spoken	Cantonese	Cantonese	Cantonese	Cantonese
Written	Cantonese	Cantonese Mandarin	Cantonese	Cantonese
Read	Cantonese	Cantonese Mandarin	Cantonese	Cantonese

	Mother	Father
Name Called	Lisa	Mancel
Spoken	English, Spanish  Cantonese, Mandarin	Spanish, Cantonese   English
Written	English, Spanish Cantonese	Spanish, Cantonese  English
Read	English, Spanish  Cantonese	Spanish, Cantonese English

	Main Information
Name Called	Ryan
Spoken	Cantonese, English French Spanish, Mandarin
Written	Cantonese, English French
Read	Cantonese, English French

Analysis of Ryan’s family language tree

Ryan’s parents immigrated into Canada in June of 1992. He was born in Canada in 1998. The first language of Ryan is Cantonese. He told us that in his family, he communicated with his parents in Cantonese. Because his parents are good at English, when Ryan was young, his parents tried their best to teach Ryan English. When Ryan entered into primary school, he already acquired Cantonese and English. At the same time, his parents also taught him Spanish. So, Spanish can be considered as his Third Language. However, he can just speak it.

We know that Canada is a bilingual country (English and French). Later, Ryan chose a bilingual school. In the half of the courses, his teacher taught them in French, and the other half of classes, the teacher taught in English. Ryan told us that before he entered into primary school, he did not know anything about French. He did not understand the knowledge what teachers taught to them and he did not play with his classmates. However, Ryan became quite fluent in French quickly. He was exposed to the French language environment for a long time. Just half a year, he could participate in classes’ conversations and play with other classmates fluently. Besides, in his elementary school, he met many students whose first language is Mandarin. Therefore, in this situation, he learnt how to speak Mandarin. However, he could just speak Mandarin, and could not write and read.

From Ryan’s language background, readers can understand the influence of family language background. Ryan has a various language background. His parents might not be conscientious about their commitment to bilingual education, but their language influenced his language a lot.

During our interview process, we found that there are some reasons behind his language changes (English became their main language, meanwhile, their abilities to use other languages decrease). First, English begins to become his main language because of language socialization. Although, his parents might speak Cantonese with him when he was a baby, after he went to kindergarten, he became consistently exposed to the English spoken environment. He used English to socialize with his classmates and teachers. He also used English to gain other knowledge. Therefore, within his growing up, English plays a dominant role in his life. English became his main language. As for the French and Spanish, he does not use them as well as English when he enters into University, so, maybe in the future, his Spanish and French abilities may decrease. From this we can see, socialization also plays an important role in language learning.

After talking with him, we found that the multilingual background learners had some advantages in studying other languages than us who just have a single language background. First, we think that the more language you master the easier for you to learn another new language. Taking Ryan for example, he could learn French easily, because he has already mastered some Spanish from his parent and both Spanish and French have the masculine and feminine words, he felt easier to learn French.

However, for the learners who come from a single language background, it is difficult for them to learn another totally different language since there isn’t any similarity. Compared to us, when we studied in undergraduate degree, except learning English, we had a chance to choose learn another language, most of us chose French. However, Learning French was so difficult for us. After insisting two semesters, we gave up. Until now, I can just remember ‘Bonjour’ and ‘Merci’. It is so pity. I analyze the reasons of it are that first, the language we have acquired has no similarity of French, and second, we are not exposed in a French environment like Ryan.