About Us
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Methodology
Qualitative & Primary Data Collection
Secondary Data Collection
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In-depth Interview
We conducted face-to-face interviews with the family, who also owns a Chiu Chow restaurant, both in a group setting and individually. Since the experience and interactions within a family are unique and could not simply be understood through a standard questionnaire, we prepared a list of open questions to encourage them to share more freely. We recorded our dialogues with the consent from the family members, where the audio recordings are kept confidential and only for report compilation.
Sampling size includes 8 family members, spanning across 3 generations. The data for the oldest generation, Grandpa and Grandma Wu, was collected by passing on the set interview questions to family members, as the both of them only speak Chiu Chownese and limited Cantonese, therefore we needed translations and unable to interview them personally.
Observation
We also observed the interaction between the family (the restaurant owner) with their customers for a 2 hours period, to fulfill our objective of observing the inward and outward roles of the restaurant towards maintaining Chiu Chownese the language and the Chiu Chownese identity.
Limitations
The small sampling size of our project is a limitation, as it lessens the representativeness and conclusiveness of our findings.
Recommendations for further study
See our blog post for recommendations under the 'Reflections' tab here
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Secondary data collection was conducted to provide analysis framework for identifying various linguistic phenomenon within the family. We adopted the domain analysis framework, as suggested by Myers-Scotton to reach conclusions based on the family's language shifts and language attitudes. Other scholarly works are also cited to provide insight on possible motivations of the linguistic phenomenon observed.
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Limitations
Lack of scholarly or academic articles which discusses the role of culinary culture in the particular context of its relationship with language preservation or language maintenance, as most of the work focuses on culinary culture and other discourses such as tourism.
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Recommendations for further study
See our blog post for recommendations under the 'Reflections' tab here
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International Mother Language Day
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In efforts to raise awareness towards multilingualism, the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity, UNESCO has designated February 21st of every year as the International Mother Language Day (IMLD).
Our project's beliefs are in line with the UNESCO initiative, as we believe that cultural and linguistic diversity should be preserved and hope that our efforts in working on the linguistic minorities - Chiu Chownese - its linguistic or cultural elements, can be preserved and continued in Hong Kong.
Project Objectives
We are 4 students from the University of Hong Kong, who have enrolled in the course LCOM 3001 - Cultural Dimensions of Language and Communications as our capstone learning course.
This website presents our findings of our research on the Chiu Chow community in Hong Kong and an in-depth case study of the linguistic practices of the Wu's, a Chiu Chownese family who owns a Chiu Chow restaurant. Further research is also carried on the role of the restaurant in sustaining the Chiu Chownese ethnic identity for the family members, or in broader context, its role within the Chiu Chow community in Hong Kong.
Our research is guided by Dr. Lisa Lim, for other relevant research on linguistic minorities in Hong Kong, please also see http://linguisticminorities.hk/
