PANG BIOGRAPHY
for the Child Mandarin Corpus -- The Taipei Children
Mary S. Erbaugh
Pang, a girl, was age 1; 9.28 at the beginning of taping, and 2; 11.17 fourteen months later at the end of the 25 sessions. Her mean MLU (mean length of utterance in morphemes) was 2.73, increasing from a low of 1.73 to a high of 3.46. (See Pang Statistical Summary for details.)
Pang was the much loved younger of two sisters. She was intelligent, alert and curious but rather quiet and reserved. She and her sister, Xiao Mi, age 4; 10, were being raised by their maternal grandparents, for their parents spent over half the year traveling on business. The girls shared a bedroom in their grandparents’ apartment, one floor above the parents’ flat.
The grandparents were very well educated natives of Jiangsu, who spoke both standard and Nanjing Mandarin. They knew very little Taiwanese. The grandmother, a Nanjing native, had graduated from an elite high school in Nanjing. The grandfather, a coastal Jiangsu native, had been a high school principal, before suffering a devastating stroke. The parents were both college graduates, the father was also a Mandarin speaker from a Jiangsu family. The parents had to spend a lot of time on business in California. They seldom appear on the tapes.
A daily cook and housekeeper spoke very good Taiwan style Mandarin. Pang’s younger maternal aunt and uncle ate lunch and dinner with the family every day. The aunt had an MA from a US university; her husband, a German-American, spoke excellent Mandarin as part of his thesis work in Chinese history.
The home was an airy and pleasant upper story three bedroom apartment of about 1,200 sf, with two balconies. A kitchen and utility balcony opened off the living room. The grandfather’s sickroom opened off the living room by the front door; his door was open so he could hear the activities there. An adjacent bedroom was full of the girls' toys, including a swing set. The girls shared an additional back bedroom.
The home was well furnished with books, every kind of toy and game, TV, tape player, and other appliances.
Prof. Yuan Bao-chen of National Taiwan Normal University helped me tape Pang. We usually arrived in the mid afternoon. Bao-chen and I would chat with the grandmother for a while before we began our routine of letting Pang unwrap the cassette tape, and hand it to us. We would insert it together in the main tape recorder, and Pang would watch the sound needle swing for the sound test. Then I would take the second recorder into a corner to record a narration tape.
Bao-chen and the grandmother played with Pang; often the grandmother would also do housework or a little reading. Usually the older sister would come home from nursery school, and join in the play. Xiao Mi was very proud of Pang, and loved to show her off. She was very helpful in glossing her speech for us as well. The girls did a great deal of fantasy play together. When the parents were in town, the girls were very lively and happy as they played with them. Often Xiao Mi would want a tape recorder and mike to herself; I recorded a lot of her stories and conversation on my narration tape recorder.
The family often included Bao-chen and me in dinner. I socialized with them often on holidays as well, since I was friends with the aunt and uncle who had introduced me.
Pang had a quiet happy year. During the first four tapings she was wearing uncomfortable leg braces for several hours a day, to correct the bowlegs she developed from being very fat. Later, her legs improved, and she slimmed down as she grew into a healthy, active child. Pang began nursery school at age 2; 6, but came home after the first day demanding to stay home with Grandma, because the toys and snacks were all better than at school. Her wish was granted, though she re-started nursery school six months later.
Pang did as well in school as her older sister. A few years later, the whole family immigrated to the US.