ZHONG BIOGRAPHY
for the Child Mandarin Corpus -- The Taipei Children
Mary S. Erbaugh
Zhong, a girl, was age 2;7.0 at
the beginning of taping, and 2;8.25 eight weeks later, at the end of the 9
sessions. Her mean MLU (mean length of utterance in morphemes) was 3.57.
(See Zhong Statistical Summary for details.)
Zhong was tall and lively, extremely intelligent, an active and mischievous only
child. She was very talkative, and loved to experiment with words.
She lived with her mother and father, both college graduates. Her
mother, a college Mandarin teacher with an exemplary accent, had come over from
Fuzhou as an infant. Her father was born in Jiangxi, and had a heavier
accent. He was a teacher of classical Chinese at an elite boy’s high
school, where the mother also moonlighted as a teacher.
The parents spoke only standard Mandarin to each other; all relatives who
visited spoke only Mandarin, as far as I could determine.
A young woman student boarded at the house and a housekeeper came daily.
They spoke more Taiwan style Mandarin. They appear on the first tape, but,
by the second session, neither was involved with the household.
Usually I taped in the afternoons, after Zhong’s nap, when her father was taking
care of her while the mother was at work. The mother is the second most
frequent adult speaker. Usually Zhong played very freely, climbing about
the furniture, solving puzzles, looking at story books, and enjoying snacks.
Sometimes her father would grade papers, with the help of his teenage students.
These boys also liked to play with Zhong.
After the fourth tape Zhong was hospitalized for a few days with bronchitis.
Her speech was simpler are sparser through tape 7. By the 8th and 9th
tapes she had recovered to her talkative, lively self.
Four years later I made a follow-up visit to Zhong and her family, which now
included a two-year-old sister. Zhong was in first grade, but already reading
classical Chinese stories written for middle school students. She
was still lively and friendly, but grown into a disciplined young student.
Zhong’s apartment was sunny and airy, about 1,200 sf, with a large living room
and balcony, a small kitchen and utility balcony for laundry, and two large
bedrooms opening off the living room. Zhong shared a bedroom with her
parents; the second bedroom served as a study. The apartment faced a
freeway on-ramp, and so was rather noisy. It was well furnished, and
well stocked with books, toys, TV, tape recorder, and other appliances.
Zhong's family often invited me to stay on for tasty dinners or snacks.