Datos informativos

In this last section, I will delineate my data collection procedures and issues concerning

my data transcription and translation. I will first focus on my primary data, i.e. the whole

Bride Wannabes series. I collected the television series through Google video searches,

and in the end successfully retrieved all episodes on various video sharing websites

including PPstream, 56.com and Youku. In Hong Kong, Chinese subtitles are available

in all pre-recorded programmes on Cantonese television channels. However, I did not

adopt the subtitles in Bride Wannabes as my transcript, as they do not fully capture the

original utterance, e.g. the translation of all English utterances/expressions into Chinese

and the omission of many particles. Instead, I transcribed the data verbatim. I would

like to particularly emphasise that while Bride Wannabes is primarily in Cantonese, it

also involves English and Mandarin. For one thing, there are some non-Cantonese-

speaking suitors; for another, code-mixing/code-switching is a common practice in

Hong Kong. I transcribed the data as per the language(s) actually used. As the written

forms of Cantonese and Mandarin are not always easily distinguishable, I italicised all

parts in Mandarin. Besides, I also included in my transcript pauses, emphases, non-

verbal features, e.g. nodding, prosodic features, e.g. volume, and, where relevant,

descriptions of what is happening on the scene. Below is a list of symbols used in my

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(.) _{A dot inside brackets indicates a pause.}

___ Underlining denotes the speaker’s emphasis.

[ ] Non-verbal and prosodic features, and what is happening on the scene are

included in square brackets.

Italics Utterances/terms uttered in Mandarin are italicised.

As regards my auxiliary data of forum posts, I collected them on the TVB forum. In my

transcript, I showed them as they are without any modification, including language

mistakes.

The last focus of this section is how I translated my data into English. Before

doing that, I would like to stress that my data analysis is based on the original utterance,

whatever the language is; the English translation is for reference only. Throughout this

thesis, I will present my data transcription and translation in the following format:

Suki: 個 感覺 係 好(.) 好 empty 呀(.)

CL feeling be very(.) very empty SFP(.)

Feeling very…very empty.

As shown above, I translated my data at two levels: word-by-word translation and

idiomatic translation. The idiomatic translation aims to make the data more

understandable for the reader. As for the word-by-word translation, I tried to capture

the essence of the original version. This is especially useful when it comes to Chinese

idioms, in which case an idiomatic translation may not reflect the richness of the

language use. Owing to the vast difference between Cantonese and Mandarin on the

one hand, and English on the other, it is not always possible to do a word-by-word

translation. For example, an important means of expressing temporal and aspectual Word-by-word translation Idiomatic translation

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meanings in Cantonese is through aspect markers, which are often expressed

grammatically in English (Matthews and Yip, 2011); some adverbial markers and noun

classifiers cannot be translated into English word by word either. Instead of ignoring

such language differences, I indicated in my word-by-word translation all such markers

whenever a word/phrase does not have an English equivalent (see a full list of such

markers and their abbreviations on p. 12).

I find it necessary to particularly highlight an important feature of Cantonese,

namely the large number of particles, with many not having direct English counterparts.

Cantonese particles can be classified syntactically into the following types:

(a) Linking particles

Linking particles function to link (1) the possessor and the item possessed; (2) the

attributive adjective and the noun; and (3) the relative clause26 and the noun in a nominal

phrase (ibid). In Cantonese, the most common linking particle is 嘅, e.g.

(3)

18 Louisa: 嬌 小 玲瓏 嘅 Suki

Delicate tiny exquisite LP Suki

Delicate, tiny and exquisite Suki

In (3), the linking particle 嘅is used to link the adjective 嬌小玲瓏 (delicate, tiny and

exquisite) and the noun Suki.

132 (b) Verbal particles

Verbal particles are similar to particles in English phrasal verbs in terms of both form and function, e.g. ‘up’ in ‘pick up’ (ibid, p. 243). They function to (1) show directions;

(2) indicate an effect upon the object; (3) quantify a noun; and (4) express adversative

and habitual meaning (ibid, p. 243-262). For example, an important Cantonese verbal

particle is 倒, which shows attainment (ibid, p. 251), e.g.

(4)

19 Winnie: 我 覺得 我 一定 可以 幫倒手

I think I must can help-VTIP

I think that I must be able to help

20 去 減輕 呢 個 災情 嘅

go relieve this CL disaster situation SFP

relieve the situation of this disaster.

(c) Topic particles

Cantonese is a topic-prominent (or topic-comment) language (cf. English is a subject-

prominent (or subject-predicate) language)27; topic particles, which are often preceded

by the sentence topic, are an important means to separate the topic and the comment in

a sentence. For instance, in (5), the topic particle 啦 functions to mark 20歲女仔 (20-

year-old girls) as the sentence topic:

27 _{For details about the feature of topic-prominence in Cantonese, see Matthews and Yip (2011, p. 83-}

133 (5)

21 Bonnie: 20 歲 女仔 啦(.) 咁 出嚟 就

20 years old girl VTIP(.) in this way out-come then

When 20-year-old girls came out

22 同 我(.) 一齊 去 做 speed-dating 嘅 時候...

with me(.) together go do speed-dating LP when...

to do speed-dating with me...

(d) Interjections

Interjections often precede a sentence/clause and serve as place-fillers on the one hand,

and to utter exclamations on the other. For example, in (6), the interjection 嗱 functions

to seek attention:

(6)

23 Mei-

Ling:

Bonnie 個 人 好 活潑(.)

Bonnie CL person very lively(.)

Bonnie is very lively.

24 嗱 (.) 中國 男仔 呢(.) 就 會 覺得

VTIP (.) Chinese boys VTIP(.) just would think

There it is! Chinese boys would think

(e) Sentence-final particles28

Sentence-final particles, as the label suggests, occur in the final position of a

sentence/clause. They do not have direct counterparts in English, but many linguists

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have pointed to the parallels between the functions of Cantonese sentence-final particles

and those of English intonation (e.g. ibid; Leung and Gibbons, 2009). More specifically,

they serve the pragmatic functions of showing speech-act types, marking evidentiality

as well as emotional and affective colouring (see Matthews and Yip, 2011, p. 397-408).

For example, in (7), 囉 serves as an evidential marker which marks the obviousness of Gobby’s increased confidence after being transformed by the ‘experts’:

(7)

25 Gobby: 即係(.) 經過 改造咗 之後(.)

That is(.) after transform-PFV after(.)

That is, after being transformed,

26 我 對 自己 自信心 大咗 囉(.)

I in self self-confidence big-PFV SFP(.)

I have more self-confidence.

In my data transcription, I referred to linking particles and sentence-final particles as ‘LP’ and ‘SFP’ respectively, and the other types of particles, which are less relevant to

my analysis, i.e. verbal particles, topic particles and interjections, as ‘VTIP’.

To summarise, in this chapter, I introduced my data, justified my choice and

depicted how I collected, transcribed and translated my data. This lays the groundwork

for the following three data analysis chapters, in which I explain my methods of analysis,

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Chapter 5: How unmarried women are talked about