Pragmatic Attrition in Heritage Cantonese Speakers: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Request Mitigation Strategies Among Second-Generation Diaspora Communities in Vancouver

Abstract

This study investigates pragmatic attrition in heritage Cantonese speakers residing in Vancouver's Cantonese-speaking diaspora communities, with particular focus on the erosion of request mitigation strategies under prolonged L1 contact reduction and dominant L2 (English) socialization. Drawing on a purpose-built multimodal corpus of 148 semi-structured sociolinguistic interviews, the study applies Politeness Theory and Cross-linguistic Transfer frameworks to quantify shifts in illocutionary force modification, honorific downgraders, and syntactic hedging patterns across three generational cohorts. Findings reveal statistically significant attrition in syntactic indirectness and formulaic politeness markers among second-generation speakers, with L2 pragmatic norms exhibiting measurable transfer into heritage L1 performance. These results extend current models of incomplete acquisition versus attrition, offering empirical implications for heritage language pedagogy and community language preservation policy.