Use of Verb-Noun Collocations by Advanced Learners of Chinese

The important role of collocations has been widely accepted in the current literature, but to date there are still relatively few studies on language learners’ collocation knowledge and development within different local contexts. The current study intends to contribute to the literature by investigating the oral production of Chinese verb-noun (V-N) collocations by a group of highly proficient learners comprised of both Chinese as a foreign language learners (CFL learners) and Chinese heritage language learners (CHL learners), as compared to Chinese native speakers (CNSs). The study brings together current literature on collocation and heritage language learners both from a Western perspective and from the Chinese linguistic and sociolinguistic perspective. Samples of spoken language data discussing both academic and non-academic topics were collected through one-on-one interviews with 10 CFL learners, 10 CHL learners and 10 CNSs. The data are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to yield the following three findings: (1) There is a significant difference in using Chinese verb-noun (V-N) collocations among CFL learners, CHL learners, and CNSs. In general, CNSs produced significantly more V-N collocations in terms of both number (token) and range (type) than CFL learners and CHL learners, (2) The two different oral topics are also found to affect learners’ production of collocations. All three groups used more monosyllabic V-N collocations in discussing daily topics and more disyllabic V-N collocations in discussing academic topics. Moreover, CFL learners and CFL learners exhibited both similarities and differences in applying collocations under the two oral contexts, (3) There are different categories and characteristics of collocation usage in terms of the acceptability and communicativeness of non-conventional collocations produced by learners. The discussion further analyzes several factors that tend to influence CFL learners’ and CHL learners’ production of collocations. The findings of this study expand our understanding about advanced learners’ knowledge and production of Chinese V-N collocations. Moreover, they also provide invaluable information for educators and practitioners who are involved in FL and HL instruction of Chinese

Grammatical and lexical patterning of make in Asian learner writing: a corpus-based study of ICNALE

This study investigates lexical and grammatical features of the high-frequency verb “make” in English written essays among Asian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners based on the ICNALE, the largest corpora focusing on various Asian learner groups. Examining how lexical and grammatical patterning of “make” differ between English native speakers (ENSs) and Asian learners from different countries, this study investigates overuse and misuse patterns of “make” and how they correlate to proficiency. Results show that all Asian learner groups shared similar tendency to use “make” substantially more than ENSs, with producing and causative uses most common and delexical use least common. However, Asian learners tend to produce fewer varieties of delexical uses compared with ENSs. The adjective and verb complements in the causative category by Asian learners also differ from that of ENSs. Rates and types of misuses by Taiwanese learners were independent of proficiency. It is also evident that the high-frequency verb “make” expresses a variety of meanings and there are differences in lexical as well as grammatical patterning between Taiwanese learners and ENSs. Pedagogical implications regarding the use of high-frequency verbs are included in the discussion

A Cognitive Approach to Expressions of English Metaphors

This paper analyses the three expressions of English metaphors: nominal metaphors; verbal metaphors; adjective metaphors from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. For nominal metaphors, the author starts from metaphorical mapping mechanism, interpreting the different syntactic features of them: as a subject, an object, a predicate, an appositive and a possessive, figuring out the reasons for producing nominal metaphors and its cognitive approach. For verbal metaphors, this paper has, in detail, analyzed three different categories of them: the verbal metaphors with a logical subject predicate collocation; the ones with a logical verb, object collocation; and with a logical subject, predicate, object collocation with the above three kinds of linguistic theories, obtaining the forming mechanism of the verbal metaphors and its working ways in languages. For the adjective metaphors, this paper mainly applies the mapping theory between a source domain and a target domain in Conceptual Integration Theory. A comprehensive, detailed and systematical analysis of adjective meanings in basic adjective metaphors and metaphorical combinations of basic adjectives leads to the following conclusion: the combination of basic adjective metaphors is the result of the “Least Effort Principle” with characteristics of simplicity and popularity. In addition, it also possesses the capability to produce richer metaphorical expressions

[[alternative]]The Design and Construction of a Contrastive English-Chinese Verb Lexicon

計畫編號：NSC90-2411-H032-008研究期間：200108~200207研究經費：269,000[[sponsorship]]行政院國家科學委員

Negative Transfer of Chinese in English Learners’ Lexical Learning: A Markedness Theory Perspective

Based on the markedness theory, the article discusses the negative transfer of Chinese in English learners’ lexical learning from the morphological, semantic and pragmatic perspectives, proposes that raising the English learners’ markedness awareness and encouraging the students to read extensively to enhance their communicative competence facilitates overcoming the negative transfer

Collocational Errors in EFL Learners' Interlanguage

This research study is aimed at examining Thai EFL learners' errors in their acquisition of English collocations. The data, drawn from essays written by two groups of participants differing in L2 proficiency, indicate actual problems with which the learners are really faced. As regards the origins of these collocational errors, first language transfer seems to be the most outstanding strategy which they adopted. Where the collocations in Thai and English appear incongruent, deviations often arise. The L1-based errors, evidenced by the data, deal with preposition addition, preposition omission, incorrect word choice, and collocate redundancy. It comes as a surprise to discover the high-proficiency learners' heavy reliance on the native language, to which those with low proficiency are expected to resort. In addition L1 transfer, the learners also apply synonymy and overgeneralization, both of which contribute to collocational deviations in the target language

Gradient Metaphoricity of the Preposition in: A Corpus-based Approach to Chinese Academic Writing in English

In Cognitive Linguistics, a conceptual metaphor is a systematic set of correspondences between two domains of experience (Kövecses 2020: 2). In order to have an extensive understanding of metaphors, metaphoricity (Müller and Tag 2010; Dunn 2011; Jensen and Cuffari 2014; Nacey and Jensen 2017) has been emphasized to address one of the properties of metaphors in language usage: gradience (Hanks 2006; Dunn 2011, 2014), which indicates that metaphorical expressions can be measured. Despite many noteworthy contributions, studies of metaphoricity are often accused of subjectivity (Müller 2008; Jensen and Cuffari 2014; Jensen 2017), this is why this study uses a big corpus as a database. Therefore, the main aim of this dissertation is to measure the gradient senses of the preposition in in an objective way, thus mapping the highly systematic semantic extension. Based on these gradient senses, the semantic and syntactic features of the preposition in produced by advanced Chinese English-major learners are investigated, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. A quantitative analysis of the literal and other ten metaphorical senses of the preposition in is made at first. In accounting for the five factors influencing image schemata of each sense: “scale of Landmark”, “visibility”, “path”, “inclusion” and “boundary”, the formula of measuring the gradability of metaphorical degree is deduced: Metaphoricity=[[#Visibility] +[#Path] +[#Inclusion] +[#Boundary]]*[#Scale of Landmark]. The result is that the primary sense has the highest value:12, and all other extended senses have values down to zero. The more shared features with proto-scene, the higher the value of the metaphorical sense, and the less metaphorical the sense. EVENT and PERSON are the “least metaphoric” (value = 9-11); SITUATION, NUMBER, CONTENT and FIELD are “weak metaphoric” (value = 6-8); Also included are SEGMENTATION, TIME and MANNER (value = 3-5), and they are “strong metaphoric”; PURPOSE shares the least feature with proto-scene, and it has the lowest value, so it is “most metaphoric” (value = 0-2). Then, a corpus-based approach is employed, which offers a model for employing a corpus-based approach in Cognitive Linguistics. It compares two compiled sub-corpora: Chinese Master Academic Writing Corpus and Chinese Doctorate Academic Writing Corpus. The findings show that, on the semantic level, Chinese English-major students overuse in with a low level of metaphoricity, even advanced learners use the most metaphorical in rarely. In terms of syntactic behaviours, the most frequent nouns in [in+noun] construction are weakly metaphoric, whilst the nouns in the construction [in the noun of] are EVENT sense, which is least metaphorical. Moreover, action verbs tend to be used in the construction [verb+in] and [in doing sth.] in both master and doctorate groups. In the qualitative study, the divergent usages of the preposition in are explored. The preposition in is often substituted with other prepositions, such as on and at. The fundamental reason for the Chinese learners’ weakness is the negative transfer from their mother tongue (Wang 2001; Gong 2007; Zhang 2010). Although in and its Chinese equivalence zai...li (在...里) share the same proto-scene, there are discrepancies: the metaphorical senses of the preposition in are TIME, PURPOSE, NUMBER, CONTENT, FIELD, EVENT, SITUATION, SEGMENTATION, MANNER, PERSON, while those of zai...li (在...里) are only five: TIME, CONTENT, EVENT, SITUATION and PERSON. Thus the image schemata of each sense cannot be correspondingly mapped onto each other in different languages. This study also provides evidence for the universality and variation of spatial metaphors on the ground of cultural models. Philosophically, it supports the standpoint of Embodiment philosophy that abstract concepts are constructed on the basis of spatial metaphors that are grounded in the physical and cultural experience

Use of Formulaic Sequences in Task-based Oral Production of Chinese

Formulaic language is a long-recognized phenomenon that has inspired new pedagogical and lexicographic developments in ESL. However, it did not draw much attention until the last decade in the field of Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL). Not surprisingly, research of formulaic sequences (FSs) in CSL has been scarce and rarely corpus-based and pedagogically focused. This study aims at filling in part of this gap. It is widely accepted that FSs are ubiquitous and play an important role in any discourse. They are critical in acquisition, retention and production of both L1 and L2. The awareness of both learners and teachers of the importance of FSs still needs to be raised. The aim of this thesis is to investigate disparities in the use of FSs in spoken Putonghua by non-native speakers (NNSs) and native speakers (NSs) to inform learning and teaching of CSL. This research adopts a corpus-based approach. After completing a language task, all FSs, including Task-specific Sentence Stems (i.e. function-specific utterances to carry out certain speech acts), in the transcripts of 30 NNSs and 30 NSs were identified and compared. Differences between NS and NNS data are pinpointed for drawing pedagogical inferences. It was confirmed that NS data contains higher density of FSs in general (i.e. more number of characters inside FSs as percentage of total number of characters) and greater number and varieties of TSSSs than NNSs. It was also confirm that more advanced NNSs’ data is more formulaic than less advanced NNSs’, and more native-like data is more formulaic than less native-like data. All the above findings attest to the significance of FSs in CSL. With better knowledge of the formulaic nature of Chinese language, this study calls forth more lexical and task-based approaches in CSL, and might shed light on curriculum and syllabus design, teaching material development and pedagogy

Los liheci chinos e indoeuropeos : un análisis comparativo de chino, inglés y ruso

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Filología, leída el 13-07-2021The present paper titled “Liheci in Chinese and Indo-European languages: a comparative analysis of Chinese, English and Russian” investigates the category of liheci in the Chinese language and compares it with similar categories in the two named Indo-European languages. Liheci are semantically indivisible combinations of a verb and a noun with a joint verbal meaning and are a highly disputed phenomenon in Chinese which is often confused with simple verbs or presented as one of their subtypes. In Western literature, as well as in Chinese works for learners of Chinese as a foreign or second language, liheci are often not presented. They are normally not introduced in text books forforeign students published in China as well as in Russia and most Western countries. They are almost never discussed in Russian-language research papers as well as on the Russian-speaking Internet. Although there are more resources and research papers written in English, they are still relatively few and they also vary in terminology. They are rarely taught and explained to Chinese L2 learners and, although various research papers dedicated to them can be found in Chinese linguistcs, there is still no consensus about many key points, such as if they are words or word combinations, a separate part of speech or a type of verb, what are the bases for their definition and limitation, and many others...La presente investigación titulada “Los liheci chinos e indoeuropeos: un análisis comparativo de chino, inglés y ruso” estudia la categoría de liheci en la lengua china moderna y las estructuras parecidas a ella en los idiomas indoeuropeos mencionados. Los liheci son unas construcciones disilábicas usadas en el chino moderno, que están compuestas por dos elementos (uno que funciona como un verbo y otro que funciona como un sustantivo) y presentan un significado conjunto como si fueran una sola palabra; pero pueden aparecer separados en algunas oraciones funcionando como dos elementos morfológicos diferentes, conservando, al mismo tiempo, su integridad semántica. Estas estructuras son bastante numerosas en el chino moderno, pero tanto en la literatura occidental, como en la literatura china para extranjeros, los liheci se encuentran en un segundo plano o directamente se omiten. No se tratan en los libros para estudiantes extranjeros publicados tanto en China, como en Rusia y en países europeos. Casi no se habla de liheci en los artículos de investigación en lengua rusa ni en las páginas de Internet en ruso. Los recursos y los artículos de investigación en inglés sobre este tema son más numerosos, pero todavía muy escasos, y además varían en terminología. Los autores chinos han estado investigando los liheci durante mucho tiempo, pero, por obvias razones de idioma, no todas sus investigaciones están al alcance de los lectores occidentales e incluso en sus materiales esa categoría se convierte a menudo en un objeto de disputa...Fac. de FilologíaTRUEunpu