Corpus-Based Research on Chinese Language and Linguistics

This volume collects papers presenting corpus-based research on Chinese language and linguistics, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. The contributions cover different fields of linguistics, including syntax and pragmatics, semantics, morphology and the lexicon, sociolinguistics, and corpus building. There is now considerable emphasis on the reliability of linguistic data: the studies presented here are all grounded in the tenet that corpora, intended as collections of naturally occurring texts produced by a variety of speakers/writers, provide a more robust, statistically significant foundation for linguistic analysis. The volume explores not only the potential of using corpora as tools allowing access to authentic language material, but also the challenges involved in corpus interrogation, analysis, and building

Role and Reference Grammar

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Conceptualization and cognitive relativism on result in Mandarin Chinese: the case study of Mandarin Chinese bǎ construction using a cognitive and centering approach

This work adopts Langacker\u27s cognitive grammar approach and addresses the cognitive significance of result in Mandarin Chinese, as expressed in resultant construals in the Mandarin Chinese bă construction: X bă Y Z. I identify the semantic prime of result in Mandarin Chinese, and discuss its role in the resultative verbal compound construction, the V-de-EXT resultative construction, and the bèi construction, with particular focus on the bă construction. I provide evidence for the resultant nature of segment Z in the bă construction in (1) aspectual markers, (2) resultative suffixes, (3) resultative verbal compounds, (4) locative complements, (5) directional complements, (6) the double object gěi \u27give\u27 construction, (7) inalienable possession; (8) durative and frequentative markers; and (9) the regard predicate. I consider the semantic category of result in the Mandarin Chinese bă construction to be grounded in the conceptualization of the morpheme bă \u27to take, to hold.\u27 The manipulative sense of holding an object is transformed into a metaphorical resultative sense of holding a grammatical event. Comparisons with the English get/have + p.p. construction and the German inseparable prefixes reveal the shared cross-linguistic nature of agency and result. I utilize Grosz, Joshi, and Weinstein\u27s (1995) centering discourse approach to analyze the Mandarin Chinese bă construction X bă Y Z, and determine that segment Y is the backward-looking center. Prince\u27s assumed familiarity accounts for the cognitive constraints of segment Y. I ascribe the cognitive significance of result to the claim of construal differences. I apply cognitive relativism to pedagogical implications for SLA instruction of the Mandarin Chinese bă construction

Why Scalings Matter?—an investigation of translators' adjustments of rhetorical force in English-Chinese translations

This thesis presents findings based on a study of the translation from English into (Mandarin) Chinese of those linguistic resources by which expressions can be up-scaled or down-scaled, and how translators of different Chinese translations dealt with utterances which included such scalings. The study involved three English advertisements of Apple products and their translations intended for the Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China markets. The linguistic analysis employed for the project was grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and specifically relied on the description of the meanings of up/down scaling outlined in the graduation system within the Appraisal framework of Martin and White (2005). Some significant degree of shifts of the meanings of scaling was noted, not only between the English original and Chinese translations but also among the regional translations themselves. A general tendency was observed by which the translators tended to provide additional instances of intensification or to further strengthen the existing instances of intensification. Since these meaning shifts were overwhelmingly in connection with utterances which provide positive assessments of the advertised products, it is proposed that they may result from the promotional purpose of boosting the desirability of the products for readers. These shifts were also observed to occur at different frequencies across the regional translations. Proposals are advanced as to the possibility that differences between the markets for which the translations were intended may have been a factor underlying these differences. As an interdisciplinary study, this study makes two major contributions. Firstly, to systematically identify the shifts of scaling in translations from English to Chinese, it was necessary for the project to provide an outline of the resources for realizing semantic features of graduation in Chinese. This is because no such outline had previously been developed for Chinese. The project extends our knowledge of graduation cross-linguistically in that it found the graduation networks in Chinese and English are broadly homologous. Secondly, it provides a systemic examination of the shifts involved in scaling expressions and explores possible factors which might be influencing translators’ decision-making; thus, the findings show potential application in translation education and translator training

Language Contact as Bilingual Contrast among Bai Language Users in Jianchuan County, China.

This dissertation explores Bái language use in Jiànchuān County, China. On the basis of interviews with 42 language users, transcripts of spontaneous conversation and elicited narratives, excerpts from Bái texts in an alphabetic orthography and Chinese characters, and six months of participant observation, I demonstrate how language users’ perceptions of Bái and Chinese as distinct languages emerge as the result of interactional and representational strategies that alternatively foreground and background bilingual contrast. I argue that these micro-level strategies exist in a dialectical relationship with macro-level governmental, academic, and lay discourses that represent the Bái and the Hàn as essentially different, ethnicity as isomorphic with language, and, consequently, diverse Bái linguistic practices as a distinct minority nationality language. By demonstrating that borders of communities cannot be relied upon to describe consensus about linguistic structure, use, or ideologies, this dissertation contributes to more realistic descriptions of language; relatedly, by showing that language users’ perceptions of the elements in their repertoire as “Bái “ or “Chinese” vary not only across language users, but also situations of use, it challenges synchronic theories of language contact that invoke community consensus to distinguish between “borrowing” and “code switching.” More fundamentally, both lines of analysis entail that language users’ interactional and representational strategies do not merely reproduce pre-existing contrast between languages, but also actively produce and transform it.Ph.D.LinguisticsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86339/1/hefright_1.pd

Defining and Assessing Chinese Syntactic Complexity via TC-Units

Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2016.Includes bibliographical references.The triad dimensions of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) has been widely used for assessing second language performance and development. Unlike accuracy and fluency, the construct of Chinese syntactic complexity has not been comprehensibly conceptualized or operationalized. Moreover, not tailored to the typological differences such as the topic prominence of the Chinese language, measures developed globally were found not as valid for Chinese syntactic complexity assessment as they are for Indo- European languages. Research indicated that the mean length of the T-unit of native Chinese speakers is shorter than that of L2 Chinese speakers (Jin, 2006; Yuan, 2009). For situations where research findings developed globally are not as applicable when indiscriminately applied to typologically different languages, this dissertation employed the notion of GlobaLocality to define and assess Chinese syntactic complexity. First, globally, clause combining was revisited to subsume the topic chain in addition to coordination and subordination. An organic approach was then adopted to investigate complexity via global, clausal, and subclausal levels (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Second, locally, a taxonomy of Topic-Comment units (TC-units) was proposed to examine Chinese syntactic complexity: the number and the nature of a terminable TC-unit’s components; and the number and the nature of their constituent relationship. Third, by performing discriminant function analyses on L1 and L2 Chinese speakers’ spoken (N=115) and written (N=116) output elicited from a designed online test, a series of proposed TC-unit based measures were confirmed with high efficiency (61.2%~76.5%) at proficiency group membership classification. Lower-proficiency speakers produced shorter terminable TC-units consisting of fewer single TC-units, whereas higher-proficiency speakers produced longer terminable TC-units in the form of varied topic chains consisting of more single TC-units. Chinese syntactic complexity development along proficiency increase also displayed a transition from more lengthening to more combining of single TC-units. Fourth, utilizing TC-unit based measures, repeated measures analyses observed more complex language produced in more complex tasks along the resource-directing dimension. Immediate task repetition was observed to lower learners’ communication anxiety and improve learners’ self-perceived performance. Last, this dissertation provided suggestions on complexity descriptions for proficiency guidelines and on how to develop Chinese syntactic complexity in classroom instruction

An analysis of the translation of vocabulary lists in textbooks for teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL)

Recent research in the Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) field has focused on the pedagogical perspectives underlying TCFL textbooks and their compilation. With the increasing interaction between China and other countries in global contexts such as culture, economics and commerce, there is a great need to expand research regarding all areas and issues within TCFL, especially in the important area of vocabulary and its translation in TCFL textbooks (Tsung and Cruickshank, 2011). This research investigates a range of translation problems related to the accuracy of the vocabulary lists featured in 12 selected representative TCFL textbooks for teaching Chinese as a foreign language. This thesis presents findings from three triangulation cases (questionnaire survey, corpus research, and assessment test) involving two different groups of participants (e.g. Chinese teachers who completed the questionnaire survey and Chinese undergraduates majoring in English who underwent the assessment test). The contribution of this study is as follows: 1) I conduct a series of empirical evidence based on the viewpoints of practitioners regarding the identified translation problems to fill the gap that there are more descriptive and pedagogical works in the vocabulary translation of TCFL textbooks; 2) I adopt functional equivalence theory of translation and linguistics–based approaches (semantic, pragmatic and grammatical perspectives) to establish a theoretical framework which provides a flexible way of analysing translation and enables the original meanings of Chinese words to be analysed through various perspectives, especially for Chinese and English vocabulary analysis and translation; 3) I draw on translation quality evaluation theory to generate a translation quality evaluation framework which can serve as a reference point for other translation evaluation work regarding vocabulary conducted during other relevant studies; 4) I demonstrate that the majority of translation problems gathered from the selected TCFL textbooks were found at the preliminary level and in the content word class which have much practical relevance and research value for the pedagogical purpose of vocabulary teaching and translation; and 5) I build up a specific parallel corpus with passages and vocabulary lists of the selected TCFL textbooks

Utterance-final particles in Taiwan Mandarin: contact, context, and core functions

The use of utterance-final particles (UFPs) is a salient feature of Taiwan Mandarin, a Mandarin variety spoken in Taiwan. Despite their widespread use, Taiwan Mandarin UFPs have not attracted much attention in previous research. One reason for this neglect is that previous studies focus on UFPs that can be found in all Mandarin varieties and take the general validity of the findings for granted. By contrast, this study explores regional variation in the use of UFPs. Analyzing spoken Taiwan Mandarin data recorded from spontaneous conversations, it focuses on the three particles a, la and ê. It examines the core function of these particles in the interaction between the participants in various types of conversational contexts. Besides determining their core-function, this study looks into the differences with respect to UFPs between Taiwan Mandarin and in the Mandarin spoken in mainland China. The properties that are specific to Taiwan Mandarin are analyzed as resulting from long-term contact with different Sinitic varieties, especially Southern Mǐn and Jiāng-Huái Mandarin. Hypotheses about language contact influence on the use of Taiwan Mandarin UFPs are tested using actual language data, and discussed against the historical background of migration of Mandarin speakers to Taiwan in the 20th century.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Semantik

Sinn & Bedeutung - the annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Semantik - aims to bring together both established researchers and new blood working on current issues in natural language semantics, pragmatics, the syntax-semantics interface, the philosophy of language or carrying out psycholinguistic studies related to meaning. Every year, the conference moves to a different location in Europe. The 2010 conference - Sinn & Bedeutung 15 - took place on September 9 - 11 at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, organized by the Department for German Studies

Let’s Take an Adventure: Exploring Beginner Writing in Chinese by Non-Heritage Learner

Abstract Due to the globalization and economic growth, both the U.S. and Chinese governments increased their investment in Chinese language education across the US, especially in K-12 schools (Shi, 2010). This rapid development demands tremendous support, especially from the research on Chinese language learning and teaching. Unfortunately the research in this area is very limited, particularly on writing in Chinese. For those whose first language is alphabetical, writing in Chinese is tremendously difficult. Learners of Chinese usually do not compose writing until intermediate high level, before which learners usually learn to decode and write Chinese characters (Ke, 1998; Shen, 2005). Therefore the research on composing in Chinese is scarce and none at the beginning level. Gee believes that writing as a form of acquisition of literacy can be practiced in a very early stage (Gee, 2012). What is it going to be like if I introduce writing into beginning level curriculum? In order to explore this question and help fill the gap of research on writing, this ethnographic case study attempts to use sociocultural theories (Cope & Kalantsz, 2000, 2009; Gee 2012; Kern, 2009; Norton, 2000; Norton & Toohey 2004) and second language teaching and genre-based pedagogies to explore writing (composing) in Chinese as form of co-construction of text by beginning level students and teacher in an urban high school. Since no research on writing at this level was found, this study is exploratory. The goal is to investigate: 1) how do student’s identities revealed in the writing process affect her investment in writing and in the learning of the target language? 2) how do beginning level student and teacher co-construct texts with different genres using Chinese as foreign language? 3) what are the intertextualities and genre moves student uses to construct her writing (Bakhtin, 1982)? The findings from this study will offer insights of creating more opportunities for learners to learn Chinese language, especially on composing in early learning stage. It is my hope that this study will contribute to the field of Chinese language learning in K-12 level