The Prosody and Morphology of Elastic Words in Chinese: Annotations and Analyses.

Elastic words are those whose length can vary between monosyllabic and disyllabic, without changing the meaning. Though elastic words have known to be many in Chinese, it is still not clear how many words are elastic. In addition, there is no consensus on the motivation of creating elastic words. This dissertation offers a complete annotation of elastic words in modern Standard Chinese and sample annotations of Middle Chinese, and investigates why elastic words are created. Specifically, it examines four properties of elastic words focusing on the homophone-avoidance theory and the prosody theory. The former, by far the most popular one, proposes that disyllabic words are created to reduce homophony and avoid ambiguity after massive syllable loss. In contrast, the prosody theory proposes that elastic words are created because disyllabic words are needed in prosodically strong positions, due to the requirement of Foot Binarity. First, a study examines the relation between homophony and elastic words, based on a complete length elasticity annotation of Modern Chinese Dictionary (2005). Results show that there is no correlation between homophony and elastic words. The second study examines the effect of word category on elastic words in modern Standard Chinese. Results show that (i) half of words in Chinese lexicon are elastic; (ii) content words have higher percentage of elastic words than function words. The third study examines the historical development of elastic words, with a focus on Middle Chinese, especially Tang poems. Results show that there are many elastic words in Middle Chinese, similar to that in Modern Chinese. The fourth study examines word length in Chinese dialects, focusing on Mandarin and Cantonese. Results show that they have similar percentages of disyllabic words and that the size of syllable inventory has no effect on word length. Various evidence consistently points to the conclusion that the prosody theory offers a better explanation of why elastic words are created in Chinese, despite of the fact that the homophone-avoidance theory seems quite intuitive and natural. In other words, elastic words are created to fulfill prosodic requirement rather than to compensate for syllable loss or an increase in homophony.PhDLinguisticsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116629/1/yandong_1.pd

Corpus onomasiology: A study in World Englishes

This interdisciplinary work bridges corpus linguistics, lexical semantics, and World Englishes. Three methodological arguments are forwarded. First, only via a careful attention to the nature and type of corpus frequency measurements can we derive meaningful information from corpora. This is particularly relevant when comparing corpus frequencies to quantitative data derived via other means, such as lab-based cognitive salience tests. Second, an onomasiological approach is an extremely effective method in corpus linguistics, particularly in studies of lexical semantics. Third, semantic research based on corpora is essential to the study of language in use, including the study of World Englishes. Building on these methodological arguments, this work analyses lexical semantic variation in three highly polysemic verbs – make, take, and give – in the International Corpus of English, representing Singapore, Hong Kong, and Great Britain. This microlinguistic analysis demonstrates the value of the three methodological arguments. The study uncovers previously undiscussed onomasiological regional variation in written and spoken linguistic norms, and concludes that the three verbs exhibit degrees of delexicality which are consistent across regions. These findings challenge some established theoretical frameworks for World Englishes, and the impact for World Englishes as a field is discussed. The study establishes a link between: onomasiological corpus frequencies of each of the words’ senses in speech; and reported cognitive salience measurements for those senses

Relative Use of Phonaesthemes in the Constitution and Development of Genres

My research question is Does the presence of phonaesthemes in words play a role in the constitution and evolution of genres? A phonaestheme is a phonemic grouping that correlates well above chance with a particular semantic quality in etymologically unrelated words; phonaesthematic words are generally seen as vivid, expressive, and involved. I explore the nature of phonaesthemes and genres and the role of features such as phonaesthemes in the constitution of genres. I select a set of phonaesthemes to evaluate and choose a representative set of lemmas and matching non-phonaesthematic lemmas. I survey these in six genres over three time periods in the US and the UK. I analyze the results and their implications for phonaesthemes and for genre constitution, finding, among other things, that phonaesthemes are important in the social positioning of genres. The summary answer to my research question is thus found to be Yes, it does

Readability in reading materials selection and coursebook design for college English in China

This thesis studies the application of readability in reading materials selection and coursebook design for college English in an EFL context in China. Its aim is to develop rationales which coursebook writers can utilise in selecting materials as texts and as a basis for designing tasks. This study, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, argues that readability is applicable in the EFL Chinese context, and readability plays a important role in determining the selection of materials and the task design for college English. As the term readability is used in a more comprehensive sense which includes text factors as well as reader factors, existing measures of readability should be critically examined. Objective and statistical measures such as readability formulae need to be refined in line with recent research into the relationship between lexico-grammar and discourse organisation, and with recent research into second language/ foreign language acquisition. Ease of reading can be manipulated by highlighting the use of discourse signals in the text, and by raising high order questions. It is argued that high-order-tasks such as "thinking skill" activities facilitate students' interaction with the text and the development of language awareness. The application of three highly regarded formulae and the analysis of language features of the chosen texts indicate that word difficulty and sentence complexity are significant in materials selection. However, the findings in the questionnaires and interviews show that readability formulae in use today ignore the critical functions of discourse signals and organisation. Nor do they consider cognitive processing factors such as exercise design, readers' interest, motivation and prior knowledge which play an equally important part as word difficulty and sentence length. Consequently, the suggestion is that both objective and subjective research methodologies are necessary in setting up new criteria. Objective statistics gained from appropriate readability formulae serve as an index to the difficulty of a text in terms of language. However, subjective opinion from experienced teachers on reader factors functions as an aid, and exercise design functions as an adjustment to students' comprehensibility. Among the three, exercise or task design deserves more exploration and experimentation from coursebook writers. Process-based and activity-centred approaches are suggested in raising questions and designing tasks, because they focus on the reader and emphasise developing students' interpretation of the relations between forms and meanings. It is argued that they lead students into the process of learning - learn to learn, which is the ideal goal of English teaching, to which coursebook writers of college English have so far paid insufficient attention. Therefore, new criteria for materials selection and coursebook design for college English are proposed: • The textbooks have to meet the requirement stated in the National English Syllabus. • The chosen passages have to be authentic. • The chosen texts have to be interesting in topic, and substantial in content. • The texts have to be right in difficulty level from the linguistic point of view. • The tasks designed should provide students with opportunities to make use of their prior knowledge to interact with the text. • The exercises should lead the students to deeper, more personal engagement. It is hoped that these criteria will function as basic guidelines for future coursebook writing in college English

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

Readability in reading materials selection and coursebook design for college English in China

This thesis studies the application of readability in reading materials selection and coursebook design for college English in an EFL context in China. Its aim is to develop rationales which coursebook writers can utilise in selecting materials as texts and as a basis for designing tasks. This study, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, argues that readability is applicable in the EFL Chinese context, and readability plays a important role in determining the selection of materials and the task design for college English. As the term readability is used in a more comprehensive sense which includes text factors as well as reader factors, existing measures of readability should be critically examined. Objective and statistical measures such as readability formulae need to be refined in line with recent research into the relationship between lexico-grammar and discourse organisation, and with recent research into second language/ foreign language acquisition. Ease of reading can be manipulated by highlighting the use of discourse signals in the text, and by raising high order questions. It is argued that high-order-tasks such as "thinking skill" activities facilitate students' interaction with the text and the development of language awareness. The application of three highly regarded formulae and the analysis of language features of the chosen texts indicate that word difficulty and sentence complexity are significant in materials selection. However, the findings in the questionnaires and interviews show that readability formulae in use today ignore the critical functions of discourse signals and organisation. Nor do they consider cognitive processing factors such as exercise design, readers' interest, motivation and prior knowledge which play an equally important part as word difficulty and sentence length. Consequently, the suggestion is that both objective and subjective research methodologies are necessary in setting up new criteria. Objective statistics gained from appropriate readability formulae serve as an index to the difficulty of a text in terms of language. However, subjective opinion from experienced teachers on reader factors functions as an aid, and exercise design functions as an adjustment to students' comprehensibility. Among the three, exercise or task design deserves more exploration and experimentation from coursebook writers. Process-based and activity-centred approaches are suggested in raising questions and designing tasks, because they focus on the reader and emphasise developing students' interpretation of the relations between forms and meanings. It is argued that they lead students into the process of learning - learn to learn, which is the ideal goal of English teaching, to which coursebook writers of college English have so far paid insufficient attention. Therefore, new criteria for materials selection and coursebook design for college English are proposed: • The textbooks have to meet the requirement stated in the National English Syllabus. • The chosen passages have to be authentic. • The chosen texts have to be interesting in topic, and substantial in content. • The texts have to be right in difficulty level from the linguistic point of view. • The tasks designed should provide students with opportunities to make use of their prior knowledge to interact with the text. • The exercises should lead the students to deeper, more personal engagement. It is hoped that these criteria will function as basic guidelines for future coursebook writing in college English