Alien Comforts: The Languages and Foodways of Chinese Americans and Hawaiian Locals in U.S. Popular Culture

My project deals with how the grotesque and simplifying distortion of Chinese American and Hawaiian Local languages and foodways has been used to promote facile multiculturalist encounters and the ways in which contemporary writers from those ethnic groups have attempted to articulate other ethnic formulations free from what I call minstrel gestures. These writers instead valorize innovation and transformation over an adherence to past traditions already pillaged and stereotyped by hegemonic interests. This strategy—which I dub the creole relational mode—has worked to varying degrees of success in creating the possibilities for oppositional cultural formations. While these oppositional cultural formations are often liberating, they sometimes can obscure persistent interethnic tensions in U.S. culture. The project’s contribution to the existing scholarship lies in its central claim that language and food are invested with so much meaning in U.S. interethnic discourse because these two forms of difference are easily appropriated and internalized by individuals across otherwise rigidly constructed ethnic boundaries

Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language

This article seeks to develop Translanguaging as a theory of language and discuss the theoretical motivations behind and the added values of the concept. I contextualize Translanguaging in the linguistic realities of the 21st century, especially the fluid and dynamic practices that transcend the boundaries between named languages, language varieties, and language and other semiotic systems. I highlight the contributions Translanguaging as a theoretical concept can make to the debates over the Language and Thought and the Modularity of Mind hypotheses. One particular aspect of multilingual language users’ social interaction that I want to emphasize is its multimodal and multisensory nature. I elaborate on two related concepts: Translanguaging Space and Translanguaging Instinct, to underscore the necessity to bridge the artificial and ideological divides between the so-called sociocultural and the cognitive approaches to Translanguaging practices. In doing so, I respond to some of the criticisms and confusions about the notion of Translanguaging

Pragmatic borrowing between English and Chinese: A comparative study of two-way exchanges

Through centuries of cross-cultural communication, English has been enriched by elements from other languages around the world, including Chinese; meanwhile, English has also exerted considerable influence on the Chinese language. Lexical exchanges between the two languages have been studied in previous research, and yet are mostly restricted to the lexical items themselves. This thesis particularly explores the pragmatic aspect of this language contact, examining items that are used to convey attitudinal or interpersonal meanings. I conduct a series of case studies on bi-directional pragmatic borrowing between English and Chinese, using a variety of data sources, which include dictionaries, corpora, social media data, and other online resources. I take a broad view of what constitutes pragmatic borrowing: I not only investigate the borrowing and integration of discourse-pragmatic items that are transferred between the two languages, but also examine the pragmatic motivations for the borrowing of other lexical items and even grammatical units. The items discussed in the thesis range from parts of words, specifically affixes, to individual words to longer structures, and contextual analysis shows that all of these have been used to achieve pragmatic effects. The study demonstrates the important role of cultural context, speaker creativity, and sociolinguistic factors in the borrowing, integration, and innovative use of linguistic items

CHINESE TO ENGLISH TRANSLATION: IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS AND PROVIDING SOLUTIONS

The purpose of this study was to identify problems and provide solutions for improving Chinese to English translation quality, including ways to avoid Chinglish. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used, including interviews of 20 faculty members and a survey of over 300 students at 7 universities in China. The study researched four problem areas: Chinglish, cultural awareness, machine translation (MT), and translation profession. The results indicated that causes for Chinglish stem from different levels including vocabulary, syntax, and cultural levels. Cultural awareness was found to be a key factor for improving translation quality, especially when it comes to idiomatic translations. MT is best when used for gisting, which means a rough translation of the source text that allows the reader to understand the essence or general meaning of the source text even though the sentence structure, grammatical agreement, parts of speech, or word meanings are not accurate. Finally, it was found there is a need to train more competent translators. Solving these problems will improve the quality of Chinese to English translation

The Study of Teacher Written Feedback: The Effectiveness of Electronic Feedback on Student Writing Revisions

The effectiveness of teacher written feedback has been a subject of debate in second language writing for decades. The most basic debate in this area among ESL writing researchers is whether teacher written feedback in various forms has any positive effects on student writing revisions. Among other researchers, Ferris, Lee, Ene & Upton and Stevenson & Phakiti argued that while the effectiveness of error feedback in the traditional paper-and-pen form (Ferris, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and Lee, 2008a, 2008b), computer-facilitated form (Ene & Upton, 2014) or computer-generated form (Stevenson & Phakiti, 2013) was not conclusive, more research should be done to explore in what ways error feedback can be improved. Indeed, the heterogeneity of these studies characterized by different focus, research designs, institutional and instructional contexts, and participant backgrounds, alongside some methodological flaws and misinterpretation of findings identified in my critical review has possibly undermined the validity and reliability of the studies, giving rise to these mixed results for both paper-and-pen feedback and computer-based feedback. As such, the causality between different forms of feedback treatment and their outcomes of error reduction is questioned. With the primary interest in improving the effectiveness of teacher written feedback in error correction, ‘Mark My Words’ (‘MMWs’), the interactive-based electronic feedback system, was designed in such a way to accommodate individual learners’ language needs and to be more responsive to various error types. This study focused on examining on the effectiveness of ‘Mark My Words’ (‘MMWs’), as a kind of computer-facilitated feedback (i.e. electronic feedback), in improving students’ error reduction in their writing revisions, under a controlled condition. The mixed methods approach was adopted, namely the ‘error count’ method and ‘questionnaire’, in this study. The participants were 62 second-year engineering students enrolled in an English for Specific Purposes course in a Hong Kong University. Efforts were made to avoid the impact of extraneous variables on the validity and reliability of the research outcomes under such controlled condition. The positive results of this study can contribute some sort of concrete evidence to the growing body of literature of the ‘effectiveness of teacher written feedback’ and ‘second language writing’, thus clarifying some mixed results of the previous research

International Englishes, Dialects and Glocalized Englishes: Translanguaging in South Korea

English has spread across the world as the language of business, education, science and travel. Americans, British and other native speakers living in Inner Circle countries speak English as a Native Language (ENL). Nigerians, Jamaicans, Singaporeans and others living in Outer Circle countries speak ‘World Englishes (WEs)’, but what do Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and others living in the Expanding Circle speak? Koreans learn English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) but they also speak Konglish, and they can see and hear English in Korean music, advertisements and products, indicating that English is not really a ‘foreign’ language. They often do better at communication with Chinese or Japanese business contacts than native speakers who do not know how to modify their English. In this dissertation I introduce the concepts of ‘Glocalized Englishes (GEs)’, ‘English as a Glocalized Language (EGL)’ and ‘International Englishes (IEs)’ to account for the relationships between different varieties of English. GEs cover Konglish, Chinglish, Janglish, and other hybrid languages which emerge through translanguaging in Expanding Circle countries. EGL expands the simple binary of ESL/EFL, and IEs describe the modified languages of native speakers and fluent English learners that are used for international communication. I propose a Pyramid Continuum model to represent these languages, with GEs on the bottom with the narrowest usability, ENL and WEs in the middle with moderate usability, and IEs on the top with the widest possible usability. I demonstrate how language ideologies coalesce together to form indexical configurations of EFL and EGL. The case study focusses on a South Korean university and includes taped interviews, written homework assignments, a survey on taking an English name, over 10 years of participant observation, and an analysis of the ‘linguascape’: the linguistic soundscape in videos of buildings and streets, and the linguistic landscape in photographs of buildings, streets, products, road signs, public literature and graffiti. Discussion of future implications include how to do further studies of other GEs, what linguistic features are indicative of IEs, and why language testing must include the recognition and production of IEs

Translation as Experimentalism

This Element argues for a perspective on literary translation based around ludification, using concrete poetry as a test case. It questions assumptions about translatability and opens up the discursive space of literary writing to transgressive articulation and multimodal performance. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core

Cross-language Differences in Fricative Processing and Their Influence on Non-native Fricative Categorisation

Studies have shown that native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and Hong Kong Cantonese tend to have difficulty perceiving the English fricative /θ/. However, although both languages have /f/ and /s/ categories, Mandarin speakers tend to assimilate it to their /s/ category whilst Cantonese speakers would assimilate it to their /f/ category. Over three studies, this thesis investigated various factors that may lead to this difference, while enhancing our understanding of the acoustics and the perception of the fricatives of these languages. Study 1 explored acoustic properties of target fricatives of the three languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, English) using audio recordings from native speakers, and conducted comparisons of the fricatives within and across languages. The results showed that the phonemes /f s/, even though shared by the three languages, were produced differently in the different languages, likely due to the effects of the different fricative inventories. Moreover, different acoustic cues were more or less effective in distinguishing between the different fricatives in each language, indicating that native speakers of these languages likely rely on these cues differently. Study 2 examined how transition cues may affect the identification of /f/ and /s/ by native speakers of the respective languages by combining a phoneme monitoring task and EEG measures. Target fricatives were spliced with vowels to create stimuli with congruent or incongruent transitions. In contrast to previous studies (e.g., Wagner, Ernestus & Cutler, 2006), the results revealed that all groups attended to formant transitions when processing fricatives, despite their differing native fricative inventory sizes. Study 3 investigated cross-language differences in categorisation boundaries of target fricative pairs using a behavioural identification task. The study interpolated pairs of stimuli to create a frication continuum and a vowel continuum, forming a 2-dimensional stimuli grid. The results indicated that frication was the primary cue for fricative identification for the native English, Cantonese, and Mandarin speakers, but also revealed cross-language differences in fricative boundaries. Overall, the results of these studies demonstrate that the processing of fricatives was largely driven by the frication section, and the differential assimilation of /θ/ was likely due to the different acoustics of the same fricative category across languages. The results also motivate a reconsideration of the role of coarticulatory cues in fricative perception

On the acceptability and status of grammatical features of Hong Kong English: perceptions from local undergraduates in Hong Kong.

Ting, Sum Pok."August 2011."Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-185).Abstracts in English and Chinese.ABSTRACT --- p.iACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.vTABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.VILIST OF TABLES --- p.xLIST OF FIGURE --- p.xChapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT STUDY --- p.1Chapter 1.2 --- PURPOSE OF THE PRESENT STUDY --- p.2Chapter 1.3 --- RESEARCH QUESTIONS OF THE PRESENT STUDY --- p.3Chapter 1.4 --- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRESENT STUDY --- p.5Chapter 1.5 --- ORGANISATION OF THE THESIS --- p.6Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.8Chapter 2.1 --- STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH AND WORLD ENGLISHES --- p.8Chapter 2.1.1 --- Standardisation of English --- p.8Chapter 2.1.2 --- World Englishes --- p.11Chapter 2.1.3 --- Non-standard English as a kind of deficiency --- p.12Chapter 2.2 --- B. KACHRU'S AND SCHNEIDER'S DEVELOPMENTAL MODELS OF N EW VARIETIES OF ENGLISH --- p.14Chapter 2.2.1 --- B. Kachru's three-stage developmental model of English --- p.14Chapter 2.2.2 --- Schneider's five-stage dynamic model of post-colonial Englishes --- p.16Chapter 2.3 --- DEBATE OF H K E AS A N EW VARIETY --- p.21Chapter 2.3.1 --- HKE as an autonomous variety --- p.21Chapter 2.3.2 --- The non-readiness of HKE as an autonomous variety --- p.23Chapter 2.4 --- DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN FEATURES AND ERRORS --- p.27Chapter 2.4.1 --- """Innovation"" and ""selection.""" --- p.27Chapter 2.4.2 --- "“Mistakes,´ح ""errors,"" ""deviations,"" and “features.´ح" --- p.28Chapter 2.4.3 --- Bamgbose's five factors in determining the status of language features --- p.29Chapter 2.5 --- FACTORS AFFECTING ACCEPTABILITY OF NON-NATIVE FEATURES --- p.31Chapter 2.5.1 --- Intelligibility --- p.31Chapter 2.5.2 --- Social prestige and stigma --- p.33Chapter 2.5.3 --- Past experience and somatic markers --- p.33Chapter 2.6 --- STUDIES OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS LOCAL VARIETIES IN ASIA AND HONG KONG --- p.35Chapter 2.6.1 --- Studies in the Asian context --- p.35Chapter 2.6.2 --- Studies in the Hong Kong context --- p.37Chapter 2.7 --- GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF HKJE --- p.40Chapter 2.7.1 --- Grammatical features identified in previous studies --- p.40Chapter 2.7.2 --- The targeted grammatical features in the present study --- p.42Chapter 2.8 --- SUMMARY --- p.46Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- METHODOLOGY --- p.48Chapter 3.1 --- RESEARCH QUESTIONS --- p.48Chapter 3.2 --- RESEARCH DESIGN --- p.48Chapter 3.3 --- TARGET PARTICIPANTS --- p.50Chapter 3.3.1 --- Selection criteria --- p.50Chapter 3.3.2 --- Respondents of the acceptability survey --- p.52Chapter 3.3.3 --- Interviewees of the semi-structured interview. --- p.53Chapter 3.4 --- INSTRUMENTATION --- p.53Chapter 3.4.1 --- Acceptability surveys --- p.54Chapter 3.4.1.1 --- Rationale for employing acceptability surveys --- p.54Chapter 3.4.1.2 --- Design of the acceptability surveys --- p.54Chapter 3.4.2 --- Semi-structured interviews --- p.58Chapter 3.4.2.1 --- Rationale for employing semi-structured interviews --- p.58Chapter 3.4.2.1 --- Design of the semi-structured interviews --- p.60Chapter 3.5 --- Two PHASES OF DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING --- p.61Chapter 3.5.1 --- Quantitative phase --- p.62Chapter 3.5.1.1 --- Data collection --- p.62Chapter 3.5.1.2 --- Data analysis --- p.64Chapter 3.5.2 --- Qualitative phase --- p.64Chapter 3.5.2.1 --- Case selection --- p.64Chapter 3.5.2.2 --- Interview protocol. --- p.66Chapter 3.5.2.3 --- Data collection --- p.68Chapter 3.5.2.4 --- Data analysis --- p.69Chapter 3.6 --- ETHICS --- p.70Chapter 3.7 --- LIMITATIONS --- p.71Chapter 3.8 --- SUMMARY --- p.72Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION - FACTORS AFFECTING ACCEPTABILITY OF THE TARGETED GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF HKE --- p.74Chapter 4.1 --- ACCEPTABILITY OF THE TARGETED GRAMMATICAL FEATURES AN OVERVIEW --- p.74Chapter 4.2 --- FACTORS AFFECTING THE ACCEPTABILITY OF THE TARGETED GRAMMATICAL FEATURES --- p.79Chapter 4.2.1 --- Intelligibility of the expression --- p.80Chapter 4.2.1.1 --- Perceived completeness of meaning. --- p.80Chapter 4.2.1.2 --- Perceived complexity of the sentence structure and the idea expressed --- p.83Chapter 4.2.2 --- Past experience of learning English in school --- p.86Chapter 4.2.2.1 --- Negative feelings towards the feature --- p.87Chapter 4.2.2.2 --- Perceived level of difficulty of the feature --- p.89Chapter 4.2.3 --- Everyday exposure to English --- p.92Chapter 4.2.3.1 --- Prevalence of the grammar item --- p.93Chapter 4.2.3.2 --- Perceived familiarity with the feature --- p.95Chapter 4.2.3.3 --- Perceived distinctiveness of the feature as “Hong Kong style. ´ح --- p.97Chapter 4.2.4 --- Contexts in which the features appear. --- p.98Chapter 4.2.4.1 --- "Computer-mediated communication in MSN, SMS, and Facebook." --- p.100Chapter 4.2.4.2 --- Daily face-to-face conversation --- p.105Chapter 4.2.5 --- Perceived competence and status of the users of the feature --- p.109Chapter 4.2.5.1 --- Perceived competence of the users of the feature --- p.109Chapter 4.2.5.2 --- Perceived social status of the users of the feature --- p.111Chapter 4.3 --- IMPLICATIONS FROM THE INTERVIEWS --- p.113Chapter 4.4 --- SUMMARY --- p.116Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION - PERCEIVED STATUS OF HKE --- p.118Chapter 5.1 --- AWARENESS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE TARGETED GRAMMATICAL FEATURES --- p.118Chapter 5.2 --- INTERVIEWEES' PREFERRED VARIETY OF ENGLISH --- p.124Chapter 5.2.1 --- Preference for standard native varieties of English --- p.125Chapter 5.2.1.1 --- Perceived international intelligibility of the targeted grammatical features --- p.127Chapter 5.2.1.2 --- Perceived public image of the varieties of English and their users --- p.129Chapter 5.2.2 --- Low preference for standard native varieties of English --- p.132Chapter 5.2.2.1 --- Limited capability of the people in Hong Kong. --- p.132Chapter 5.2.2.2 --- Communicative effectiveness of the standard native varieties --- p.133Chapter 5.3 --- PERCEIVED STATUS OF HKE AS AN AUTONOMOUS VARIETY --- p.137Chapter 5.3.1 --- The perceived current status of HKE --- p.137Chapter 5.3.1.1 --- The lack of intention for the adoption of the non-standard features --- p.138Chapter 5.3.1.2 --- The lack of a unifying set offeatures --- p.140Chapter 5.3.2 --- The perceived future status of HKE --- p.142Chapter 5.3.2.1 --- Inevitability of becoming an autonomous variety. --- p.142Chapter 5.3.2.2 --- Perceived limited usage of English in Hong Kong --- p.143Chapter 5.3.3 --- The prospect of HKE as an autonomous variety --- p.144Chapter 5.3.3.1 --- Negative influence on English learning. --- p.144Chapter 5.3.3.2 --- The lack of ownership of English --- p.145Chapter 5.4 --- RECOGNITION OF THE TARGETED GRAMMATICAL FEATURES AS FEATURES OF HKE --- p.147Chapter 5.4.1 --- One standard for using English --- p.147Chapter 5.4.2 --- Non-standard features as identity marker. --- p.150Chapter 5.4.3 --- Ownership of English --- p.151Chapter 5.5 --- THE STATUS OF HKE IN BECOMING AN AUTONOMOUS VARIETY --- p.152Chapter 5.6 --- SUMMARY --- p.155Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- CONCLUSION --- p.157Chapter 6.1 --- ADDRESSING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS --- p.157Chapter 6.1.1 --- Addressing research question 1: Acceptability of the targeted features --- p.157Chapter 6.1.2 --- Addressing research question 2: Factors affecting acceptability --- p.159Chapter 6.1.3 --- Addressing research question 3: Features or errors? --- p.162Chapter 6.1.4 --- Addressing research question 4: Perceived status of HKE --- p.164Chapter 6.2 --- IMPLICATIONS --- p.165Chapter 6.2.1 --- Exposure to varieties of English --- p.166Chapter 6.2.2 --- The teaching of grammar in school --- p.168Chapter 6.3 --- LIMITATIONS --- p.172Chapter 6.3.1 --- English proficiency of the participants --- p.172Chapter 6.3.2 --- The modes and styles of English under investigation --- p.172Chapter 6.3.3 --- The methodological design --- p.173Chapter 6.4 --- DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES --- p.175Chapter 6.4.1 --- Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and HKE --- p.175Chapter 6.4.2 --- Linguistic identity of local Hong Kong people --- p.176REFERENCE --- p.178Chapter APPENDIX I - --- SAMPLE OF ACCEPTABILITY SURVEY --- p.186Chapter APPENDIX II - --- INTERVIEW PROTOCOL --- p.19

Reasons and Motivation of Islamic Scholar for Using Code-switching as Strategy in Delivering a Speech (Da'wah)

Code-switching is a challenging phenomenon to sociolinguists. It is related to the use of two or more languages in the same utterance or conversation in a context of bilingual or multilingual setting of conversation. In giving Islamic speech (Da'wah), m