The Acquisition of Chinese as a First and Second Language
The Acquisition of Chinese as a First and Second Language

Author: Xiaohong Wen

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2020-11-25

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 3039432702

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This volume, through highly selective and rigorous review processes, has collected eight empirical studies showcasing research advances in multiple domains including child first language, adult additional language, and heritage language acquisition. The studies are theoretically motivated and have adopted a spectrum of innovative methodological strategies to achieve a broader understanding of the nature of learning and the learning process. The volume encompasses a wide range of contents: 1) The L1 and L2 acquisition of syntax, semantics, phonetics, and the syntax-discourse interface; 2) Data comparisons across different learner groups: L1 Chinese children, L2 Chinese learners, and Chinese heritage speakers; 3) Acquisition of language skills: speaking, listening, and writing; and last but not least, 4) Instructional interventions including consciousness-raising and metacognitive strategy training. The volume is intended to bridge the gap between research and instruction by helping teachers understand their students and their learning. Informed by research, teachers can opt for appropriate pedagogical approaches and instructional conditions for their students. The volume is guest-edited by Xiaohong Wen, Professor in Applied Linguistics and Chinese language Acquisition at the University of Houston.

The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, Morphosyntax, and Semantics
The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, Morphosyntax, and Semantics

Author: Tania Ionin

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-03-11

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 1003823505

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This handbook provides innovative and comprehensive coverage of research on the second language acquisition (SLA) of morphosyntax, semantics, and the interface between the two. Organized by grammatical topic, the chapters are written by experts from formal and functional perspectives in the SLA of morphosyntax and semantics, providing in-depth yet accessible coverage of these areas. All chapters highlight the theoretical underpinnings of much work in SLA and their links to theoretical syntax and semantics; making comparisons to other populations, including child language acquirers, bilinguals, and heritage speakers (links to first language acquisition and bilingualism); dedicating a portion of each chapter to the research methods used to investigate the linguistic phenomenon in question (links to psycholinguistics and experimental linguistics); and, where relevant, including intervention studies on the phenomenon in question (links to applied linguistics). The volume will be indispensable to SLA researchers and students who work on any aspect of the SLA of morphosyntax or semantics. With its coverage of a variety of methodologies and comparisons to other populations (such as child language acquirers, early bilinguals, heritage speakers, and monolingual adults), the handbook is expected to also be of much interest to linguists who work in psycholinguistics, first language acquisition, and bilingualism.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Second Language Acquisition
The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Second Language Acquisition

Author: Chuanren Ke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-29

Total Pages: 662

ISBN-13: 1317367901

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The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Second Language Acquisition is the first reference work of its kind. The handbook contains twenty contributions from leading experts in the field of Chinese SLA, covering a wide range of topics such as social contexts, linguistic perspectives, skill learning, individual differences and learning settings and testing. Each chapter covers historical perspectives, core issues and key findings, research approaches, pedagogical implications, future research direction and additional references. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Second Language Acquisition is an essential reference for Chinese language teachers and researchers in Chinese applied linguistics and second language acquisition.

A Comparative Study of Wh-Words in Chinese Efl Textbooks, Elicited Native and Non-Native Speaker Data and Written Native and Non-Native Speaker Corpora
A Comparative Study of Wh-Words in Chinese Efl Textbooks, Elicited Native and Non-Native Speaker Data and Written Native and Non-Native Speaker Corpora

Author: Feifei Zhang

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2015-06-24

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1504910869

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This study presents a corpus-based analysis of the use of wh sentences by language learners, in language textbooks and in authentic written discourse. It focuses on the polysemeous nature of wh words, which can be used as interrogatives, declaratives and to introduce subordinate clauses. The analysis of wh sentences in EFL textbooks showed that there are more prototypical examples at low proficiency levels. When teaching the interrogative, textbooks focus almost exclusively on grammatical words, particularly at the beginners level. The analysis of wh sentences elicited from Chinese speaking learners of English and Expert users of English suggested that the prototypical structure is very strong in both sets of data, although native speakers tend to use more prefabricated chunks of language. The analysis of wh sentences from native speakers and non-native speakers written corpora suggested that subordinate clauses are strongly present in both corpora, except for the word why in non-native speakers data. The use of different words occurring immediately after wh words in the two corpora can be explained by (1) the relatively small vocabulary size of the L2 speakers; (2) non-native speakers lack of awareness of restricted collocations; (3) L1 transfer; (4) over/under-generalization of rules and (5) textbooks.

Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language
Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language

Author: Wenying Jiang

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2009-09-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 3110216191

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Research in the field of Chinese as a second/foreign language (L2) acquisition, at present, does not match the increasing demand to learn Chinese as an L2, given that Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada, UK and Australia. Particularly, research in Chinese L2 word order acquisition requires more attention because word order plays a more complex role in Chinese than in English due to the fact that Chinese relies heavily on word order for information structuring. Experience with Chinese L2 learning and teaching shows that Chinese word order errors are a significant problem with adult English-speaking learners. However, Chinese L2 researchers and teachers are left with no means to adequately describe and explain these errors for instruction purposes. This book is specifically written to provide such a means for them to understand Chinese word order, to describe and explain Chinese word order errors and also to help treat such errors in L2 classrooms. The centrality of word order in Chinese grammar and the emerging popularity of learning Chinese L2 make this book an important resource for both the learner and the teacher.

The Right Periphery in L2 Chinese
The Right Periphery in L2 Chinese

Author: Shanshan Yan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-12-29

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1000819515

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The Right Periphery in L2 Chinese is among the first books to try to incorporate both advanced linguistic and acquisition perspectives to show how eight sentence-final particles are represented in English-speaking learners’ L2 Chinese. This book will inform researchers of the general construction of the right periphery in L2 grammars. Drawing on up-to-date theoretical frameworks and findings from advanced empirical studies, it sketches the general picture of the periphery that these particles occupy in English-Chinese interlanguages. Readers will grasp the problems and difficulties, and particularly the ambiguities, which learners of Chinese must grapple with in the process of acquiring sentence-final particles. Possible influential factors underlying the acquisition process are explicitly discussed as well. Researchers will also find insights in the advanced methodologies and statistics that are used to study Chinese. The book will be illuminating for researchers interested in SLA, linguists of generative theories, and educators teaching Chinese as a second/foreign language.

Acquisition of Second Language Syntax
Acquisition of Second Language Syntax

Author: Susan Braidi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-25

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 100016148X

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This book deals with the questions asked about the L2 acquisition process within different research paradigms, examines the results found in each approach, and evaluates the contributions of each to our understanding of L2 acquisition of syntax and to possible implications for L2 instruction.

Language Acquisition and Development
Language Acquisition and Development

Author: Anna Gavarró

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2009-10-02

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 144381590X

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This volume gathers fifty papers from the conference Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, GALA 2007, celebrated in Barcelona between the 6th and 8th of September, 2007. It covers the areas of syntax and phonology of child language from the theoretical perspective of generative grammar – the theoretical outlook which first placed language acquisition at the centre of linguistic inquiry.

Interfaces and Features in Second Language Acquisition
Interfaces and Features in Second Language Acquisition

Author: Jia Wang

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-02-11

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9811986290

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This book presents comprehensive and rigorous research on the acquisition of Chinese negation by L1-English and L1-Korean learners within the theoretical framework of the Interface Hypothesis and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. The results from grammaticality judgment data (N=182) and learner corpus data (overall scale: 15.19 million characters) reveal multiple factors contributing to the variability in L2 acquisition at the interfaces involved with Chinese negative structures, including L1 influence, the quantity (input frequency) and the quality of the target input (input consistency and regularity), as well as L2 proficiency. These factors also underlie the detectability and reassembly of the [±realis] features encoded with bu and mei, the two primary negation markers in Mandarin Chinese, in different licensing contexts. Task modality (written vs. aural) seems to play a role in L2 learners’ access to explicit and implicit knowledge about Chinese negation, but the effect of task modality is constrained by other factors such as structural/feature complexity, L2 proficiency, and L1-L2 similarity. The approach of employing both elicited experimental data and authentic learner corpus data furnishes new evidence for the acquisition Chinese negation by L2 learners. The findings of this study are of significance to the examination of the Interface Hypothesis and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis in generative-oriented SLA research.

Grammatical Development of Chinese among Non-native Speakers
Grammatical Development of Chinese among Non-native Speakers

Author: Xiaojing (Queeny) Wang

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2013-09-17

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1443852775

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This book marks an exciting contribution to the development and application of Processability Theory. It offers the reader an extensive overview and a critical discussion of the existing research into processability procedural skills, from Germanic to Asian and Arabic languages. It also develops a new perspective on the study of Chinese as a second language (CSL) acquisition, moving from theory to practice. The strength of this book lies not only in its innovative approach to CSL learning, but also in the potential practical applications of the approach to the development of the Chinese teaching syllabus and elicitation tasks. This research presented will benefit both learners and teachers. As a second language learner acquiring Chinese, this book will tell you how to facilitate the learning process in an easy and scientific way. As a teacher of Chinese, this book will help you to know what to teach, and how to teach it, and, importantly, will teach you how to understand learners’ language processing from a practical point of view. The book affords a unique insight into the Chinese processability hierarchy which delineates the universal processing trajectory of CSL learners. The research design and data analysis procedures, which are presented and explained clearly and thoroughly, constitute an original contribution to the growing research into Chinese language acquisition, and will pave the wave for future research in the field. The book will be of considerable interest to linguists working in the field of Processability Theory and will be enjoyed by both CSL learners and their teachers.