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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Chinese language Second language acquisition'
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Hsieh, Fang-Yen. "Relative clause acquisition in second language Chinese and second language English." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709395.
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Wang, Xiaojun. "Chinese syntactic systems and second language acquisition: Approaches to the teaching of Chinese as a second language." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/187340.
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The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the relation between the teaching of Chinese syntax and the acquisition process by adult learners based on multitheoretical and multimethodological approaches. Through a brief review of the features of Chinese syntax and a comparative study of three different syntactic analytic systems, a Chinese linguistic background is provided. A further study of pedagogical Chinese syntax was conducted by investigating the teaching materials and methods introduced in three commonly used Chinese textbooks. Based on the Chinese linguistic and pedagogical background, the surveys were designed to probe the learners' acquisition process of Chinese syntax. The studies involved a total of 73 subjects who are native English speakers learning Chinese at different universities. It has been found that: (1) adult learners' acquisition order and rate are closely related to their cognitive skills; (2) the scope of acquisition in adults is subject to time limitations; (3) analysis & analogy are the main methods used by adult learners in the acquisition of syntax; (4) the learning environment & the knowledge of the target syntax by adult learners are not required to be situationally linked; (5) the process of syntactic transfer is incomplete among adult learners due to the lack of target language input; (6) the general failure rate in L2 acquisition partially associates with the lack of the fully functional innate language faculty; (7) the adult learners' common mistakes in syntactic acquisition process are predictable due to syntactic transfer and the influences from L1; (8) different teaching methods result in different strengths in students; (9) there is a gap between grammatical competence & communicative competence in the adult learners' acquisition process. According to those features, I proposed nine pedagogical principles for the Chinese syntax teaching, and a case study of teaching Chinese structures with three post-verbal complements was conducted in order to have a field-test. The discussion in this dissertation has partially confirmed the claim made by psycho-linguistic researchers that learning a second language is a complex process. There is a hierarchical order in acquiring language competence, and the acquisition of hierarchically ordered skills requires integrated approaches.
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Charters, Areta Helen. "The second language acquisition of Mandarin nominal syntax." Thesis, University of Auckland, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2292/2405.
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This thesis establishes a natural acquisition order for 18 nominal structures in Mandarin SLA, and assesses the extent to which that order can be explained as a consequence of cognitive processing demands. The natural acquisition order is based on a longitudinal study of three adults learning Mandarin in a classroom environment in Auckland, New Zealand. Two representatives of an average emergence order are derived from the three individual orders: a ranking of mean emergence times (RMT) and a ranking of mean emergence ranks (RMR). Processing demands are calculated in three different ways: once on the basis of six developmental stages identified in Pienemann’s Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998c), once on the basis of a detailed analysis of each nominal structure according to the generative grammar of LFG (Bresnan, 1982, 2001); and finally on the basis of the Minimalist Programme (Chomsky 1995; 1999; 2000). All rest upon a prior analysis of lexical feature structures and constituent structures evident in the learner’s output over the course of a year. The standard six-stage model of Processability Theory proves unable to differentiate between most nominal structures, because they fall within the single developmental category of so-called ‘phrasal’ structures. However, processing demands calculated on the basis either of LFG or of the MP prove to be highly correlated with both individual and average emergence orders. On the basis of these results, various generalisations are made about the relevance of different kinds of syntactic processes to the determination of emergence order. In particular, c-structural complexity and thematic structure are found to be factors most significantly associated with later emergence times. LFG and MP each provide interesting insights into different aspects of syntactic processing that impact on the acquisition of a second language; LFG throws light on the significance of the grammaticalisation of thematic structure; the MP throws light on the processes of lexical construction, and the interactions between this and constituent structure. Both indicate the significance of delays in feature valuation or unification as c-structural complexity increases.
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Dai, Ruyi. "Second language acquisition and processing of Chinese 'bei' passives." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288880.
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This doctoral dissertation reports on an empirical study, which takes a feature-based approach and probes the L2 acquisition and processing of Chinese bei passives by adult English native speakers. In Chinese, an individual passive marker bei is used to mark passive constructions. Whilst historically used as a lexical verb, bei is in the process of being grammaticalised (i.e. semi-lexical) and hence contains a semantic component (Liu, 2012a). Three forms of bei passives and their semantic properties have been investigated: basic long bei passives (i.e. with an external argument), basic short bei passives (i.e. without an external argument), and the retained-object construction of bei. In total, 75 English native speakers with intermediate and advanced Chinese proficiency, and 33 native Mandarin Chinese speakers (serving as a control group) were tested by a series of on-line methods (a self-paced reading task and a reaction-time picture elicited word rearrangement task) and off-line methods (an untimed acceptability judgement task and a fill-in-the-blank task). The current study finds that the reconfiguration of target semantic features of bei is a gradual process and occurs feature-by-feature, depending on consistent and ample input-based evidence. This lends support to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2005, 2008, 2009). It is also found that morphosyntax-semantics mismatches lead to acquisitional difficulties, as predicted by the Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008, 2009b), which shares a similar view to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. In addition, L1 English L2 Chinese learners are found to be subject to the formation strategy of English short passives, in line with Montrul (2001). A disjunction in L2 performance between off-line and on-line tasks has been found in the advanced learners, who show target-like on-line sensitivity to violations of semantic constraints on bei but fail to converge on the target grammar in off-line judgements. These findings are compatible with Ullman's (2001, 2005) declarative-procedural model and suggest that the increase in convergence on real-time comprehension and production in the advanced learners is a result of the more involved procedural system. The general findings of the current study lend support to the view (Sorace, 2009; White, 2011) that representational and processing difficulties must be teased apart in L2 acquisition.
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Lu, Yuan. "The acquisition of Chinese connectives by second language learners." Diss., University of Iowa, 2017. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5560.
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This study investigates the acquisition of Chinese connectives by second language learners under the theoretical framework of usage-based theory. Language is not a random set of words and phrases, but rather a coherent and cohesive set of utterances. As such, learning a second language (L2) entails, among other processes, learners’ development of employing cohesive devices to construct a coherent discourse in their target language. One type of cohesive devices frequently used by L2 learners is connectives. In Chinese, connectives are utilized to denote various semantic relationships between the clauses in a compound sentence. Due to their flexibility and complexity in nature, Chinese connectives present a huge challenge to L2 learners’ learning. However, to date no study has been set up to explore the learners’ development of Chinese connectives within L2 Chinese research community.
This study aims to fill this gap in the literature and build an L2 acquisitional model of Chinese connectives under the theoretical framework of Constructionist Usage-based Theory. Constructionist Usage-based Theory maintains that the basic unit of language is constructions and that the syntactic and lexical form of constructions and its corresponding semantic and discourse functions are conventionalized in language usage. According to these notions, language learning is believed to be driven by the factors grounded in the form and function of constructions in language usage. This study specifically examines how the factors of frequency, form, function, contingency (interaction of form and function), and L1-tuned attention affect L2 Chinese learners’ development of Chinese connectives. Furthermore, the study investigates the learners’ knowledge about the distribution of Chinese connectives across different proficiency levels.
Specifically, this study aims to address four research questions: (1) what is the relationship between L2 learners’ proficiency level and language background and the acquisition of Chinese connectives?; (2) do L2 learners overuse or underuse Chinese connectives in constructing responses when the other in a pair is given and what errors do L2 learners make when using Chinese connectives?; (3) how can 12 target pairs of Chinese connectives be categorized into (hierarchical) groups based on L2 Chinese learners’ performance?; and (4) how do theoretically-motivated models represent the factorial structure underlying L2 acquisition of Chinese connectives?
To address the four research questions, this study elicited L2 Chinese learners’ performance in two tests: a mini-discourse completion test and a form-function association test. In the mini-discourse completion test, learners were required to supply a missing clause to complete a three-clause discourse in which one of paired connectives was embedded; in the form-function association test, learners were asked to choose options of paired connectives to link two given clauses where connectives were omitted.
Results showed that the development of all Chinese paired connectives was positively correlated to L2 learners’ L2 proficiency level. Learners with heritage language background seemed to have an advantage over less frequent and less prototypical connectives. Predominantly, L2 learners underused Chinese connectives, resulting from the cross-linguistic influence of disparity between English and Chinese connectives at the structural level in particular and between English and Chinese textual cohesion at the discourse level in general. Based on L2 learners’ performances in the two tests, the 12 pairs of Chinese connectives were classifier into four hierarchical groups. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the usage-based factors (i.e., frequency, co-occurrence strength, formulaicity, prototypicality, contingency, and L1-tuned attention) jointly determined the L2 acquisition and development of Chinese connectives in a complex, adaptive, dynamic manner. Summarizing these findings, this study proposed a usage-based acquisitional model of L2 Chinese connectives, providing theoretical contributions to the usage-based theory and pedagogical implications for Chinese connectives.
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Ma, Lixia. "Acquisition of the perfective aspect marker "le" of Mandarin Chinese in discourse by American college learners." Diss., University of Iowa, 2006. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/68.
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Yuan, Boping. "Directionality of difficulty in second language acquisition of Chinese and English." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/17576.
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This thesis is concerned with the investigation of directionality of difficulty in second language acquisition (SLA) by Chinese-speaking learners learning English as a foreign language (EFL) and by English-speaking learners learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) . Chinese allows both subject PRO in finite clauses and object pro. However, subject PRO in finite clauses and object pro give rise to ungrammaticality in English. Unlike Chinese, in which topics can be base-generated, English does not allow a base-generated topic. Chinese and English are also different in that while English reflexives can only take a local subject in finite clauses as their antecedent (thus a short-distance reflexive), the Chinese reflexive ziji can take the matrix subject as well as the embedded subject as its antecedent (thus a long-distance reflexive) . With respect to these differences between the two languages, our focus is on whether it is more difficult for CFL learners to acquire subject PRO, object pro, base-generated topics and the long-distance reflexive in the acquisition of Chinese than for EFL learners to unlearn subject PRO, object pro, base-generated topics and the long-distance reflexive in the acquisition of English. The results of our study suggest that there is no single direction of difficulty in the SLA of Chinese and English. In terms of object pro, the direction of difficulty is from Chinese to English. However, in acquiring and unlearning the subject PRO, neither CFL learners nor EFL learners seem to have much difficulty. As for base-generated topics, it is found that the acquisition of this feature by CFL learners is more difficult than the unlearning of this feature by EFL learners. The results concerning the acquisition of the Chinese long-distance reflexive ziji by CFL learners suggest that a lack of long-distance binding for ziji is fossilized in these learners' interlanguage (IL) grammars of Chinese. Based on the findings in this study, we argue that the directionality of difficulty in SLA can only be studied with respect to individual language features and that the mere existence of relevant positive evidence in the input is not a guarantee that there will be a change in the learner's IL grammar. There are many factors involved in deciding the direction of difficulty in SLA. These factors include the availability of informative evidence to the learner, the possibility that the learner makes use of the evidence available for the restructuring of his IL grammar of the target language, the learners' ability to process the relevant data in the input, and the interaction between the structure in the learners' L1 and the inherent developmental stage of the target language.
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Lyu, Ting. "Second language vocabulary acquisition through storybook reading for Chinese children." Scholarly Commons, 2016. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/4.
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This six-week quasi-experimental study compared the effectiveness of two English storybook reading styles (preview-review reading versus concurrent translation) on the vocabulary development of kindergarteners ( n =50) in China, whose primary language is Chinese, who learn English as a second language. The children (aged 5 to 6) were pretested to evaluate their knowledge of general and targeted words using a researcher-designed instrument tailored to the content of three selected English stories. Validity evidence based on contrasted groups and test-retest reliability had been previously gathered for the 24-word instrument (based on 8 words per story) in a pilot study. The children in the concurrent translation group listened to the English storybook with the reader using both English and Chinese interchangeably to assist children in understanding the story. With the children in the preview-review group, the reader built background knowledge and discussed difficult vocabulary in Chinese before reading the storybook only in English then reinforcing key points in Chinese after reading the storybook. Each of three English stories was read three times by the researcher/reader separately to both groups. Two days after the third reading of each story, children were post-tested on the 8 words associated with that specific story. Total posttest scores, based on combining the three 8-word posttest scores, were compared to the 24-word pretest scores to examine vocabulary gains. Results suggest that both methods of reading English storybooks to Chinese preschoolers were effective. Results also indicate that children in the concurrent translation group performed significantly better than children in the preview-review group, even after initial levels of vocabulary, based on the pretest, were controlled (Cohen’s ƒ 2 = .42, which is considered to be a large effect). Additionally, an Aptitude x Treatment Interaction model was tested, but insufficient evidence was found to suggest that the differential effectiveness of the two methods depended on the child’s initial vocabulary level. Implications for teachers, parents, and early childhood education policymakers are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered.
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Yang, Jun. "The acquisition of temporality by adult second language learners of Chinese." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280075.
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This dissertation is about the acquisition of temporality in the Chinese language by adult native English speakers. The major objective is to chart the course of development of temporality by adult English-speaking learners of Chinese and explore the universals in the acquisition of temporality. The dataset used for this dissertation study consists of the Pear Story narratives produced by twenty native speakers of Chinese and the Pear Story narratives produced by twenty-one English-speaking adult second language learners of Chinese, grouped into three different proficiency levels--the low, the intermediate and the high level. It is found that both native speakers of Chinese and adult learners have available at their disposal a repertoire of explicit and implicit encoding devices in which grammatical means is among the least often used. However, in comparison with native speakers, learners' repertoire is smaller and contains less varied items. Regarding the use of a particular aspectual particle, perfective le, it is found that both native speakers and learners are constrained by multiple factors. However, some factors affecting native speakers have not been acquired by learners yet and even the same type of factors affecting both native speakers and learners have different constraining strengths for the two groups. Clear developmental patterns are found in learners' acquisition of temporality in narrative discourse. As learners gain proficiency in the target language, they grow from preferring implicit encoding to preferring explicit encoding, their use of grammatical means increases against lexical means, and their reliance on the discourse context decreases. These universal developmental patterns are observed in both the foreground and the background clauses. What is found in this analysis highlights the role of input, as most of the development tendencies reflect the grammar and language use by the native speakers. However, there is evidence that L1 transfer could additionally play a role in learners' acquisition of some temporal properties of the target language. The implications of the findings of this study for the teaching of Chinese as a second language and for the acquisition study of aspectual particles in Chinese will also be discussed.
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Yu, Xiao Ping. "Chinese Character Challenger : supplementary courseware for assisting students learning Chinese characters /." Link to the online version, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1326.
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Du, Hang. "The acquisition of the Chinese ba-constructionby adult second language learners." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290065.
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The ba-construction is probably the best-known syntactic construction in Modern Standard Chinese, but little has been done on the acquisition of it by second language learners. My study fills this gap. The theoretical framework is Liu's (1997) aspectual analysis of ba. The study is experimental. The constraint on the ba-NP and the constraint on the ba-VP were investigated. The constraint on the ba-NP is that it has to be specific. The constraint on the ba-VP is that it has to be complex. Two of the structures that can satisfy the complexity constraint on the ba-VP, the resultative verb complement (RVC) and the perfective aspect marker le were investigated. The subjects were 65 students learning Chinese in the intensive Chinese program at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California. They were divided into three groups according to the number of weeks that they had studied Chinese at the DLI. A group of 20 native speakers of Chinese also participated as a control group. The study involved two experiments: production and grammaticality judgments. In the production experiment, I designed pairs of actions on video tape and asked the subjects to describe the actions with two Chinese sentences. In the grammaticality judgment experiment, I played some of the video clips from the production experiment and asked the subjects to tell whether some written Chinese sentences accurately described the actions that they saw in the video scenes. I also asked the subjects to indicate their confidence in their judgments. Results were that even though the learners generally produced fewer ba-constructions than the native speakers in the production experiment, their judgments of most of the sentences were not significantly different from those of native speakers, indicating that they had some good knowledge of the construction. Moreover, learners with similar production patterns showed different patterns in their grammaticality judgments, suggesting that the two kinds of data complement each other in our understanding of language acquisition. Results also show that the confidence dimension captured subtle differences that would not have been captured by the grammaticality dimension alone in the grammaticality judgment experiment. It has been found that using the canonical SVO word order and the drop of the object are the two most common patterns used by learners to substitute for the ba-construction. Error patterns have also been identified. Some "unexpected" patterns of grammaticality judgments from native speakers suggest that the learners had not yet been exposed to some interesting phenomena in the language that interfered with the ba -construction. One such example is the topicalization of the object to the position between the subject and the verb. Some native speakers accepted such sentences while most learners rejected them probably because they had not been exposed to such structures yet. Finally, the variation among native speakers in their judgments of the ba-construction calls for a more systematic study of exactly how native speakers of Standard Chinese use the ba-construction, especially those who have been exposed to other Chinese dialects.
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Zhang, Hang Smith Jennifer L. "A phonological study of second language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese tones." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,1339.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.Title from electronic title page (viewed Apr. 25, 2008). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Linguistics." Discipline: Linguistics; Department/School: Linguistics.
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Xu, Yi. "The Syntax, Processing and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese Relative Clauses." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195226.
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The structural complexity and the typological universals associated with relative clauses (RCs) have made the structure particularly interesting to linguists and second language acquisition (SLA) researchers. Currently, much controversy is found in RCs in East Asian Languages. This dissertation tests the syntactic status of "relative clauses" in Chinese and explores second language (L2) learners' processing and production of different types of Chinese RCs.In the theoretical part of the dissertation, I test whether Comrie (2002)'s proposal of analyzing putative relative clauses in East Asian languages as "attributive clauses" can be applicable to Chinese. From a review of syntactic literature and movement test, I argue that there are crucial differences between Chinese RCs and attributive clauses. Further, reconstruction effect suggests that A-bar movement takes place within gapped Chinese RCs. More specifically, following Sauerland (2000)'s proposal, I suggest that the derivation of Chinese RCs involves the movement of an operator taking a complex NP as its complement to the Spec of CP, and that complex NP matches with an external head outside the RC.Further, I examine the possibility of analyzing AdjP+DE structure as relative clauses, and examine the flexibility and effect of demonstrative and numeral-classifier positions and their relation with relative clauses.In the experiment chapter, I discuss results from three experiments that tested the relative degrees of difficulty for L2 learners among different types of RCs including Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object and Object of Preposition relative clauses, I seek plausible linguistic and psycholinguistic proposals in explaining the performance data. The experiments include a self-paced word order judgment task, a written sentence completion task, and a written sentence combination task. It was found that the L2 acquisition of Chinese RCs is generally consistent with the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977), a typological generalization based on natural languages and a hierarchy that was found to be predictive of learners' order of acquisition in SLA studies of many other languages.
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Juffs, Alan. "Learnability and the lexicon in second language acquisition : Chinese learners' acquisition of English argument structure." Thesis, McGill University, 1993. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=41626.
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This thesis investigates the knowledge of semantics-syntax correspondences in second language acquisition (SLA) within the Principles and Parameters framework. A parameter of semantic structure is proposed to account for crosslinguistic syntactic differences between two previously unrelated, and superficially distinct, verb classes: change of state locatives and 'psychological' verbs. Chinese and English contrast in terms of the parameter setting. Experimental evidence indicates that adult Chinese learners of English L2 initially transfer parameter settings, but are able to reset the proposed parameter. However, they only acquire L2 lexical properties and concomitant syntactic privileges with ease when L2 input adds a representation to their grammar. When positive L2 input should pre-empt overgeneralizations based on representation transferred from the L1, it is shown that L1 influence may persist until quite advanced stages of acquisition. The implications of the results are discussed for the parameter setting model of SLA.
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Randolph, Tamara Lee Dietrich. "Culture-mediated literature adult Chinese EFL student response to folktales /." access full-text online access from Digital dissertation consortium, 2000. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?9988979.
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Li, Yu. "Comparison of the comprehension of three types of Chinese colloquial idioms by advanced Chinese L2 learners." Diss., University of Iowa, 2016. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2112.
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This study explores how comprehension strategies, first language (L1), and contextual information affect the comprehension and interpretation of three types of colloquial idioms by Chinese as a second language (L2) learners at an advanced level of proficiency. Three research questions are addressed: (1) to what extent does context affect the comprehension and interpretation of three types of Chinese colloquial idioms, (2) to what extent does the degree of L1–L2 similarity influence the comprehension and interpretation of the Chinese colloquial idioms, and (3) what strategies are employed by the learners in comprehending the Chinese colloquial idioms in isolation and in context, and which strategies contribute to better comprehension of the Chinese colloquial idioms in context.
To address these research questions, 30 advanced Chinese L2 learners at a Midwest University participated in the study. They were asked to comprehend 15 unknown colloquial idioms in and out of context. All of the participants were native speakers of English. The 15 target idiomatic phrases differed in terms of the degree of L1–L2 similarity, including 5 matching idioms, 5 partially matching idioms, and 5 non-matching idioms. In the decontextualized condition, the participants were given a list of the target colloquial idioms without contextual information, whereas in the contextualized condition, the target colloquial idioms were embedded in short paragraph context. For both tasks, the individual participants were required to verbalize their thought processes as they arrived at the meanings of the target colloquial idioms. Think-aloud protocols were employed to collect qualitative data.
It was discovered that context substantially facilitated the comprehension processes of the target colloquial idioms, especially with respect to the partially matching category. The degree of L1–L2 similarity significantly affected the ease with which the participants understood the Chinese colloquial idioms in the decontextualized and contextualized tasks. In the decontextualized condition, the participants generally adopted a “part-to-whole and literal-to-figurative” approach to interpret the target items, whereas in the contextualized condition, the participants adopted a heuristic method and employed a wide range of strategies (e.g., sentence translation, component words, and background knowledge) to access meaning of the target idioms. Among the strategies identified, semantic processing and pre-existing knowledge were strong predictors of accurate idiom interpretation. Instead of using existing L1 idiom comprehension models to explain the comprehension of idioms in an L2, a tentative model of idiom comprehension was proposed. L2 learners appeared to undergo two stages in comprehending unknown Chinese colloquial idioms: an initial prediction stage and a verification stage.
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Kim, Shin-hye. "The acquisition of tense and aspect by Korean and Chinese learners of English /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Matthews, Guy. "Second language acquisition of English reflexives by Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin Chinese." Thesis, University of Essex, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.446480.
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Jiang, Lin. "Second language acquisition of English 'pronominality' by advanced proficiency Chinese-speaking learners." Thesis, University of Essex, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.422240.
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Wong, Kuk-ying Esther. "Learner preferences of task types : a case study in a Chinese-medium secondary school in Hong Kong /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk:8888/cgi-bin/hkuto%5Ftoc%5Fpdf?B23425209.
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Yap, Set-lee Shirley. "Out-of-class use of english by secondary school students in a Hong Kong Anglo-Chinese school." Thesis, Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1998. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B19883468.
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Yusa, Mayuko. "Acquisition of Japanese Null Arguments by Second Language Learners." The Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1524200688600588.
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Fu, I.-Ping P. "Student Approaches to Learning Chinese Vocabulary." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/25955.
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This research focuses on the strategies that native English speakers use as they learn to speak and write Chinese vocabulary words in the first year of an elementary Chinese class. The main research question was: what strategies do native English-speaking beginning learners of Chinese use to learn Chinese vocabulary words in their speaking and writing? The study was conducted at a medium-sized comprehensive university in the Southeastern U.S. The study drew from concepts and theories in second language acquisition and psycholinguistic studies. A random sampling of four students was selected in their first year of Chinese study for qualitative analyses. Data were collected from demographic student surveys, reflection papers, interviews, observation and field notes, weekly diary of the students and Strategies Inventory for Language Learning (SILL).
The conclusions from this study provide insight as to how students of this demographic approach the challenge of learning Chinese. From this study, a clear picture emerges that students use different strategies to learn Chinese. Some students respond better to sound while others are more visually based learners. However, in this study, students used combinations of audio, visual, and kinesthetic learning techniques. The tonality of spoken Chinese was one of the most difficult skills to master and this aspect of the language frustrated many students. This is a widely recognized problem with Chinese education. Nevertheless, students enjoyed the artistic nature of Chinese characters and for the most part enjoyed writing them. This element can be emphasized in Chinese instruction to motivate students and appeal to visual learners. Similarly, integrating instruction on Chinese culture into language classes made the Elementary Chinese curriculum more appealing to students. Using native Chinese speakers from the local community in the language curriculum, reinforced classroom instruction, made the instruction more relevant, and increased student interest. Encouraging students to attend Chinese cultural events in the community had many of the same positive benefits for students. The motivations for learning revealed in this study are very interesting and support earlier studies of Chinese learners. Personal and profession interests as well as a combination of both these factors were the most commonly cited reasons for learning Chinese. Maintaining proper motivation is a pivotal factor that determines the success of many elementary learners including the students in this study. When students lost their motivation, interest in the curriculum and learning declined as well. Teachers need to be aware of motivations and attempt to foster them in individual students in order to maximize the learning experience.Ph. D.
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Ko, Shu-Ling. "Female CFL (Chinese as Foreign Language) Learners' Acquisition of Native-Like Features of Feminine Chinese Speech." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2009. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2179.
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This study was designed to evaluate the correlation between participants' acquisition of feminine Chinese speech patterns and time lived in Chinese speaking areas. These patterns include final particles, key words, request words, sentence patterns, and intonation. Data collection was administered through an on-line survey. Participants in this study included twenty female native Mandarin Chinese speakers and 39 female CFL learners. The data collected revealed the correlation between the participants' acquisition of feminine Chinese speech patterns and time spent abroad in a Chinese language environment. Part one of the survey targeted the demographics of the participants. The second part of the survey contained five scenarios that allowed the participants to reveal their reactions to different situations. These groups were separated by the amount of time spent abroad and then analyzed according to these parameters.
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Reynolds, Brook J. "Perceptions of English language learners (PELL) sixth, seventh, and eighth grade Chinese students' perceptions of their success in learning English as a second language /." online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium, 2006. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?3246914.
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Qin, Chuan. "Tethering Effect as an Explanation for the Bottleneck in Second Language Acquisition." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2016. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/332.
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A learner of L2 normally attains a certain level of competence which then stagnates, thereby rarely accomplishes native-like competence of the target-language (TL). This bottleneck effect is accounted for through the E-Tether Theory (ETT), which is the main thesis of this dissertation. The ETT argues that the L2 E-grammar of a learner's community exerts a centrifugal force that draws the I-grammar of the learner towards it. This force, christened as the "E-tether", stems from the learner's identification with his speech community and from the linguistic input provided by the local E-grammar. When the local E-grammar is not identical to the TL grammar, the E-tether is a double-edge sword that encourages the development of the L2 I-grammar in the initial stages, but then prevents the I-grammar from progression towards the TL. By considering how social environment affects the I-grammar of individual learners through E-languages, the ETT provides a more comprehensive account to the bottleneck effect.;The validity of the proposed ETT is examined in this dissertation through two empirical studies: (i) the acquisition of English consonant clusters by the native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong, and (ii) the acquisition of the same structures by the native Cantonese speakers in Guangzhou. In the two studies, the ETT is tested by seeing whether the individuals in the two cities attitudinally incline towards the phonological patterns of Hong Kong English (HKE) and of Guangzhou English (GZE), which are the E-languages of the two communities. The E-grammar in each city is generalized from the productions of consonant clusters by 10 speakers and is analyzed under the framework of Optimality Theory; the attitudes towards the E-grammar are obtained through a language attitude test implemented to 129 participants in Hong Kong and 66 in Guangzhou. Two findings emerge from the results. First, there is a tendency in HKE and in GZE to produce syllabic obstruents and to devoice word-final obstruents. Both patterns are also attitudinally accepted by the participants in the two cities. Second, when there is more than one strategy in the local E-grammar to avoid consonant clusters, the one that better preserves intelligibility is more likely to be accepted. The observed acceptance of the L2 speakers towards the "non-standard" L2 patterns can hardly be explained if one does not acknowledge the role of the local E-grammar. The findings thus lend support to the ETT.;Besides the Hong Kong study and the Guangzhou study, there is evidence showing that the ETT can work in a range of social contexts, and can apply to domains other than phonological acquisition.
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Chan, Kit-wah. "An investigation of Hong Kong Chinese ESL learners' processing difficulty in the comprehension and production of relative clauses." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2005. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B31603312.
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Ming, Tao. "The acquisition of temporal marking a bidirectional study /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1619405921&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Zhu, Jia. "Weaving language and culture together : the process of culture learning in a chinese as a foreign language classroom." Diss., University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3418.
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This dissertation is a qualitative case study exploring the process of culture learning in a Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) classroom. Guided by a socioculturally based theoretical perspective and adopting the stance of the National Standards, which says that language students "cannot truly master the language until they have also mastered the cultural contexts in which the language occurs" (1996, p. 27), this study describes how culture learning is tied to class practices aimed at developing students' language proficiency by exploring how culture and language are integrated in spoken discourse and interactions in the classroom.
The research questions of the study focus on both the instructor's and the students' perspectives towards the interrelationship between language learning and culture learning and their actual practices in the dynamic, complex, and emerging speech community of classroom contexts. Through analysis of student questionnaires, classroom observations, instructor interview, and stimulated-recall sessions with students, this study examines the contexts of culture learning, illustrates how language classroom contexts shape and are shaped by all the class members, including both the instructor and the students, and describes how the classroom spoken discourse in the current advanced-level undergraduate CFL course provides opportunities for culture learning and how culture learning actually happens in this language classroom.
The findings suggest that as the instructor and the students interact in the language classroom, it is not so much the particular pieces of cultural and linguistic information under discussion that delineate the actual culture learning process, but rather the active exchanges and sometimes disagreements between the instructor and the students that provide opportunities for interactive cultural dialogues and discussions. In other words, cultural knowledge and understanding are situated in actual contexts of language use. Language learning is also embedded in the same interactive and collaborative discussion of texts. By exploring the complexity of the culture learning process in the language classroom setting, this study adds theoretical and pedagogical support to the premise that culture learning should be an integral part of language instruction at different levels throughout the language curriculum.
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Jin, Lingxia. "SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF SPATIAL METAPHORS IN ENGLISH AND CHINESE WRITINGS: INSIGHTS FROM NATIVE AND LEARNER LANGUAGE CORPORA." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/203488.
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First outlined by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) continues to thrive (e.g. Lakoff&Johnson 1992, Lakoff, 1993, 1999, 2008), by first challenging the traditional view on metaphor as a matter of language and something extraordinary and poetic. CMT claims that metaphor is pervasive and essential in language and thought. Furthermore, metaphor is considered as the locus for abstract reasoning in this theory.Since its proposal, CMT has triggered plethoric research. However, few empirical studies have examined metaphors in second language (L2) acquisition and the importance of metaphor has not been fully recognized as an indispensable dimension in second language teaching and learning (Littlemore, 2009; Littlemore&Low, 2006b). However, metaphors present a hurdle for L2 learners (Danesi, 1992); L2 learners misinterpret metaphors for cultural reasons (Littlemore, 2003); teaching conceptual metaphor as a learning strategy facilitate language learning (Littlemore&Low, 2006a; Li, 2009).Thus, the current study investigates metaphor in learner language in light of CMT via a corpus-based approach. The study particularly examines how L2 learners of Chinese and English express vertical spatial metaphors in L2 English and L2 Chinese writings and how they differ from learners' target languages and learners' native languages.The findings reveal that L2 language development is a dynamic process and four key factors are found to interplay in learners' acquisition of conceptual metaphors: frequency of the metaphor, L2 proficiency, topic familiarity, and linguistic factors. In particular, the frequency of the metaphor as reflected in the target language has the most important impact on learners' acquisition of conceptual metaphors, overriding the factor whether a metaphor is shared in L1 and L2 or not; secondly, L2 proficiency influences how learners are affected by their first languages: learners with lower proficiency are more affected; thirdly, learners acquire the metaphors associated with a familiar topic; finally, L2 learners are constrained by the main semantic unit in the metaphorical expressions. Overall, the study demonstrates that figurative language development is a dynamic process: learners' metaphoric competence demonstrates a developmental pattern, in particular, a pendulum effect and it eventually emerges over L2 proficiency.
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Lei, Xiao. "Understanding writing strategy use from a sociocultural perspective a multiple-case study of Chinese EFL learners of different writing abilities /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2009. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B43085672.
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Leather, Jonathan Haworth. "Speech pattern elements in second language acquisition : perception and production of Chinese tonal contrasts." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.295152.
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Pan, Xiaofei. "Investigating the development of syntactic complexity in L2 Chinese writing." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6242.
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This present study investigates the development of second language (L2) Chinese learners’ writing by 1) subjective ratings of essay quality, 2) a battery of objective measures representing the general syntactic complexity as well as specific syntactic features, and 3) the sources of verb phrase complexity used by learners of different institutional levels. This study first compares the subjective ratings of the essays written by learners across four institutional levels and then uses Cumulative Linked Model to examine the contribution of the objective measures of linguistic features to the essay ratings. This study further identifies a number of sources used by learners to construct complex verb phrases, which is an important contributor of the essay rating, and compares the amount of usages by learners at different institutional levels. The purpose of the study is to better understand L2 Chinese learners’ syntactic development in writing from multi-dimensional perspectives, and to identify the most crucial elements that determine the quality of writing.
This study recruits 105 L2 Chinese college learners to write a narrative essay and an argumentative essay according to the prompts. Each of the writing sample is rated by two independent raters according to the holistic ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, as well as the analytic rubric which was adapted from the ESL Composition Profile for this study. The derivation of syntactic complexity measures was based on the rank scales of lexicogrammar in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), involving 12 features at the levels of clause complex, clause, and verb phrase, some of which represent constructions unique to Chinese.
A series of statistical tests, including Kruskal-Wallis tests, Dunn’ tests, Spearman’ correlation tests, and CLM are performed to answer that research questions. The findings show that 1) learners’ overall writing quality measured by holistic and analytic ratings do not show significant differences across the first several academic years; 2) higher-level learners are more heterogeneous in writing ability than lower-level learners; 3) phrasal complexity contributes more to the essay quality than clausal complexity; 4) syntactic complexity features that learners develop fastest hardly overlap with those that contribute most to the essay rating; 5) complex verbal phrases come from 10 different sources and the composition of complex verbal phrases remain stable across the groups; and 6) essay types makes significant differences in terms of holistic and analytic ratings, use of syntactic complexity features, as well as their contribution to the essay ratings.
From the pedagogical view, this study points out that instruction should focus more on complexity at the phrasal level, especially nominalization and complex verb phrases, that play a more important role to determine the writing quality. Some of the current focus in instruction may not necessarily lead to better quality or higher proficiency in Chinese writing.
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Yu, Baohua. "Cross-cultural adaptation and second language acquisition a study of international students in universities of the People's Republic of China /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2008. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B40888009.
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Yang, Shuyi. "Constructing informal diagnostic reading assessment instruments for lower-level Chinese as second language readers." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6343.
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Reading in a second language (L2) is a complex process that poses formidable obstacles for readers, especially those in the initial stages of learning. The challenge is particularly daunting for lower-level Chinese L2 readers with an alphabetic first language (L1) background. Chinese is a logographic, deep orthography with unique linguistic features that necessitate specific reading processes and skills. The development of Chinese L2 reading competence is heavily dependent upon instruction. Effective instruction requires accurate diagnoses of the learners’ reading problems and appropriate selection of instructional materials. Compared with standardized proficiency tests that provide little diagnostic information, and formal diagnostic assessments that are inconvenient to use in daily instruction for diagnostic purposes, informal diagnostic assessment tools enable language teachers to better accommodate the instructional needs of learners to identify reading weaknesses and select suitable materials. However, thus far, instruction-informative, diagnostically rich, and flexible informal diagnostic reading assessment for Chinese L2 reading is lacking.
This study aims to fill a gap in the Chinese L2 reading assessment field by exploring the applicability of three tasks as informal reading diagnostic assessment tools to measure comprehension performance, detect reading problems, and determine instructional material difficulty levels for lower-level Chinese L2 readers. These three assessment instruments are: oral word reading, word segmentation, and oral passage reading. This study is a necessary step towards constructing diagnostic Chinese reading assessment instruments that can be used by classroom teachers. It also contributes to the Chinese L2 reading field theoretically because it examines whether an L1 English reading theory can be applied to explain L2 Chinese reading. The participants in this study were 70 lower-level English-speaking learners of Chinese from several universities in the United States and China.
The results showed that all three of the informal diagnostic instruments effectively predict reading comprehension, with oral passage reading emerging as the strongest indicator. One shared construct, oral reading fluency, underlies the three diagnostic instruments. Oral reading fluency strongly predicts comprehension, suggesting that there is commonality in reading across languages, and theories designed for L1 alphabetic language reading can be well applied to Chinese L2 reading. Chinese orthographic characteristics also exert influence on reading, as manifested in the stronger role of fluency in predicting comprehension and the word segmenting processes in reading. The informal diagnostic instruments can also be used to evaluate instructional material difficulty. Two of the three textbook-equivalent texts examined in this study fit the learners’ reading level, while most learners felt one of the texts was too difficult to read. L2 readers have diverse profiles and they develop their componential skills in different ways, whereas the crucial role of word-level processing in reading remains stable across reader patterns. Generally speaking, the three diagnostic instruments were moderately difficult for the participants in this study, and the two oral reading tasks were more challenging than the word segmentation. The quantity and quality of learners’ errors when completing these three diagnostic instruments reveal rich information about their reading processes and problems. The findings offered strong support for the three instruments as effective tools for diagnostic purposes in Chinese lower-level L2 reading instruction and indicated the importance of developing reading fluency and training word-level processing skills.
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Cheung, Sin-lin Isabelle. "A study of lexical errors in South-Asian Non-Chinese speaking children's writing." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2006. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B36863658.
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Qiao, Zhengwei. "Oral corrective feedback and the acquisition of Chinese rule-based verb constructions." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1730.
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Research has focused on how the effects of different types of feedback vary as a function of the complexity of the linguistic targets and on the learning of inflectional features. However, few studies have investigated the learning of rule-based verb constructions. Grounded in the interactionist approach and usage-based theory, this study investigated the effects of corrective feedback on the acquisition of rule-based verb constructions among English-speaking learners of Chinese. Specifically, this study examined the effects of input-providing feedback and output-prompting feedback on the learning of two verb constructions. Data were drawn from 18 learners of Chinese from second-year Chinese classes in an American university. The participants were divided into two groups and took a pretest, treatment, and two posttests. Learners also filled out a questionnaire about their perception and preference of feedback types. Contrary to previous research, results indicated that both recasts and metalinguistic clues had positive effects on learners' learning of the target constructions. Moreover, learners of different proficiency preferred different types of feedback. The study results provided a categorization of verb constructions into four classes based on the rules that govern their formations and constraints that work on the constructions and identified stages learners moved through when learning verb constructions. The researcher proposed an instructional model of rule-based verb constructions. The model will help instructors recognize the stage the learners' are in and provide insight into how to help learners move to a higher stage by providing instruction, corrective feedback, and practice activities.
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Li, Fuyin. "The acquisition of metaphorical expressions, idioms, and proverbs by Chinese learners of English a conceptual metaphor and image schema based approach /." Online version, 2002. http://bibpurl.oclc.org/web/23210.
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Chu, Hsi-chin Janet. "The effects of culture-specific rhetorical conventions on the L2 reading recall of Chinese students /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p9956815.
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Yang, Li. "A web-based approach to learning expressions of gratitude in Chinese as a foreign language." Diss., University of Iowa, 2013. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2425.
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This study investigates the effects of instruction delivered via a learner-centered, self-access website on the learning of expressions of gratitude by L2 Chinese learners across proficiency levels. Three research questions are addressed: (1) whether the web-based instruction facilitates students' learning of Chinese expressions of gratitude, (2) whether the effects of instruction vary across proficiency levels, and (3) how L2 learners regard the use of the website as a learning tool.
Based on the noticing hypothesis and the pragmatic consciousness-raising approach, a pragmatics website was developed that provided explicit instruction on how to appropriately express gratitude in Chinese and offered awareness-raising exercises and activities for practice. It was structured in eight instructional units and two review sessions.
To address the three research questions, this study adopted a pretest-posttest design to include two groups of learners who differed in their proficiency in the Chinese language. The two groups of learners received pragmatics instruction delivered via the self-access website over five weeks. Two weeks prior to the instruction, all learners were asked to complete (1) the language contact profile (LCP) for eliciting their demographic information and their contact with Chinese outside the classroom, (2) a local standardized Chinese proficiency test (CPT) for assessing their proficiency in Chinese, (3) discourse completion tasks/tests (DCT) for soliciting their production of Chinese expressions of gratitude, (4) metapragmatic assessment tasks (MAT) for eliciting their metapragmatic assessment of thanking responses provided, and (5) retrospective interviews for soliciting learners' explanations of their assessments in the MAT. On a weekly basis during the treatment period, learners wrote reflective e-journals in response to prompt questions provided by the researcher, which helped track learners' self-access study progress and their on-going perceptions of the website. One week after the online instruction, all learners were also asked to complete the same types of questionnaires (i.e., the DCT and the MAT) and retrospective interviews for assessing their pragmatic development.
Results showed that after receiving the web-based instruction, all learners produced more appropriate expressions of gratitude and used more varied thanking strategies in their responses, regardless of their proficiency. Learners' assessments of Chinese expressions of gratitude became more target-like and their metapragmatic awareness was also promoted. However, higher-level learners seemed to have benefited more from the instruction in their production of Chinese expressions of gratitude than lower-level participants, and the higher-level group demonstrated an overall higher level of pragmatic awareness than the lower-level group after the online instruction. But no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of learners' metapragmatic assessments. In addition, participants responded positively to the website and put forward constructive suggestions to improve it.
Finally, this study interpreted the findings based on cognitive processing theories, proposed both theoretical and pedagogical implications, and discussed the limitations of this study and directions for future research.
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Zhao, Huajing. "Gender construction and its negotiation in the course of second language learning : a case study of Chinese students learning English as a foreign language in a state secondary school." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609067.
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Huang, Yi-Tzu. "Interactive patterns in paired discussions between Chinese heritage and Chinese foreign language learners." Diss., University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2524.
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Having acquired some degree of oral proficiency but low (or non-existent) literacy, the learning of Chinese heritage learners' (CHLs) learning needs are different from those of Chinese foreign language learners (CFLs), who have learned Chinese only in the classroom setting. Although researchers have advocated for a separate curriculum for CHLs, creating a heritage track may not be an option for many Chinese programs due to insufficient enrollment and limited resources. Huge proficiency variations among CHLs also make it difficult to provide a language curriculum that fits the needs of all learners. Therefore, CHLs are assigned to classes with CFLs in most Chinese language programs. From a pedagogical point of view, uneven proficiency levels are a great concern for instructors who teach a language class with students of different language backgrounds and with varying abilities, especially when assigning students to work in pairs or small groups. Although CHL-CFL paired interaction has become a common phenomenon in Chinese language classes, it has not been fully explored.
Grounded in sociocultural theory, this research explores the nature of dyadic interaction between Chinese heritage learners (CHLs) and Chinese foreign language learners (CFLs) in a classroom setting. It investigates the roles that Chinese heritage learners and their foreign language peers play in paired discussions, how learners' proficiency gaps influence the dynamics of paired interaction, and whether peer-peer collaboration affects learners' individual oral performance.
In this study, data were collected in three intermediate-level Chinese classes. Participants first filled out a language background survey to lead to a better understanding of the environments in which they use Chinese. Next, they took two proficiency tests to assess their comprehensive Chinese skills. Over the course of a semester, ten CHL-CFL pairs engaged in paired discussions on six different occasions. Before and after each pair work session, each participant was required to give an individual verbal report assessing the influence of paired interaction on his or her oral performance. After data from the six sessions were collected, participants took an end-of-study survey, which provides their perceptions about paired discussion and their roles in paired interaction over the research period.
According to the findings, three interaction patterns (passive collaboration pattern, active collaboration pattern, and peer-tutoring pattern) were identified. The results of this study show that CHLs' language background and the amount of Chinese language exposure determined the CHL-CFL proficiency gaps in each pair, and further influenced the pattern of paired interaction. Learners generated more LREs (Language-related episodes) and were more likely to acquire knowledge from pair work when the degree of interaction mutuality was high. Even when the proficiency gaps were large, the less proficient learners still could transfer new knowledge to their independent work.
To conclude, this study may be of importance in presenting the dynamics of CHL-CFL paired interaction in a mixed Chinese language class, as well as in providing instructors with a better understanding of how different factors such as interlocutors' proficiency gaps, individual participants' beliefs and attitudes relate to their interaction behaviors and subsequent independent performance.
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Li, Daguo. "Motivation, learner strategies, and social networks in second language acquisition in Chinese research students." Thesis, University of Reading, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390788.
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Toyoda, Etsuko. "Developing script-specific recognition ability : the case of learners of Japanese /." Connect to thesis, 2006. http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00002971.
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Berry, Rita Shuk Yin. "A study of the strategies used by Hong Kong Chinese learners in learning English in an independent school environment in the United Kingdom." Thesis, University of Exeter, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.244968.
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Chen, Ee-san. ""You play with me, then I friend you." : development of conditional constructions in Chinese-English bilingual preschool children in Singapore /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2002. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/HKUTO/record/B38211622.
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Milton, John. "A description of a written interlanguage : institutional influences on the acquisition of English by Hong Kong Chinese students (a computational and corpus based methodology)." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.250622.
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Yu, Xiao Ping (Amy). "CHINESE CHARACTER CHALLENGER 汉 字 挑 战 者 Supplementary courseware for assisting students learning Chinese characters." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2680.
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Thesis (MPhil (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005.In this thesis, I pinpoint the challenge of character learning as my research problem, which is the subsequent motivation to explain the background and rationale of my research. I also discuss the theoretical concepts of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in relation to cognitive psychology, the constructivist learning theory and Second Language Acquisition theories. This leads to the presentation of my considerations regarding design principles, strategic approach and other relevant decisions. The multimedia project I designed, named the “Chinese Character Challenger”, a “supplementary courseware for assisting students learning characters”, is an informational and educational-oriented website. It provides learners with the necessary knowledge, hints, tips and sources to cope with their specific learning problems and to achieve their learning potential. It also introduces external resources of learning if learners need further research. The purpose of the website is to assist, to motivate and to further guide students’ learning. To conclude, I have discussed some open issues with regards to adding value in the learning environment.
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Han, Zhao Hong. "Fossilization : an investigation within a typologically distant L2 learning context." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.266214.
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Chen, Chang-Ching. "THE REPRESENTATION AND PROCESSING OF PAST TENSE IN CHINESE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE LEARNERS." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195450.
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In general, L2 learners have great difficulty mastering aspects of grammar in the second language. For example, Chinese-speaking ESL learners often fail to mark past tense in their speaking and writing (Aaronson & Ferres, 1987; Bayley, 1991; Bean & Gergen, 1990; Jia & Fuse, 2007; Krashen & Pon, 1975; Lardiere, 1998; Wei, 2000), and there are some suggestions in the literature that Chinese learners of English never master English tense (Lardiere, 1998). One question that arises is whether the failure to learn to use the past tense is due to a failure of competence or a failure of performance. If the former, then Chinese-speaking ESL learners should show such failures in all tasks including comprehension tasks.However, little research has investigated L2 comprehension of tense marking in reading. The studies (Gass, 2001; Guillelmon & Grosjean, 2001; Jiang, 2004, 2007) have showed that late L2 learners are not sensitive to certain types of grammatical marking. They have poor inflectional comprehension. It is possible that Chinese English-language learners are insensitive to grammatical violation involving tense during reading. This dissertation tests this idea.A group of English-proficient college students from Fu-Jen University in Taiwan was tested in a number of tasks. In paper-and-pencil tests, Chinese English-language learners showed knowledge of the past tense forms and the appropriate contexts for their usage. This suggests that past tense marking is learnable. Chinese English-language learners can acquire this knowledge. Does the relative mastery of past tense show up in comprehension in a similar L2 population? A reading comprehension test that measured reading time to sequential segments of a sentence indicated that unlike native speakers of English who were tested, Chinese English-language learners were insensitive to grammatical violation involving tense. This finding is consistent with the other studies, indicating that L2 learners are insensitive to grammatical marking during reading.Overall, it appears that high-functioning Chinese English-language learners can learn almost the proper way to use tense, but fail to do so during performance.