Ph.D. - East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)
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ItemDefining and Assessing Chinese Syntactic Complexity via TC-Units([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [December 2016], 2016-12)The triad dimensions of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) has been widely used for assessing second language performance and development. Unlike accuracy and fluency, the construct of Chinese syntactic complexity has not been comprehensibly conceptualized or operationalized. Moreover, not tailored to the typological differences such as the topic prominence of the Chinese language, measures developed globally were found not as valid for Chinese syntactic complexity assessment as they are for Indo- European languages. Research indicated that the mean length of the T-unit of native Chinese speakers is shorter than that of L2 Chinese speakers (Jin, 2006; Yuan, 2009). For situations where research findings developed globally are not as applicable when indiscriminately applied to typologically different languages, this dissertation employed the notion of GlobaLocality to define and assess Chinese syntactic complexity. First, globally, clause combining was revisited to subsume the topic chain in addition to coordination and subordination. An organic approach was then adopted to investigate complexity via global, clausal, and subclausal levels (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Second, locally, a taxonomy of Topic-Comment units (TC-units) was proposed to examine Chinese syntactic complexity: the number and the nature of a terminable TC-unit’s components; and the number and the nature of their constituent relationship. Third, by performing discriminant function analyses on L1 and L2 Chinese speakers’ spoken (N=115) and written (N=116) output elicited from a designed online test, a series of proposed TC-unit based measures were confirmed with high efficiency (61.2%~76.5%) at proficiency group membership classification. Lower-proficiency speakers produced shorter terminable TC-units consisting of fewer single TC-units, whereas higher-proficiency speakers produced longer terminable TC-units in the form of varied topic chains consisting of more single TC-units. Chinese syntactic complexity development along proficiency increase also displayed a transition from more lengthening to more combining of single TC-units. Fourth, utilizing TC-unit based measures, repeated measures analyses observed more complex language produced in more complex tasks along the resource-directing dimension. Immediate task repetition was observed to lower learners’ communication anxiety and improve learners’ self-perceived performance. Last, this dissertation provided suggestions on complexity descriptions for proficiency guidelines and on how to develop Chinese syntactic complexity in classroom instruction.
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ItemExpressions of different-trajectory caused motion events in Chinese([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2013], 2013-05)We perform motion events in all aspects of our daily life, from walking home to jumping into a pool, from throwing a frisbee to pushing a shopping cart. The fact that languages may encode such motion events in different fashions has raised intriguing questions regarding the typological classifications of natural languages in relation to expressions of motion events. Talmy (1985) classifies all natural languages into two distinct categories: verb-framed or satellite-framed. The classification of Chinese under Talmy's system, however, has provoked much controversy. Specifically, Chinese has been classified as satellite-framed (Talmy, 1985), simultaneously satellite-framed and verb-framed (Ji, Hendriks, & Hickman, 2011) or equipollently-framed (Slobin, 2004). Slobin (2004) claims that not all natural languages fit into Talmy's (1985) bipartite classification; rather, serial verb languages such as Chinese are "equipollently-framed", which means that both the Manner (e.g., walking, flying) and the Path (e.g., to, into) of the moving entity are encoded in equally significant verbs. In the context of this debate, this dissertation compares expressions of different-trajectory motion events in Chinese to those of English, and, on the basis of this analysis, it investigates the influence of English on the learning of expressions of different-trajectory caused motion events in Chinese. The findings show that, like English, Chinese is satellite-framed in describing different-trajectory motion events. Nonetheless, despite such similarity, English learners of Chinese display two major problems in describing different-trajectory motion events. The first problem is that they do not encode the Path component in Chinese as frequently as native Chinese speakers do. The second problem is that they do not employ the disposal construction as frequently as native Chinese speakers do in their verbal descriptions. Previous studies have focused mainly on the acquisition of a typologically different second language. This dissertation shows that the differences between two typologically similar languages can also create substantial problems for second language learners. It is hoped that this dissertation will not only yield insights into the typological classification of Chinese in encoding different-trajectory caused motion events, but will also shed light on the acquisition of typologically similar languages.