Ph.D. - East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/2034

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The definite and demonstrative description in Mandarin and the acquisition of definitness in English by L1 Mandarin learners
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Huang, Yao; Jiang, Li; East Asian Language & Literature
Definiteness, a universal semantic concept that plays a central role in discourse coherence and interpretation, is marked morphosyntactically by the articles (e.g., the) in some languages (e.g., English) but not in others (e.g., Mandarin Chinese). This dissertation investigates how definiteness is expressed in Mandarin, how it contrasts with English, and how Mandarin-speaking learners acquire English definiteness distinctions. The research has three primary objectives: (i) to understand the ongoing debate on whether bare nouns and demonstrative descriptions are acceptable in anaphoric definite contexts in Mandarin; (ii) to understand the definiteness marking differences between English and Mandarin and the interpretation differences between English and Mandarin definite plural forms; and (iii) to understand the L2 acquisition of English definites by L1-Mandarin speakers, focusing on the role of L1 transfer in their use and interpretation of the definite article and demonstrative descriptions. Six experiments were conducted to address these goals. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the acceptability of Mandarin bare nouns in anaphoric contexts and found that they are generally acceptable, with ratings comparable to demonstrative descriptions. Experiment 3 examined native speaker preferences and revealed a strong preference for demonstratives over bare nouns in anaphoric contexts. Experiment 4 used a comprehension task to explore the interpretation of definite plural forms in both languages and found that Mandarin bare nouns and demonstrative plurals are more flexible in interpretation than their English counterparts. Building on these findings, Experiments 5 and 6 investigated the acquisition of English definite forms by Mandarin-speaking learners. Results show that L2 learners, particularly at intermediate proficiency levels, did not consistently differentiate between definites and demonstrative descriptions in the same way as native English speakers, both in usage and interpretation. L2 leaners, at advanced proficiency levels, though behave almost target-like in using these forms, they fail to fully distinguish between the definite plurals (the Xs) and the demonstrative plurals (those Xs) in interpretation. L2 leaners’ non-target-like behaviors occur precisely where predicted if learners are mapping Mandarin demonstratives (e.g., na/na-xie ‘that/those’) to English the and that/those. This dissertation refines our understanding of how definiteness is encoded and interpreted in Mandarin and provides new empirical support for the influence of L1 transfer on the acquisition of definiteness in L2 English. It contributes to linguistic theory by clarifying the status of Mandarin definiteness, advances cross-linguistic typologies of definiteness marking, and offers practical insights for second language instruction, particularly for learners from article-less language backgrounds.
What Once Had Meaning: Ritual in Early Chinese Texts
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Fleming, Ryan Davis; McCraw, David; East Asian Language & Literature
The rituals of the past are elusive things, and often our primary sources for understanding ancient rituals are the literary texts that describe or reference them. But what happens to a ritual when it becomes a literary subject? Can we “recreate” a ritual from literary sources in the same way we might recreate an ancient battle, or accounting practices? Or is there something about ritual gestures that gets lost in even the most careful description – a moment where a ritual gesture is turned, irrevocably, into a trope? This dissertation offers readings of a select number of ritual motifs as represented in Early and Medieval Chinese literature. But it does not tell a story of loss, or voice a lament over what was and is no more. The “loss” of the ritualistic in the literary is equally an “opening-up” of a literary text to something that it cannot otherwise represent. The dissertation, then, is a series of readings aimed at the “mysteries” that these ritual motifs and tropes open up in select texts. What once had meaning will have meaning again: only it will be a different meaning, the result of being put to different uses. The dissertation begins with two introductory chapters. The first of these states the author’s “positionality,” or how the author has attempted to position himself in relation to the texts discussed in the main body of the work, and provides a brief outline of the dissertation to follow. The second introductory chapter, its “Theoretical Orientation,” argues that “literature” and “ritual” should be understood as two distinct modes of thinking, or realms of experience, and that this is what makes the phenomenon of ritual tropes and themes in literature endlessly interesting. Following these introductions are 7 chapters, and one brief interlude, examining ritual gestures and themes in select texts. Chapter 3 (“Lords of the She Altar”) examines the ritual role of rats in China, and suggests that they might play a more significant (and intimate) role in rituals than previously noticed. Chapter 4 (“The Logic of Imitation”) argues for the centrality of the concept of “imitation” (one understanding of the character fa 法) in the Han dynasty philosopher, poet and scholar Yang Xiong’s text Fayan 法言, and that this in turn helps us understanding his thinking about ritual (and empire). The Interlude (“Distraction”) consists of a brief reading of one poem in the Nine Songs (Jiuge 九歌), and suggests that distraction might sometimes constitute a sacred task. Chapter 5 (“The Dregs of Ritual”) begins by arguing that biographies as a literary genre in early and Medieval China tend to blur the distinction between ritual and punishment, and that this tells us something about biography as a literary genre. It then goes on to read Guo Pu’s biography in the Jinshu against some of his surviving works, and suggest that Guo Pu was himself suspicious of biographical knowledge. Chapter 6 (“Ritual Questions”) looks at ritual matters questioned in the Tianwen, and suggests that questioning itself might be a kind of ritual. Chapter 7 (“The Negative Ritual”) examines the representation of hunting practices in Han dynasty fu, the Mu tianzi zhuan and various other texts. It postulates that hunting in early Imperial China can be understood both as a symbol of excess and also as an act of symbol-creation, and that this resulted in hunting’s contentious position in the ruling ideology’s ritual canon. Chapter 8 (“A Kind of Witchcraft”) compares the theme of reclusion as found in several Shangqing 上清 Daoist scriptures, and the biographies and writings of recluses (yinzhe 隱者, “those who would be hidden”). It argues that both Shangqing adepts and recluses can be understood as ritually hiding themselves away from society, but that this gesture is different for each figure, and points to a different understanding of the self. Chapter 9 (“On the Uses of Corpses”) muses on the curious role “corpses” may have played in Western Zhou ritual practices through readings of Bronze inscriptions and canonical texts like the Shijing. The conclusion reaffirms that the literary and the ritualistic are two separate activities that have long made (and continue to make) creative and dynamic use of each other. The seemingly inevitable, yet never complete, crossover of these two provides us with objects worthy of our continued attention and reflection. A brief Postscript (“On the Ontology of the Taotie”) offers some thoughts on the perpetually elusive “animal mask” patterns found on many bronzes from the Shang dynasty. Each of the chapters in the main body of the text is meant to stand on its own. They are not culminating steps in a single argument, but readings aimed at pointing out aspects of a ritual act, gesture or theme that escapes the world of the text(s) in question.
Interaction with Food in a Multicultural Cooking Class
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Huang, Shu-Yu; Wang, Haidan; East Asian Language & Literature
This dissertation investigates how participants make edible objects interactionally relevant in instructional cooking activities as they discuss, manipulate, and sense them in a multicultural cooking class. There is a growing interest in the role object mobilization plays in interactions, and previous research has demonstrated fruitful insights on human sociality gained from this field of pursuit (see Day & Wagner, 2019 and Nevile et al., 2014 for an overview). However, three research areas remain underexplored and deserve more attention: how language use shapes and is shaped by object manipulation, how object sensing is interactionally organized and becomes consequential to participants’ activities, and how participants’ cultural categories emerge as they interact with objects in intercultural encounters. To begin filling these gaps, the current study examines one of the most perspicuous yet little-researched object-rich settings, cooking instruction. Applying multimodal conversation analysis to investigate video-recorded spontaneous cooking class interactions, this research addresses three main topics. First, it explicates how cooking teachers organize demonstrations to draw students’ attention to their manual actions or object materiality using Chinese manner demonstratives (e.g., zheyang(zi) ‘like this’) together with various embodied resources. Second, it delineates how participants explore unfamiliar food through sensing, focusing on the initiation of sensing actions, sensorial practices, and multimodal ways to share sensorial outcomes. Third, it reveals how participants multimodally construct cultural categories that manifest their orientation to and help achieve the institutional goal of teaching and learning authentic food practices. By investigating these three topics, the dissertation aspires to demonstrate how participants skillfully combine languages, bodies, cultures, and object mobilization in forming and interpreting social actions to accomplish their activities. The findings can contribute to the research fields of interactional linguistics, multisensoriality, membership categorization analysis, and intercultural communication. With regard to interactional linguistic research, this study fills important gaps in the research of Chinese manner demonstratives by detailing their distinct interactional functions that were under-addressed in previous research based on fabric examples, written texts, or audio-recorded conversational data alone. The study further contributes to cross-linguistic deixis research, as it reveals both universality and diversity in the use of manner demonstratives in Chinese and other languages. As for multisensorial interaction, the current study adds new insights to this body of knowledge as it uncovers both context-specific and context-transcending object sensing practices. The findings demonstrate how sensorial practices embody participants’ orientation to the specific exploratory activity and institutional context, pointing out a new direction for researching institutional interactions. The discovered context-transcending practices resonate with previous interactional research showing how object sensing is treated and organized as a socially accountable, intersubjective interactional phenomenon. Finally, this study expands the analytic scope of membership categorization analysis and advances intercultural communication research by showing how cultural categories are constructed through participants’ use of multimodal resources and how they are utilized to accomplish institutional business, which has not yet received much research attention. Based on the findings, the current research provides practical suggestions for promoting cultural learning.
Synchronous Computer-mediated L2 Chinese Collaborative Writing: Peer Interaction, Text Quality, and Learner Perceptions
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Zhai, Mengying; Wang, Haidan; East Asian Languages and Literatures
In recent decades, collaborative writing (CW) has gained more popularity in L2 learning settings as a useful pedagogical activity, and a large body of empirical research has confirmed its benefits. Through peer interaction, CW contributes to the construction of linguistic knowledge, which in turn contributes to the learning of L2 (Swain, 1998; Swain & Lapkin, 1998, 2001; Watanabe & Swain, 2007). CW also provides the social context for L2 learners’ language development by sharing ideas, pooling their language resources, providing collective scaffolding (Donato, 1994; Ohta, 2001; Swain, 2000; Swain et al., 2002), as well as internalizing the knowledge they co-create with their peers (Thorne & Hellermann, 2015; Wertsch, 1979). As CW benefits are closely associated with peer interaction, a critical issue involves how peer interaction influences the implementation and outcome of CW in the progressive unfolding of the CW activity. Despite previous research suggesting that group dynamics contribute to the divergences in generating L2 learning opportunities and text qualities, no L2 Chinese CW research has yet to examine (a) how group dynamics, as manifested in peer interaction patterns, are shaped as the task interaction unfolds; (b) how interaction patterns may lead to variations in CW text qualities, and different aspects of learners’ collaborative dialogues; and (c) how learners’ perceptions and attitudes reflect their participation in CW. This study set out to bridge these research gaps by investigating the relationship between peer interaction, text quality, and learner perceptions during a CW task conducted in an L2 Chinese context. Forty-six high-intermediate L2 Chinese learners worked in 23 pairs to complete a CW writing task in which they jointly wrote an argumentative essay using Google Docs as a co-authoring platform and Zoom as a video-conferencing tool to communicate with each other synchronously. Twenty-three pair interaction videos were transcribed and analyzed to identify the dyadic interaction patterns, peers’ collaborative dialogues, and participants’ interactional practices. Twenty-three co-constructed essays were collected and analyzed for text quality using an analytic scoring rubric. Additionally, forty-six participants’ pre- and post-task survey responses were collected and analyzed to examine their perceptions and attitudes towards CW. A number of quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to understand the complex interactions between peer interaction, text quality, and learner perceptions. The principal findings indicated that participants working in more collaborative dyads displayed higher levels of mutuality, produced CW texts of higher quality, and generated more language-learning opportunities. Furthermore, participants in more collaborative dyads reported more positive task experiences than those who worked in less collaborative dyads. The findings of this study shed light on the role that peer interaction plays in CW activities and how peer collaboration types can affect other aspects of CW including text quality, collaborative dialogues, and learners’ perceptions. In terms of methodological contribution, this study provides more fine-grained guidelines and incorporates a micro-analytical approach to identify dyadic interaction patterns. Pedagogically, it provides empirical evidence to support the use of CW in teaching L2 writing and provides suggestions for L2 instructors on how to facilitate their students’ participation in CW.
A Corpus-based Study On Conceptual Metaphors For Heart In Chinese And English
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Wu, Qiong; Jiang, Song; East Asian Languages and Literatures
The Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) started a new approach to viewing metaphors in languages. Traditionally, metaphor is considered as one of the rhetorical devices. Conceptual metaphor, however, is an approach for us to understand abstract notions in terms of relatively concrete concepts. The HEART metaphor in Chinese plays an essential role in forming and motivating related collocations. Previous studies of conceptual metaphors of HEART in Chinese are based on the data from dictionary entries. There is a lack of corpus-based studies on the HEART metaphors at the collocation level in both L1 and L2 Chinese, presenting the authentic usage of HEART metaphorical collocations in the native speakers’ and language learners’ daily language. To fill this gap, this dissertation examines the HEART metaphorical collocations in Chinese native speakers’ corpus, L2 Chinese corpus, and American English corpus. The main results include: 1). The Chinese HEART is the locus of a wide range of emotions and other types of body feelings, whereas the English HEART metaphors do not show the same feature; 2). Most of the Chinese HEART collocations are not highly lexicalized idioms, while most of the English HEART collocations are lexicalized phrases; 3). The Chinese HEART collocations that are motivated by the metonymy THE HEART AS A PERSON is also associated with a wide range of human behaviors like thinking and complaining, but the study does not find the English HEART collocations relate to human behaviors by the native speakers of American English. 4). L2 Chinese learners show a very different pattern in terms of HEART collocations in Chinese. Collocations motivated by the HEART metaphors are significantly underused compared with L1 Chinese.
Su Shi: Coping With The Final Exile
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Brown, Gregory David; Spring, Madeline K.; Chinese
This dissertation is a systematic examination of prose writings by Su Shi (1037-1101). Chinese history treats Su Shi as one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of Tang and Song. Su’s lifetime total of more than 4,800 prose texts is the largest number written among Northern Song (960-1127) literati. Although documentation on Su Shi is more substantial than for any other Northern Song literatus, this study fills a lacuna in Su’s final fourteen months of prose. This study contributes to the broader body of scholarship by focusing solely on Su Shi’s prose writings after his final exile on Hainan Island (1097-1100). I examined all prose writings by Su Shi after his notification of amnesty. My goal is to seek insights into Su’s final period of prose composition, and how Su Shi expresses his views within these texts on themes that include spiritual transcendence, religious concepts, and a search for ultimate life values. The 2010 verified dating of Su Shi’s literary production accounts for 248 prose writings after his Hainan exile. In this dissertation, twenty-four carefully selected texts from those writings are translated and analyzed as the best representing this period. Close reading of these chronologically ordered texts is supported by detailed explicating of annotations and historical circumstances surrounding each prose specimen. We obtain insights demonstrating evolving nuances in Su’s psychological, philosophical, and religious thoughts following his last exile. This dissertation epitomizes Su Shi’s coping with challenges to his life’s previously-known identity. After his Hainan exile, Su’s prose writings document him confronting three prominent themes: an unanticipated retirement suddenly erasing his political value as a scholar-official, troubling truths for spiritually transcending death, and Su’s final identifications with the Three Teachings Sanjiao 三教 of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism for unity with the Way.
The Acquisition of Japanese Relative Clauses by L1 Chinese Learners
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2019) Chen, Yunchuan; Fukuda, Shinichiro; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This dissertation focuses on L1 Chinese learners’ acquisition of Japanese relative clauses (RCs), as it provides an ideal testing ground for two important questions of L2 acquisition in syntax: (i) when two languages have a superficially similar syntactic structure that arguably involves different syntactic operations, can L2 learners acquire the difference? (ii) if successful acquisition of such a difference does occur, in what ways does that inform us about the nature of L2 acquisition of syntax? Despite such superficial similarities between Chinese and Japanese RCs, previous theoretical work puts forward different analyses for their syntactic structures. Thus, the first two parts of this dissertation provide novel experimental evidence indicating that the head noun phrase (NP) of RCs is only base-generated in Japanese but is either raised or base-generated in Chinese. Nevetheless, the experimental evidence also suggests that the raising strategy is preferred to the base-generation strategy to derive the head NP from the singly embedded object position of Chinese RCs. In the third part, I reported the findings from another experiment I created to explore whether L1 Chinese learners of L2 Japanese are able to acquire the syntactic knowledge that the head NP of Japanese RCs can only be base-generated. Since such knowledge is implicit, I used a diagnostic to test how L1 Chinese learners interpret the anaphor jibun ‘self’ within the head NP of Japanese RCs. The experimental results show that at least some advanced L1 Chinese learners of Japanese have acquired the difference between Chinese and Japanese RCs in terms of the interpretation of the anaphor inside the head NP, despite its underdetermined nature. This in turn argues for the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994, 1996) and argues against ‘partial access to UG’ approaches such as the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007).
Investigating Chinese Second Language Pragmatic Competence in Interaction Using Paired Speaking Tests
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-08) Xia, Xue; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)
Second language pragmatic competence, the ability of language learners to understand and perform the pragmatic functions of target languages in social interactions (Taguchi & Roever, 2017), develops over time and is an important research area. Youn (2015) defines L2 pragmatic competence in interaction as the ability of interactive participants to use different pragmatic and interactive resources to achieve pragmatic meaning and conduct actions in organized sequences. In the current study, the peer-topeer paired speaking test, considered as a way of classroom assessment, was employed to investigate Chinese learners’ second language (L2) pragmatic competence in interaction in the personal language use domain. An analytical rubric was developed based on related conversational organizations and interaction relevant studies for raters to award scores. Mixed method design was employed to analyze the data - test takers’ in-test discourse. The results indicate that open role-play and situational topic discussion (extended discourse) tasks were effective in eliciting interactions for assessing the construct. The test content was based on the needs analysis of the most commonly used situations, topics, and language functions in this domain. When using the analytical rubric to assess test takers’ in-test discourse, inter-rater reliability did not meet established thresholds. The detailed results of DA for 12 excerpts of in-test discourse not only identified additional components (language use and situation response), but also distinguished new interactional features within the three major interactional rating categories (turn-taking organization, sequence organization and topic management). DA revealed that all the rating categories were distinguishable across three different competence levels, a finding that was confirmed via quantitative analyses (descriptive statistics and repeated measures ANOVA). Based on the general interactional features summarized from in-test discourse, the developmental trajectory of Chinese learners’ L2 pragmatic competence in interaction was summarized by five elements: frequency, proactivity, complexity, content and coherence. Specifically, as L2 pragmatic competence in interaction develops, learners are more active, and their cognitive abilities are more capable of dealing with faster turn-takings, more complex structures, and the more coherent delivery of deeper content. The findings from the mixed method approach were strengthened and could help to revise the analytical rating rubric and improve future rater training. In summary, the findings offer the potential to contribute to the future assessment of Chinese learners’ L2 pragmatic competence in interaction.
Motivation in U.S. Learners of Mandarin as a Foreign and Heritage Language
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-08) Lin, Chuan; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)
Motivation provides not only the primary impetus to initiate second language (L2) learning, but also the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process (Dörnyei, 2005). Dörnyei (2005, 2009) proposed the L2 motivational self system that is made up of ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experience. Researchers have started to test the applicability of the model, and have found that the ideal L2 self correlates highly with intended learning effort, and the variables of the L2 Motivational Self System have been tested through many studies conducted with English as a foreign language learners. However, there is a lack of research testing the model with languages other than English. To fill this gap, this dissertation further tests L2 Motivational Self System in the context of learning Mandarin. It also examines possible differences of motivational factors between heritage and nonheritage language learners of Mandarin at the college level in the United States. 229 learners of Mandarin from 10 colleges in the United States participated in this study. Structural equation modeling was employed to investigate the causal relationships among the motivational factors and between these factors and criterion measures. The results showed ideal L2 self and L2 learning experience of the L2 Motivational Self System motivated learners to put more effort into learning Mandarin. However, the ought-to L2 self could not be seen as a strong predictor of intended effort of learning Mandarin. In addition, significant differences were found between heritage and nonheritage learners of Mandarin on ideal self, ought-to L2 self, L2 learning experience, intended effort and family influence. There was not a significant difference between the two groups on instrumentality (China and Mandarin). Pedagogical suggestions for teachers to motivate students to make more effort in learning Mandarin both in and outside of the language classroom are also discussed.
Dynamic Interfaces in Beginning L2 Mandarin Construction Learning: A Usage-Based Corpus Investigation of Frequency Distribution, Communicative Function and Salience
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-05) Riggs, Reed S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)
Constructionist research on L2 learning has focused on the degrees to which skewed frequency (Goldberg, Casenhiser & White, 2007; Casenhiser & Goldberg, 2005; Goldberg, Casenhiser, & Sethuraman 2004) in a person's linguistic environment can facilitate entrenchment, schematization, and contingency learning (Ellis, Römer, & O'Donnell, 2016; Ellis & Ferreira-Junior, 2009a; Ellis, 2002). Usage-based learner corpus studies by Eskildsen (2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017), focusing on just one or two L2 learners in an ESL classroom, found evidence for (1) learning in the forms of entrenchment and schematization as evidence of developmental sequences (e.g. Bardovi-Harlig, 2002) within individual grammatical constructions, and (2) the learners' experiences with talk-in-interaction helped to provides some of the exemplars that drive fixed multi-word expressions (MWEs) toward schematic, end-state constructions. Meanwhile, Ellis & Ferreira-Junior (2009a) provide an account of contingency learning among adult immigrants to the UK by comparing their distributions of words across three grammatical constructions in both the learners' speech and the speech of native speakers. This study found similar distributions between native and non-native speakers. Gaps remain for Constructionist/Usage-based research to account for contingency learning in connection with observable experience in an L2 that is distant from English and during early stages. Addressing these gaps, this dissertation study investigates contingency learning under conditions of heavily skewed input in L2 classrooms, i.e. institutional forms of social interaction (Heritage & Clayman, 2010). A learner corpus was created to follow ten beginning learners from the Mainland United States during an intensive Mandarin Chinese language camp in Hawai'i. The learners had minimal or no experience with Chinese learning prior to the start of camp. Instruction was organized around several types of pedagogy: the comprehension-in-interaction oriented Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS; Ray & Seely, [1997] 2015; Cahnmann-Taylor & Coda, 2018; Lichtman, 2013), peer-talk-in-interaction oriented Task- Based Language Teaching (TBLT; Long, 2015, 1985; Ellis, 2009), Cold Character Reading (CCR; Neubauer, 2018; Waltz, 2015), Extensive Reading (ER; Ro, 2017; Jeon & Day, 2016; Nation, 2015; Hitosugi & Day, 2004), and Chinese "scaffolded writing" (Waltz, 2015). Collostructional Analysis (Stefanowitsch, 2013; Stefanowitsch & Gries, 2003) is used to compare frequency distribution, collexeme strength, and contingency (measured with bidirectional Delta P) in five main corpora (capturing language that was heard, said, read, and written) with corresponding test corpora (freely written and spoken stories) across five recording periods. Concreteness (one form of salience; e.g. Crossley, Kyle, & Salsbury, 2016; Brysbaert, Warriner, & Kuperman, 2014) is considered as a factor that may complicate effects from frequency distribution. Finally, institutional interaction (Heritage & Clayman, 2010) is investigated in regards to how teachers and students use and re-use limited language for talking their institution into being (p. 20). Findings reveal how the participants used a single Chinese pattern as a resource to (a) acquire that Chinese pattern, and (b) co-construct institutional practices around story-building. These analyses illustrate how this institution-specific interaction resulted in highly skewed frequency. The collexeme analyses reveal a close match between frequency distribution in classroom experience and the learners' freely written and freely spoken stories in test corpora. These findings highlight an active role for contingency learning during early construction learning and language development, given the environments these particular learners experienced.
Lability of Verbs and the Change-of-State Construction in Chinese
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2017-08) Zhang, Liulin; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)
It has often been noted that some Chinese verbs can be used transitively or intransitively, and that the syntactically privileged argument (subject) in these different uses has different semantic roles. Many terms have been introduced to describe this phenomenon, among which verb lability appears to be the most felicitous one, given its transparency and straightforwardness: it does not pertain to notions absent in Chinese, nor does it encode any information about the function of the transitive/intransitive construction pair, which has been highly contentious in previous studies. Set within the framework of cognitive linguistics and construction grammar, this dissertation proceeds from the assumption that language is usage-based instead of rule-generated. Accordingly, it employs a diachronic corpus-based approach. Meanwhile, to adapt to the special feature of Chinese, i.e., the rich varieties of Chinese are connected by characters, this dissertation’s diachronic analysis of lexical semantics is based on Chinese characters. Corpus data from the pre-Qin period (Old Chinese), the Tang dynasty (Middle Chinese), and the Ming dynasty (Early Mandarin) show that the ‘theme + labile verb’ construction is extraordinarily ancient and stable in Chinese, and that historically, labile verbs prototypically denote changes of state. An extensive study of verbal semantics in Modern Mandarin reveals two semantic factors determining verb lability: change of state and spontaneity. While change of state is the prototypical function of labile verbs and the construction pairs formed by them, the contingency between labile verbs and their transitive/intransitive use is sensitive to the likelihood of spontaneous occurrence of the event being described. This finding holds in a cross-linguistic context, reflecting general characteristics of human conceptualization. The complex event structure represented by a change-of-state event gives way to two competing strategies for 􀀉 􀀪􀀵􀀉 profiling in human construal – agent orientation and theme orientation – which respectively lead to the transitive use and intransitive use of a verbal. However, as an isolating language in which causative/anticausative is not marked, Chinese exhibits an overwhelmingly large group of labile verbs in comparison with other languages. The intransitive change-of-state construction (CSC) formed by labile verbs has traditionally been referred to as the notional passive construction, and distinguished from the socalled Chinese passive construction marked by 么bei. After investigating the process of grammaticalization of the character 么, it is found that 么 derived an ‘affected’ sense in construal from its lability (denoting ‘cover/receive’), and thus the 么bei construction (BEIC) can be roughly represented as ‘affectee +么+ event’. In contrast to CSC, BEIC predominantly takes animate subjects as affectees, and the events that affect them are not limited to change-ofstate events. In Chinese, the overall frequency of CSC is much higher than that of BEIC, but this prevalence is not commented upon or otherwise reflected in Chinese textbooks. Moreover, previous studies have reported contradictory findings about learners’ acquisition of CSC and BEIC. Taking a usage-based approach to language acquisition, The present research includes two experiments involving picture-description tasks. The results indicate that Chinese learners use more BEICs and fewer CSCs than native speakers do. Additionally, due to the difference in markedness, CSC is much more difficult to notice during incidental exposure than BEIC is, rendering explicit instruction necessary. It needs to be noted that such explicit instruction merely functions to counteract the attentional bias, and is not necessarily about the selectional constrainsts between these two constructions, which are inherent in learners’ cognition.
Topological Spatial Relations, Containment and Support: A Contrastive Study of Mandarin and English.
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2017-05) Chuang, Hui-Ju; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)
This dissertation investigates two topological spatial relations, containment and support, which are assumed to exist in the minds of all speakers because of their basis in a shared physical world. However, cross-linguistic studies on the use of the spatialcharacterizing elements on/in and the corresponding words shàng/lǐ in Mandarin show that they do not fully overlap. The dissertation focuses on two aspects: first how speakers of English and Mandarin encode the two spatial relations, and second whether the similarities and differences of the two spatial terms affect the acquisition of the L2 learners. To address the question how speakers of English and Mandarin encode the two spatial relations, the study adopted an embodied cognitive approach, the proto-scene model that is under the Framework of Polysemy Network by Tyler and Evans (2001, 2003). Via this model, the dissertation demonstrated how the encodings of the two spatial terms between the two languages overlap and diverge. Furthermore, in order to confirm whether cross-linguistic difference plays a role in the acquisition of L2 learners and if it is, to what extent does it affect their learning, the study conducted two experiments to examine the question. The results of the two studies suggested that cross-linguistic difference is a factor in the acquisition of the two spatial terms, which was resulting from the conceptual transfer (Jarvis and Palvenko, 2008; Odlin 2005). Furthermore, the results also suggested that the conceptual differences between the two spatial terms are difficult to acquire even for the learners at high proficiency level.
Defining and Assessing Chinese Syntactic Complexity via TC-Units
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2016-12) Yu, Qiaona
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.
Expressions of different-trajectory caused motion events in Chinese
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2013-05) Paul, Jing Zhang
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.
A new study on Mandarin irrealis "V DE/BU X" construction (漢語短語結構非實然結果達成判斷式 "v得/不x"研究)
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2010-12) Hu, Xiaoming
The V DE/BU X construction in Mandarin is traditionally called the „potential complement‟ and is a difficult grammatical point for Chinese Second Language students as it is a highly complex construction. Literature on the subject indicates ambiguity about whether it is a modality or aspect qualification, or both. This dissertation bears primarily on its theoretical aspects and attempts to fill the lacuna in its description. Its syntactic and semantic properties can be presented from different angles. The V DE/BU X construction belongs to the semantic category of irrealis. DE/BU insertion into Verb-Resultative (VR) construction is an epistemic modality qualification, expressing "judgment on the attainability of X, the result of an irrealis or imagined event". My description purports that since in usage it appears mostly in the negative form, it more accurately expresses "the non-attainability of X, the result of an irrealis or imagined event V", or simply that there is no possibility of V achieving X, the result. This description involves two main levels of analysis. Syntactically, DE/BU insertion operates on the invisible functional head [BECOME] of VR and reverses the perfective qualification of VR back into an imperfective aspect of the state of affairs, and thus is "attainable/non-attainable." Based on my empirical analysis of 400 authentic V DE/BU X sentences, I suggest that V DE/BU X mostly appears in irrealis types of sentences because, pragmatically, its sentential context and illocutionary features are those used in hypothetical sentences or in association with the emphatic conjunction "LIAN…DOU/YE…" etc. In addition, it appears with modal adverbs and particles, or as rhetorical interrogatives. This indicates that the V DE/BU X construction belongs to the semantic category of irrealis. It is pragmatically motivated for rhetorical effect of emphasis because with the indefinite or generic qualification of an irrealis sentence, it is disengaged from being an assertion of a person‟s opinion, prediction, or judgment and gains an impersonal or universal voice.
Learning to express motion events in L2 Chinese: a cognitive linguistic perspective
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2011-08) Wu, Shu-Ling
Research has shown that speakers of different languages conceptualize motion events in a language-specific manner. First-language (L1) predispositions for spatial organization or event construal have the potential to exert influence on second-language (L2) acquisition of motion expressions. Chinese, like English, is traditionally considered to be a satellite-framed language (Talmy, 1985, 1991, 2000). However, as a serial-verb language, Chinese exhibits different lexicalization patterns from English with respect to path encoding. Adopting the framework of Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000) for typological classification of motion events as well as Slobin's thinking-for-speaking (TFS) hypothesis (Slobin, 1987, 1996a), this dissertation offers an intra-typological comparison of Chinese and English and examines the various contributing factors that influence the use and acquisition of L2 Chinese motion expressions by adult L1 English speakers. This study employed a multi-task approach, including a picture-cued written task, an oral narrative task, and an online judgment task, to measure learners' L2 TFS performance across different modalities. It discusses the behavior of 80 L2 Chinese learners at two proficiency levels, including participants with heritage background as well as those of foreign language background, as compared to two baseline groups of 40 Chinese native speakers (NSs) and 40 English NSs. The learners' performance was inspected according to their proficiency level and language background and was compared with that of the NS groups. The results of this study show that L2 speakers' development in learning to describe motion events in Chinese is influenced by factors including their L2 proficiency level, the degree of syntactic and semantic complexity of the L2 subsystems, construal of L2 motion constructions, and language background. These factors go beyond a simple dichotomy of L1 or L2 thinking, and together they suggest that the influence of L1 TFS, like other kinds of L1 transfer phenomena, are sensitive to probabilistic tendencies. Conceptual changes in the course of L2 acquisition of motion expressions are dynamic and ongoing processes, in which multiple factors can come into play to determine whether or how L1 TFS affects L2 learning outcomes. Notably, among these factors, learners' embodied experiences for communicative use of motion expressions play a vital role in their internalization of L2 TFS.
Willingness to communicate in learning Mandarin as a foreign and heritage language
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2012-05) Zhou, Ying
The research investigated willingness to communicate (WTC) and its related antecedents and outcomes in learning Mandarin as a heritage and foreign language. The study examined the relationship between L2 WTC and two antecedents: the perceived competence and the communication anxiety. The outcomes of WTC investigated are the frequency of language use in Mandarin as an L2 and proficiency in the L2. The study also compared the differences between heritage and non-heritage learners of Mandarin on their L2 WTC and its antecedents and outcomes. One hundred and seventy-nine Mandarin learners at five universities in the United States participated in the study. They are English native speakers and learners of Mandarin at various proficiency levels. Among them, 78 are heritage learners of Mandarin and the remaining 101 participants do not have any heritage background of Mandarin. The data were collected via a questionnaire to measure their language background, L2 WTC, and the two antecedents and one outcome (frequency of language use) for L2 WTC. In addition, a Mandarin elicited imitation task developed by the researcher and a colleague was used to measure the participants' Mandarin proficiency levels. The resulting evidence was analyzed and inspected via AMOS, the structural equation modeling (SEM), to test causal relationships among the variables. ANOVA was conducted to compare the differences between heritage and non-heritage learners on the variables. The result shows that L2 communication anxiety predicts learners' perceived competence. When learners have higher perceived competence, they are more willing to communicate in Mandarin in classroom which leads to higher WTC outside classroom. Learners with higher WTC outside classroom actually use Mandarin more frequently and are able to achieve higher proficiency levels. L2 perceived competence is also important in directly predicting learners' frequency of use and proficiency levels of Mandarin. In addition, the evidence suggests a tendency for heritage language learners towards higher communication anxiety and lower WTC and frequency of use in Mandarin than non-heritage language learners. Suggestions are provided to reduce communication anxiety and enhance perceived competence, L2 WTC and eventually improve proficiency levels in classrooms of Mandarin learning.
Mirror, dream and shadow: Gu Taiqing's life and writings
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2012-05) Geng, Changqin
Gu Taiqing is one of the most remarkable and prolific poetesses of the Qing dynasty. This study attempts to present critical and comprehensive research on Gu Taiqing's writing so to unearth and illustrate Taiqing's own life and mentality, in order to enrich our understanding of the role that writing has played in the lives of the pre-modern women. Overall Taiqing's writing can be interpreted in terms of three categories: mirror, dream and shadow. This dissertation applies these three concepts to build up a theoretical framework as the three concepts bear rich meanings in both interpreting Taiqing's works per se and analyzing the relationship between Taiqing's writing and her life. This dissertation consists of three parts. The first part examines Taiqing's aspiration for ascending to the heavenly world, reluctance to leave the mundane world, and time consciousness and philosophical speculations. The second part focuses on analyzing Taiqing's writings, shi poems, ci poems and the novel Honglou meng ying. Taiqing's poems on traveling, the special imagery and poetic realms in her ci poems are explored in this work. The third part is a study of Taiqing's friendship with other talented woman within and beyond the Autumn Red Poetry Society. This part also addresses issues regarding women scholars and their endeavors to establish a type of immortality through words.
Cracking the Chinese orthography: towards a framework for assessing interventions in lexical acquisition
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2012-05) Child, Warren Daniel
Attaining a critical mass of vocabulary and character knowledge poses the greatest challenge to foreign leaners of Chinese wishing to achieve independent reading ability. Curricula that work well for simpler script systems fail to address additional complexities in the Chinese orthography, resulting in a significantly steeper learning curve. To better understand how to moderate this learning curve, this study analyzes the Chinese writing system from multiple perspectives. In the process, the study articulates lexical acquisition goals, identifies mandatory and potential subcomponents of Chinese lexical acquisition, assesses past and current reading theory, explores relevant facets of information processing theory, and reexamines critical components of memory theory. Next, using insights from these multiple perspectives, this study identifies relevant psychometric variables, posits that all interventions and environmental factors fall under one of two categories, and identifies separate components of memorability. The subcomponents of lexical acquisition constitute types of data that must, or can, be exploited during the teaching process. The categorization of interventions makes it possible to group positive and negative factors of acquisition into relatively scaled components. The psychometric variables constitute important yardsticks of the acquisition process. And the identification of separate components of memorability enables one to assess their relative contributions toward the acquisition of any given lexical target. Taken together, the acquisition subcomponents, intervention categories, psychometric variables, and components of memorability provide the underlying foundation for a pragmatic psychometric model oriented to testing interventions in lexical acquisition. As a partial demonstration of how this model can be applied to assessing interventions in lexical acquisition, two experiments were conducted. In terms of the framework presented, the experiments tested the effect of enhancing the extrinsic component of memorability for two acquisition subcomponents (association and discrimination) at the intracharacter level. In the first experiment, enhancing intracharacter understanding of semantic components showed little immediate effect compared to the control data, but increased retention significantly one week later. This suggests that enhancing extrinsic memorability by providing semantic associations to the recurring elements alters the slope of the forgetting curve. As evidenced by recall speeds, it appears to do this by strengthening the encoding while altering the retrieval mechanism. In the second experiment, learning the readings of character phonetics and then learning groups of characters sharing those phonetics enhanced retention for character readings relative to the control. There was also a strong correlation between phonetic consistency within the character groups and correct reading recall. This suggests that enhancing discrimination of elements and focusing on their associated readings also aids in retention. Again, an altered retrieval mechanism appears to contribute to the enhanced retention. Both experiments suggest that altering the processes of perception, attention, encoding, and retrieval creates alternative paths to recall in the network of lexical data stored in the brain. What remains to be done is the establishment of more precise scalars for the various types of amplification and attenuation, and to assess the effect of negative factors such as interference when new data is introduced at regular intervals. Eventually, this should make it possible to fine-tune the manner by which Chinese character and vocabulary data are learned, and to optimize curricula accordingly.
Linguistic and graphic manipulation in the miscellaneous forms of traditional Chinese poetry
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005) Li, Yanfeng, 1964

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