Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Insights Into Chinese Second Language Acquisition: The Relationship Between Glossing And Vocabulary Recall In Reading, Steven S. Devellis

Masters Theses

Reading enhancement strategies are an important tool utilized by foreign language teachers. One of the most common types of during-reading assistance is the marginal gloss, which provides first language (L1) translations of selected foreign language (L2) terms in the margins of a text.

Glossing is an inherently individual approach to reading. It is predominantly motivation-driven, and provides as much assistance to the learner as he or she is willing to use it. Studies to this point have been largely inconsistent in regards to the exact usefulness of glossing, analyzing many variables such as the size, scope, and type of gloss, …

Between Verb And Preposition: Diachronic Stages Of Coverbs In Mandarin Chinese, Glynis Jones

Masters Theses

Mandarin Chinese has long been known to possess a category of words known as ‘coverbs’ in the literature, which sit in the gray area between verb and preposition. Li and Thompson (1974) describe the historical origins of Mandarin coverbs to be full transitive verbs, despite their modern state being decidedly less verbal. They also note that coverbs are a non-homogenous class. This thesis works to establish categories of coverbs in Mandarin Chinese and their distance from true verbhood in order to understand the diachronic shift that coverbs are currently undergoing before our very eyes. I will draw on the work …

Second Language Competence And Translation Ability: An Investigation Of English-Native Speakers Learning Chinese As A Second Language, Chensimeng Pan

Masters Theses

Translation is an important language skill in multilingual societies and the globalized world. Some scholars even claim that translation skill should be the fifth language skill in addition to the conventional four basic skills of second language competence - listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Newmark, 1991; Naimushin, 2002; Leonardi, 2011). However, the current mainstream communicative teaching approach tries to avoid the use of translation in language classrooms, mainly because of the possible negative transfer of the first language and low priority given to writing. This study aims to identify the pedagogical role of translation in language teaching through the exploration …

A Textbook-Based Study On Cultural Knowledge Acquisition In Learners Of Chinese As A Foreign Language, Feng Gao

Masters Theses

Language teaching usually focuses on linguistic knowledge, such as vocabulary and grammar, but that is not the whole picture for language learning. To build effective intercultural communication networks, language and culture study is fundamental. Language is the medium of cultural messages.

This paper explores Chinese learners’ culture learning through their language courses. Based on cultural information provided in the textbooks (Integrated Chinese Level I & Level II), I designed a cultural knowledge questionnaire to collect data and analyze learners’ culture competence and problems when learning culture. After multiple rounds of modifications, the questionnaire was distributed to different levels …

Translation Issues In Modern Chinese Literature: Viewpoint, Fate And Metaphor In Xia Shang's "The Finger-Guessing Game", Jonathan Heinrichs

Masters Theses

The Finger-Guessing Game is a novel with many layers of themes, characterization, and metaphor, and conveying all of these varied aspects requires a detailed, careful approach to translation. With this thesis I aim to show that strictly adhering to a singular translation method, such as “word-for-word” or “sense-for-sense,” will produce unsatisfactory results at certain points within the novel. This is accomplished by an overview of several different unique aspects of the writing style of this novel, viewpoint, the theme of fate, and the use of idioms and metaphors. Following this will be an analysis of these aspects’ functions within the …

Studies On L2 Acquisition Of Chinese Verbs Of 'Change' By English Speakers, Baoqing Qian

Masters Theses

When Chinese language learners reach intermediate level, approximately in the second year of their Chinese study, they start to encounter near-synonyms, words that have the same translations in English, and characters that look alike. These words are often called 易混淆词 yi hunxiao ci “easily confusable words” by Chinese scholars. This lexical acquisition study researches a group of near synonyms about Chinese verbs of ‘change’, which either express a stative change (where an argument which expresses the result of the change is required) or causative change (where an argument which expresses the instigator or cause of the change is required). The …

Role-Play In The Chinese Classroom, Matthew Werth

Masters Theses

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing push for foreign language teachers to use a communicative approach to language instruction. One area this can be seen is through role-plays, activities where students take on a persona other than themselves to complete a task in the target language. Despite the growing popularity of role-play, there has been little empirical research looking at the impact of role-play on students. In particular, the differences between large group and small group role-plays remain virtually unstudied.

This thesis looks at role-play in Chinese language classrooms from the perspectives of both teachers and students. …

Second Language Acquisition Of Chinese Verb-Noun Collocations, Ying Cai

Masters Theses

This study aims to investigate the acquisition of verb-noun collocations in Chinese by learners who study Chinese as a foreign language. By conducting a survey, this research attempt to discuss the following issues. 1) Does learners’ acquisition of verb-noun collocations increase with years of learning? 2) Is learners’ acquisition of verb-noun collocations related to the usage frequency of the verbs? 3) Are there any differences between patient objects and non-patient objects in verb-noun collocation acquisitions? 4) Does natural L2 exposure have an impact on collocational competence?

Seven verbs are selected in this study, 看 kan, 开 kai, 做 …

The Use Of Multimedia Material In Teaching Chinese As A Second Language And Pedagogical Implications, Zhongyuan Williams

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The use of Multimedia materials has been widely accepted as an useful and effective tool in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Many studies and researchers have examined multimedia material’s effectiveness from a number of aspects, including four skills of language learning: listening, speaking, reading (including vocabulary comprehension) and writing. However, the effectiveness of multimedia material from the aspect of L2 grammar comprehension hasn’t been well explored.

This study examines the effectiveness of multimedia material in teaching second language grammar comprehension among beginning and intermediate-level Chinese learners. In particular, it investigates the relative efficacy of three different modes used …

The Plural Forms Of Personal Pronouns In Modern Chinese, Baoying Qiu

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

There are four major patterns of the plural forms of personal pronouns in Modern Chinese, which are: Same Wording, Suffixation (Multisyllabic and Monosyllabic Suffixations), Sound Combination (Coda Suffix and New Wording), and Tonal Changes.

Same Wording was the original plural pattern since the singular form was also used as plural form in Old Chinese. Suffixation was already appeared in Middle Chinese. Author suspects that Suffixation was a concept inspired by non-Han languages such as the Buddhist Sanskrit. Each Chinese dialect chose a way to represent this concept based on its dialectal characteristic, thus there are many dialects in China. For …