Japanese speakers' second language Chinese wh-questions: a lexical morphological feature deficit account

2007

Bilingualism

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This paper presents an empirical study of how different wh-words behave in English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions. Our results indicate that L2 Chinese wh-questions are specified by the Chinese wh-particle ne and that there is neither variability nor L1 transfer in this aspect of L2 grammars as no wh-movement is found in English speakers' L2 Chinese. However, wh-words do not develop in a uniform fashion and different wh-words behave differently both synchronically and developmentally in English speakers' L2 Chinese. There is evidence for both temporary variability and persistent variability in some aspects of English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions. This is believed to result from breakdowns at the lexical morphology-syntax interface and morphosyntax-semantics interface levels in L2 Chinese grammars. We will provide an account for the no variability, temporary variability as well as persistent variability in English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behaviours of wh-words in English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions: Evidence of no variability, temporary variability and persistent variability in L2 grammars

2007

Bilingualism

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“…An exact-character marking criterion was adopted in marking the cloze test. Although it is not an officially standardized test, the cloze test has been used in a number of L2 Chinese studies (Yuan 1995(Yuan , 1999(Yuan , 2007a(Yuan ,b, 2010(Yuan , 2015, among many others) and has proved to be a practical and reliable testing instrument with a strong discrimination power for Chinese language proficiency. 10 The rationale for not having a Beginner Group is that Chinese ditransitive constructions, in particular the dative alternation, are relatively complicated structures; beginners are not expected to have acquired any such knowledge at this very initial stage.…”

Section: Instruments and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First language (L1) transfer is widely recognised as a common phenomenon in second language (L2) acquisition and is also well documented in L2 acquisition literature (e. g. Gass and Selinker 1992;Schwartz and Sprouse 1994;Schwartz and Sprouse 1996;Sprouse 2006;Yuan 1994;Yuan 2007a;Yuan 2007b;Yuan 2010; among many others). L1 transfer is generally divided into positive transfer and negative transfer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Directionality and complexity of L1 transfer in L2 acquisition: Evidence from L2 Chinese discourse

International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching

Lin

2019

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First language (L1) transfer is a common phenomenon in second language (L2) acquisition. However, it will be argued in this article that although there are indeed pervasive influences of learners’ L1 in L2 acquisition, L1 transfer is not everywhere and it can be directional. We compare data from Chang’s (2001b. Discourse effects on the second language acquisition of English and Chinese dative structures. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i at Manoa PhD dissertation, 2004. Discourse effects on EFL learners’ production of dative constructions. Journal of Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences 33. 145–169.) studies of Chinese-speaking learners of English with data of our study of English-speaking learners of Chinese to examine whether their L2 English discourse and L2 Chinese discourse are equally influenced by their L1 discourse rules. We focus on learners’ answers to wh-questions with a double object construction or a prepositional object construction. The results demonstrate that L1 transfer takes place in Chinese-speaking learners’ L2 English discourse but not in English-speaking learners’ L2 Chinese discourse. This directionality of L1 transfer is accounted for on the basis of computational complexity of linguistic structures involved and on an economical consideration.

“…7.In addition to EPWs and interrogative words, Chinese wh -words can also be interpreted as universal quantifiers. See Yuan (2007a, 2007b, 2009) for analyses of Chinese wh -words used as interrogative words and universal quantifiers in L2 Chinese.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In both linguistic research and L2 studies, Mandarin Chinese (hereafter, Chinese) has been widely considered a wh –in situ language in which the wh -word remains in its original position in wh -questions, unlike the wh -word in languages like English, which has to move to the left periphery of the wh -question. Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of studies of L2 acquisition of wh –in situ languages by speakers of wh -movement languages (see Kim, 2003; Yuan, 2007a, 2007b). However, wh -topicalization in wh –in situ languages seems to have received little attention in L2 research.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

WH-TOPICALIZATION AT THE SYNTAX-DISCOURSE INTERFACE IN ENGLISH SPEAKERS’ L2 CHINESE GRAMMARS

Stud Second Lang Acquis

Dugarova

2012

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Although wh-words generally stay in situ in Chinese wh-questions, they can be topicalized. However, the wh-topicalization is determined at the syntax-discourse interface and has to be governed by discourse conditions; only discourse-linked (D-linked) wh-words can be topicalized, but non-D-linked ones cannot. This article reports on an empirical study that investigated English speakers’ second language (L2) acquisition of Chinese wh-topicalization. The results of an acceptability judgment test indicate that advanced English speakers are sensitive to the discourse condition that governs the syntactic derivation of wh-topicalization in Chinese, as they were found to be able to make the distinction in their L2 Chinese by allowing D-linked, but not non-D-linked, wh-elements to topicalize. However, these results also indicate that wh-determiner phrases (DPs) and wh-noun phrases (NPs) differ in their sensitivity to presupposition background information in L2 Chinese wh-topicalization, and it is argued that the availability of the deictic feature in the wh-element involved is a variable affecting the D-linking properties of wh-elements in the development of L2 Chinese wh-topicalization, and this seems more likely to be a representational deficit than a processing problem.