Volume 4, Number 2, December 2007
Fred Jyun-Gwang Chen
The L2 Acquisition of Information Sequencing in Chinese: The Case of English CSL Learners in Taiwan (pp. 170–191)
Research has indicated that L1 transfer appears at early stages of L2 acquisition and decreases as L2 proficiency increases. Additionally, it has been shown that learners exhibit different linguistic behavior according to distinct task types. This study employs a cross-linguistic learner performance comparison, encompassing 30 English CSL learners as the experimental group, 30 Korean CSL learners as the control group, and 35 Chinese native speakers as the baseline group. The English and Korean CSL learners are further divided into three L2 proficiency levels. All participants completed sentence and discourse tasks. There are three major findings. First, L1 transfer is found to occur in the English learners’ Chinese interlanguage. Second, L1 transfer is mitigated by the English learners’ Chinese L2 proficiency. Third, the discourse function of correlative markers yinwei/suoyi (“because/so”) employed by Chinese native speakers to signal guidepost-echo relationship has not been acquired by the two CSL groups, irrespective of their Chinese L2 proficiency.
The present study investigates the use of English lexical collocations and their relation to the online writing of Taiwanese college English majors and non-English majors. Data for the study were collected from 41 English majors and 21 non-English majors at a national university of science and technology in southern Taiwan. Each student was asked to take a 45-minute online English writing test, administered by the web-based writing program, Criterion Version 7.1 (Educational Testing Service) to examine the subjects’ use of lexical collocations (i.e. frequency and variety). The test was also used to measure writing scores of the two studentgroups. Test results were examined to answer two major questions for correlation (1) between the subjects’ frequency of lexical collocations and their writing scores and (2) between the subjects’ variety of lexical collocations and their writing scores. The study findings indicate that: (1) there seems to be a significant correlation between Taiwanese college EFL learners’ frequency of lexical collocations and their online writing scores; and (2) there also seems to be a significant correlation between the subjects’ variety of lexical collocations and their online writing scores. This present study further reports on a pattern of lexical collocation development observed among writers of different scores, ranging from the lowest to the highest.
Bee Eng Wong & Soh Theng Quek
Acquisition of the English Definite Article by Chinese and Malay ESL Learners (pp. 210–234)
Chinese Mandarin and the Malay language have no functional equivalents of the English article system and it has been observed anecdotally that many Chinese and Malay ESL learners have difficulty using English articles accurately, particularly the definite article the. Based on Hawkins’ Location Theory (1978), Liu and Gleason (2002) suggest that the non-generic uses of the fall into four major categories: situation, cultural, structural, and textual. This study aims to determine whether the non-generic uses of the present different levels of difficulty for Chinese and Malay ESL learners, and whether or not these different uses are acquired at the same time. One hundred (50 Chinese and 50 Malay) upper secondary students of three levels of English proficiency (advanced, intermediate and low) participated in this study. The participants were instructed to complete a 91-item fill-in-the-article-the test by inserting the in the items wherever deemed necessary. The measures employed for data analysis were SOC (Supplied in Obligatory Contexts), TLU (Target-Like Use), and UOC (Used in Obligatory Contexts). The participants’ performance revealed that: (i) the four non-generic uses of the English article the pose different levels of difficulty; (ii) the acquisition order of the four non-generic uses of the follows a natural order independent of the ESL learners’ first languages; and (iii) the participants’ accuracy rate on article usage also depends on their proficiency level.
Walee Khanthuwan
A Study of Relationships between Knowledge of Thai Culture and Achievement in Studying Thai as a Foreign Language (in Thai) (pp. 235–256)
การวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงคเพื่อศึกษาวาความรูทางวัฒนธรรมไทยมีความสัมพันธกับผลสัมฤทธิ์ ในการเรียนภาษาไทยในฐานะภาษาตางประเทศหรือไมอยางไรตอนักศึกษา Thai Language Programme, Centre for Language Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore ประจําปการศึกษา 2549 ภาคการศึกษาที่ 1 จํานวนทั้งหมด 130 คน ในการวิจัยครั้งนี้ศึกษาวัฒนธรรม เฉพาะวัฒนธรรมไทยในดานวิถีการดําเนินชีวิตความเปนอยูแบบไทยและการรับประทานอาหาร
ตลอดจนกิริยามารยาท และการแตงกายของคนไทยที่ยึดถือประพฤติปฏิบัติกันมาจนเกิดเปนคานิยม ในสังคมไทยเนื่องจากถือเปนวัฒนธรรมไทยในบริบทของกลุมตัวอยางที่เปนคนตางชาติจะไดมี โอกาสและมีความเปนไปไดในการเรียนรูและรับรูผลการวิจัยพบวาความรูทางวัฒนธรรมไทยมีความ สัมพันธกับผลสัมฤทธิ์ในการเรียนภาษาไทยในฐานะภาษาตางประเทศคือเมื่อมีความรูทางวัฒนธรรมไทย มากขึ้นจะมีผลสัมฤทธิ์ในการเรียนภาษาไทยสูงขึ้นตามไปดวย
Hồng Nhung Phạm
Khám phá Khái niệm Thể diện trong Tiếng Việt: Bằng chứng từ Kết hợp Từ (in Vietnamese) (pp. 257–266)
Ghi nhận vai trò quan trọng của khái niệm Thể diện trong giao tiếp và những tranh luận chưa ngã ngũ về các cấu thành của khái niệm này, bài viết khám phá nội hàm khái niệm Thể diện trong văn hóa Việt dựa trên việc phân tích những diễn đạt phổ biến của “mặt/thể diện” trong tiếng Việt. Bài viết chỉ ra rằng nội hàm khái niệm Thể diện trong văn hóa Việt không đồng nhất với khái niệm này trong học thuyết lịch sự lấy thể diện làm trung tâm vốn được xem là mang tính phổ quát của Brown và Levinson (1987). Cụ thể là khía cạnh thể diện âm tính (mong muốn của cá nhân được tự chủ trong hành động) không nằm trong nội hàm khái niệm Thể diện trong văn hóa Việt. Ngoài ra, trái với học thuyết của Brown và Levinson trong đó Thể diện không bao hàm đặc tính và phẩm chất của tập thể mà cá nhân gắn bó, Thể diện trong văn hóa Việt lại là một khái niệm tương trợ trong đó cá nhân chia sẻ một phần thể diện của mình với tập thể. Từ kết quả phân tích bài viết cũng đưa ra một số đề xuất đối với quá trình dạy và học ngoại ngữ có liên quan đến khái niệm này.