Contrastive Linguistics and the Significance of Negative Transfer in the Syntactic Errors Made by Adult Chinese Speakers of English PDF Download

Author: Zhao Zhiming
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comparative linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Author: Tsan-Sui Huang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Author: Tsan-sui Huang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Author: Hong Chee Seah
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Author: Virginia Yip
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027224773
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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This book investigates a set of structures characteristic of Chinese speakers' English interlanguage (CIL) in the light of grammatical theory and principles of learnability. As a study of CIL grammar, it illuminates both the theory of interlanguage syntax in general and some specific problems in the acquisition of English by Chinese L1 learners. A set of interrelated structures are investigated, including topicalization, passive, ergative, “tough movement” and existential constructions. The interlanguage is approached through the comparative syntax of the relevant L1 and L2 constructions, combining insights from Chomskyan Universal Grammar and typological research. CIL proves to be permeable to Chinese typological influence and bears topic-prominent characteristics, while showing effects of language universals. A parallel theme of the book is the question of learnability in the context of second language acquisition. The Subset and Uniqueness Principles are adapted to the L2 context so as to account for learning difficulty as well as successful acquisition. Under-generation and over-generation of the interlanguage and target constructions give rise to learnability problems which are formulated in terms of set relations at the level of individual constructions. The Uniqueness Principle is invoked to motivate preemption of overgenerated forms. The interaction of syntax and semantics plays a crucial role in the formulation and resolution of these learnability problems. General conceptual issues raised by the Subset and Uniqueness Principles are also discussed.

Author: Zhong Chen
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1524534080
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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The Chinese language contains a set of mind-sets that differ from those in English. Such differences between languages require mind-set conversion in cross-cultural communication. In applying cognitive linguistic theories to examining cross-cultural communication cases, this book explores cognitive mind-sets in English and Chinese as well as the processes of converting them from one language to another. It focuses on the principles by which a language selects its cognitive perspective based on its cultural convention, perception, and the conventional ways of representation of the world. In analyzing the linguistic rules and culturally driven cognitive motivation through an issue-driven and case study approach, this book helps students and other readers understand better the cross-cultural cognitive motivation between English and Chinese. In so doing, this book aims at enhancing the interest level and study efficacy for foreign language learning. This book can serve as a reference for instructors in syllabus designing as well as for linguistic professional training. The book is also suitable to be used as a reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students majoring in linguistics, translation, and teaching Chinese as foreign language to speakers of other languages. Finally, it can be a useful reference for undergraduates who learn Chinese as a foreign language.

Author: Hang Zhang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900436479X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Tones are the most challenging aspect of learning Chinese pronunciation for adult learners and traditional research mostly attributes tonal errors to interference from learners’ native languages. In Second Language Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones, Hang Zhang offers a series of cross-linguistic studies to argue that there are factors influencing tone acquisition that extend beyond the transfer of structures from learners’ first languages, and beyond characteristics extracted from Chinese. These factors include universal phonetic and phonological constraints as well as pedagogical issues. By examining non-native Chinese tone productions made by speakers of non-tonal languages (English, Japanese, and Korean), this book brings together theory and practice and uses the theoretical insights to provide concrete suggestions for teachers and learners of Chinese.

Author: Tony McEnery
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136944893
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This book is concerned with cross-linguistic contrast of major grammatical categories in English and Chinese, two most important yet genetically different world languages. This genetic difference has resulted in many subsidiary differences that are, among other things, related to grammar. Compared with typologically related languages, cross-linguistic contrast of English and Chinese is more challenging yet promising. The main theme of this book lies in its focus on cross-linguistic contrast of aspect-related grammatical categories, or, grammatical categories that contribute to aspectual meaning – both situation aspect at the semantic level and viewpoint aspect at the grammatical level – in English and Chinese. The unique strength of this volume lies in that it is first corpus-based book contrasting English and Chinese. Given that the state of the art in language studies is to use corpora, the significance of the marriage between contrastive studies and the corpus methodology in this book is not to be underestimated.

Author: Wolfram Wilss
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027216150
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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This book represents an approach which is intended to give readers a general insight into what translators really do and to explain the concepts and tools of the trade, bearing in mind that translation cannot be reduced to simple principles that can easily be separated from each other and thus be handled in isolation. On the whole, the book is more process- than product-centred. Translation is seen as an activity with an intentional and a social dimension establishing links between a source-language community and a target-language community and therefore requiring a specific kind of communicative behavior based on the question "Who translates what, for whom and why?" To the extent that the underlying principles, assumptions, and conclusions are convincing to the reader, the practical implications of the book, last but not least in translation teaching, are obvious.

Author:
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902728007X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
The topic of this bibliography in its broadest sense is the subject of a wide range of academic disciplines. Given these circumstances, the particular associations and connotations of the terms ‘transfer’ and ‘interference’ in each of these areas are legion, with resultant differences in meaning in the disparate literature on these subjects. And yet it is, in one way or another, contact and interaction of languages in the speaker/hearer and learner, in language acquisition contexts, as well as in society in general, which is basic to these two concepts throughout the various disciplines. The discovery of this basic unitary notion is surely one of the reasons for the new interest in these phenomena. In light of all this, a bibliography cannot at present avoid being highly/ selective in order to demarcate an interdisciplinary area of research in its own right and with its own status. The establishment of such an area is one of our main aims. The focus of interest in this bibliography, admittedly, is directed towards the psycholinguistics of language contact and interaction.