Volume 8, Issue 1 -

This paper examines the relations between the senses of the Chinese polysemous verb shàng “to go up”, in an effort to understand how the various senses of polysemous words are organized in the L1 and L2 lexicons and to shed light on the role they might play in L2 polysemy acquisition. To this end, we analyzed the senses of shàng at the conceptual level, then used these findings to inform an empirical study of the sense relatedness as perceived by L1 and L2 participants. A developmental pattern is identifiable across the L2 proficiency groups. Specifically, the sense relations identified by the L2 groups increasingly approximate those identified by L1 as their proficiency level grows. Both native speakers and learners base their perceptions of sense relatedness on purported conceptual metaphors as well as other factors such as transitivity, function and concreteness – though the two groups apply these concepts in different ways. These findings suggest that learners can access the same conceptual tools as native speakers, but are using these tools in a way that differs from native speakers. Conclusions support the cognitive motivations behind polysemous senses and teaching-oriented findings that overlap in L1 and L2. Conceptual universals should be helpful in L2 vocabulary acquisition.

This study investigates Chinese indirection in argumentative writing. It examines whether there is a fundamental difference between Chinese and English rhetoric in their preferred method of argument, as suggested by instructional materials on how to argue effectively (Liu, Lu. 2005. Rhetorical education through writing instruction across cultures: A comparative analysis of select online instructional materials on argumentative writing. Journal of Second Language Writing 14. 1–18). A comparative analysis of 90 argumentative essays respectively written by expert Chinese and English writers, and advanced Chinese ESL learners reveals that while the English essays tend to adopt a polemical style that persuades by defeating opposing arguments, a significant proportion of the Chinese essays show a dialectical style which examines opposing positions without taking sides and yet rising above them to resolve conflicting issues. A significant number of Chinese ESL writing follow a similar dialectical pattern although not as frequently as their expert writers. A cultural explanation is attempted to account for the phenomenon. It is also argued that the dialectical model, while subsuming earlier rhetorical models adopted for analyzing Chinese writing, may hold the key to studying Chinese differences from the English in written arguments.

An important part of second language acquisition of sound systems involves the distinction between phoneme contrasts that exist in L2 but not in L1. However, L1 and L2 listeners do not always use the same acoustic cues to perceptually distinguish the contrasts. Most studies concentrate on vowel perception, but perceptual cue weighting in consonants is somewhat under-investigated, although equally relevant. This article investigates the cue-weighting of Chinese /t t h ts ts h / by L1 and Danish L2 listeners. The four phonemes are contrastive, and distinguished in aspiration, frication or both. Moreover, Chinese /t h ts ts h / acoustically all overlap with a single phoneme in Danish /t s /, variably realized as [t s ] ~ [t h ], which make it notoriously difficult to acquire the contrasts. We conducted a cue-weighting experiment to investigate how Danish and Chinese listeners use aspiration and frication to perceptually categorize these Chinese sounds. Our results show that Danish learners are not as sensitive as native Chinese to the deciding cues to distinguish the Chinese phoneme contrasts. This study sheds light on L2 sound acquisition in which different phonemes in the target L2 language correspond to a single but variable phoneme in the native language.

提要： 国际汉语教材既是外国学习者学习汉语知识的工具，也是了解中国的一个重要窗口。教材中的人物设置及性别刻板印象会对学习者产生潜移默化的影响。本文从人物设定、作者性别、角色职业分布和角色职业出现的频次等方面着手，对较有代表性的五套国际汉语综合教材进行了数据统计和文本分析，发现国际汉语教材中确实存在对中国男女角色的性别刻板印象。文章分析总结了国际汉语教材中出现中国男女性别刻板印象的一些原因，并对如何消解教材中的中国性别角色刻板印象提出了几点建议。

提要： 汉语作为外语写作时产生的焦虑是一种极其复杂的心理现象。我们在 Cheng（2004）研制的 “第二语言写作焦虑量表” 基础上结合汉语特点稍作修改制成 “汉语作为外语写作焦虑量表”，并根据量表进行了问卷调查，得到 204 份有效问卷。考虑写作焦虑本身的主观性、动态性、阶段性，本研究在 204 份有效问卷答题者中选定六名外国留学生做了深度访谈，同时对四名担任他们写作课的任课教师做了深度访谈。学生访谈提纲和教师访谈提纲参考了Horwitz et al (1986)、Macintyre and Gardner (1991)、Aida（1994）、Gregersen (2003)、Ewald (2007)的研究结论。通过对六名受访学生和四名受访教师的访谈，本文研究发现：（一）受访学生写作焦虑的主要影响因素是性格、写作策略、评价恐惧，其中关键因素是性格。（二）受访学生认为大量的写作训练是减少写作焦虑的最好办法，然而该解决方案受访教师没有提及并予以足够重视，可见教师与学生在降低汉语写作焦虑方法论上的侧重点有所不同。（三）受访教师认为华裔与非华裔在写作方法和写作效果上存在显著差异，然而在写作焦虑上并无显著差异，今后在汉语写作焦虑研究设计中没有必要设置华裔/非华裔这一身份变量了。（四）总体焦虑值高于 3 的受访学生会有明显的写作焦虑自我认知，反之，总体焦虑低于 3 的受访学生会有明显的无写作焦虑自我认知。（五）写作焦虑是否会随着学习时间增加而减少，受访学生有不同意见。持肯定意见的学生认为只要克服语言表达上的障碍，写作焦虑就会越学越少。持反对意见的学生则认为随着自身汉语水平的提高，自己对写作表达能力的要求也在不断加码，因此写作焦虑不会随着学习时间变长而发生太大变化。（六）过程写作教学法在降低汉语写作焦虑上行之有效，为大部分学生所接受，但仍需要根据实际教学情况做出一定的修改。

提要： 有鑑於專業華語的研究與教材仍為不足，本研究基以人文社會科學領域之高頻詞，應用以網路為語料庫的概念，自網頁擷取了約 4 千 3 百萬字之語料建置人文社會科學語料庫，並據此建置學術搭配詞檢索系統，可提供豐富搭配詞資訊與例句為教學與教材編纂所用。與收錄一般語料之中央研究院平衡語料庫相比亦發現，本系統可提供較多學術相關之搭配詞，彰顯此語料庫之學術色彩，亦顯示此種語料庫建置方式有其效用，可應用於未來專業華語之探究。