Volume 38, Issue 1

The processing of relative clauses receives much concern from linguists. The finding that object relatives are easier to process than subject relatives in Chinese challenges the notion that subject relative clauses are preferred universally. A large body of literature provides theories related to sentence processing mechanisms for native speakers but leaves one area relatively untouched: how bilinguals process sentences. This study is designed to examine the case where the individuals with a Chinese L1 language background process subject-extracted subject relative clauses (SS) and subject-extracted object relative clauses (SO) by using eventrelated potentials (ERPs) to probe into the real-time language processing and presents a direct manifestation of brain activity. The findings from this study support the subject relative clause preference due to the strong influence of English relative clause markedness and bilinguals’ relative lower working memory capacity.

This paper reports an empirical study on the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese University students, aiming to identify the factors that hamper intelligibility and suggest the pedagogical priorities in pronunciation teaching. The participants were 45 university sophomores, whose recorded data were transcribed and evaluated correspondingly by 45 educated listeners from 22 different countries. The results reveal that although the speakers’ English may have strong accents, it is intelligible to international listeners to a great extent. Phonological problems that hamper intelligibility are vowel length and quality, simplification of diphthongs, voiced and voiceless plosives, dental fricative, word ending nasals, consonant clusters as well as stress, rhythm and intonation.

The present paper reviews 25 studies conducted in the domain of L2 (second/foreign language) dynamic assessment (DA) in recent years. It begins with a survey of relevant research, then discusses some of the major findings and problems, and finishes with some suggestions for further research. The main findings of the review are as follows: (a) DA has the potential to promote L2 competence development; (b) both the interactionist approach and interventionist approach have attracted the interest of L2 researchers; (c) most studies have focused on small samples; (d) reading and grammatical knowledge have drawn the most attention; (e) group DA may be a potential method to advance L2 competence development in both the focused individual and the other members of the group; (f) computers might play a complementary role to humans acting as mediators; and (g) case study methodology has been the overwhelming choice for experimental design. Based on the available research, we suggest that additional studies are called for on the following issues: (a) L2 DA as an approach to measurement, (b) potential mediators, (c) validity issues of L2 DA, (d) the interface between DA and second language acquisition, and (e) the development of L2 classroom teachers.

The present paper reviews 25 studies conducted in the domain of L2 (second/foreign language) dynamic assessment (DA) in recent years. It begins with a survey of relevant research, then discusses some of the major findings and problems, and finishes with some suggestions for further research. The main findings of the review are as follows: (a) DA has the potential to promote L2 competence development; (b) both the interactionist approach and interventionist approach have attracted the interest of L2 researchers; (c) most studies have focused on small samples; (d) reading and grammatical knowledge have drawn the most attention; (e) group DA may be a potential method to advance L2 competence development in both the focused individual and the other members of the group; (f) computers might play a complementary role to humans acting as mediators; and (g) case study methodology has been the overwhelming choice for experimental design. Based on the available research, we suggest that additional studies are called for on the following issues: (a) L2 DA as an approach to measurement, (b) potential mediators, (c) validity issues of L2 DA, (d) the interface between DA and second language acquisition, and (e) the development of L2 classroom teachers.

China English is defined as a developing variety of international English spoken in China with some characteristic features at the level of phonology, grammar, lexis and pragmatics. The authors present the analysis of the use of the first-person plural pronoun we by Chinese senior English majors in spoken English as a way of illustrating how the pragmatic features of these students’ choice of first-person pronoun manifest according to their social positions. Analysis finds that for these speakers we is used in ways that are consistent with wo-men , first person plural pronoun in Chinese, which is often used ambiguously for non-specific reference. Findings indicate that speakers lacking social power will use the pronoun to reproduce a mainstream or generic discourse. The authors conclude by arguing that Chinese university students’ use of we can simultaneously be seen as an expression of their English language proficiency and as an adherence to Chinese cultural and pragmatic norms.

This study investigates Chinese elementary, middle, and high school students’ L2 perceptual learning styles, imagination, ideal L2 self, and motivated L2 behavior. A perceptual learning style and L2 learning motivation questionnaire was administered to 1,667 students from elementary to high school. Statistical results revealed that Chinese elementary, middle, and high school students were more in favor of a visual learning style in comparison to their auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. This visually oriented style was significantly correlated with their ideal L2 self and motivated L2 behavior. The sequential regression analysis results indicated that the ideal L2 self and visual learning style were the most meaningful predictors for Chinese students’ motivated L2 behavior. This study suggests that teachers need to help students create and maintain their ideal L2 self and facilitate their L2 learning motivation by providing more adequate visual teaching materials.

This article investigates the formative influence of voice on the argumentative writing performance of intermediate students of English. Its aim is to achieve a better understanding of how the students’ voice develops in the revision process in relation to the rubric and the essay scores. The data consist of Chinese sophomores’ multi-draft essays. As first-person pronouns are the most visible representation of a writer’s voice, this article gives a detailed description of the features and developmental patterns of first-person pronouns (FPPs). The results reveal that revision-induced changes in FPP can be beneficial to the quality of essay writing but only in a limited number of cases if the students are not formally instructed in voice, which carries pedagogical implications to empower students’ self-identity in EFL writing.