Volume 47, Issue 3

This study investigates the differences in pragmatic competence between Hong Kong and Chinese mainland university students. Participants included 19 native speakers of English, 115 Chinese mainland students, divided into those who had spent time abroad in an English-speaking country (CM A) and those who had not (CM NA), and 97 Hong Kong students, divided into those from an English-medium secondary school (Hong Kong EMI) and those from a Chinese-medium school (Hong Kong CMI). Linguistic proficiency was measured by a C-test, and pragmatic competence by a Metapragmatic Knowledge Test, an Irony Test and a Monologic Role Play. Group scores were compared using ANCOVAs to control for differences in proficiency. The results point to a continuum of pragmatic competence—EMI > CMI > CM A > CM NA—reflecting the groups’ access to English in real-life contexts. The differences between the Hong Kong groups and the Chinese mainland groups were clearest in those tests measuring processing capacity (i. e., Irony Response Time and the Monologic Role Play). CM A, but not CM NA, performed as well as the Hong Kong groups on measures of metapragmatic awareness. The results are discussed in terms of Bialystok’s (1993) distinction between analyzed representation and control of processing.

The present study investigates the effects of congruency and frequency on adjective-noun collocational processing for Chinese learners of English at two proficiency levels based on the data obtained in an online acceptability judgment task. The subject pool of this research included 60 English majors studying at a university in China; 30 were selected as a higher-proficiency group and 30 as a lower-proficiency group according to their Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt et al., 2001) scores and their self-reported proficiency in English. The experimental materials were programmed to E-prime 2.0 and included six types of collocations: (1) 15 high-frequency congruent collocations, (2) 15 low-frequency congruent collocations, (3) 15 high-frequency incongruent collocations, (4) 15 low-frequency incongruent collocations, (5) 15 Chinese-only items, and (6) 75 unrelated items for baseline data. The collected response times (RTs) and accuracy rates data were statistically analyzed by the use of an ANOVA test and pairwise comparisons through SPSS 16.0 software. The results revealed that: (1) the adjective-noun collocational processing of Chinese English learners is influenced by collocational frequency, congruency and L2 proficiency; (2) the processing time is affected by the interaction of congruency and frequency; and (3) the interactive effect of L2 proficiency in conjunction with congruency and frequency also influences the processing quality.

Embodied cognition theories propose that language comprehension triggers a sensorimotor system in the brain. However, most previous research has paid much attention to concrete and factual sentences, and little emphasis has been put on the research of abstract and counterfactual sentences. The primary challenges for embodied theories lie in elucidating the meanings of abstract and counterfactual sentences. The most prevalent explanation is that abstract and counterfactual sentences are grounded in the activation of a sensorimotor system, in exactly the same way as concrete and factual ones. The present research employed a dual-task experimental paradigm to investigate whether the embodied meaning is activated in comprehending action-related abstract Chinese counterfactual sentences through the presence or absence of action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE). Participants were instructed to read and listen to the action-related abstract Chinese factual or counterfactual sentences describing an abstract transfer word towards or away from them, and then move their fingers towards or away from them to press the buttons in the same direction as the motion cue of the transfer verb. The action-sentence compatibility effect was observed in both abstract factual and counterfactual sentences, in line with the embodied cognition theories, which indicated that the embodied meanings were activated in both action-related abstract factuals and counterfactuals.

This experimental study investigated how text difficulty and different working memory capacity (WMC) affected Chinese EFL learners’ reading comprehension and their tendency to engage in task-unrelated thoughts, that is, mind wandering (MW), in the course of reading. Sixty first-year university non-English majors participated in the study. A two-factor mixed experimental design of 2 (text difficulty: difficult and simple) × 2 (WMC: high/large and low/small) was employed. Results revealed that 1) the main and interaction effects of WMC and text difficulty on voluntary MW were significant, whereas those on involuntary MW were not; 2) while reading the easy texts, the involuntary MW of high-WMC individuals was less frequent than that of low-WMC ones, whereas while reading the difficult ones, the direct relationship between WMC and involuntary MW was not found; and that 3) high-WMC individuals had a lower overall rate of MW and better reading performance than low-WMC individuals did, but with increasing text difficulty, their rates of overall MW and voluntary MW were getting higher and higher, and the reading performance was getting lower and lower. These results lend support to WM theory and have pedagogical implications for the instruction of L2 reading.

Little is known about how the assessment modality, i. e., computer-based (CB) and paper-based (PB) tests, affects language teachers’ scorings, perceptions, and preferences and, therefore, the validity and fairness of classroom writing assessments. The present mixed-methods study used Shaw and Weir’s (2007) sociocognitive writing test validation framework to examine the scoring and consequential validity evidence of CB and PB writing tests in EFL classroom assessment in higher education. Original handwritten and word-processed texts of 38 EFL university students were transcribed to their opposite format and assessed by three language lecturers ( N = 456 texts, 152 per teacher) to examine the scoring validity of CB and PB tests. The teachers’ perceptions of text quality and preferences for assessment modality accounted for the consequential validity evidence of both tests. Findings revealed that the assessment modality impacted teachers’ scorings, perceptions, and preferences. The teachers awarded higher scores to original and transcribed handwritten texts, particularly text organization and language use. The teachers’ perceptions of text quality differed from their ratings, and physical, psychological, and experiential characteristics influenced their preferences for assessment modality. The results have implications for the validity and fairness of CB and PB writing tests and teachers’ assessment practices.

Although a large number of studies have focused on various aspects of politeness, very little is known about how politeness intention is activated cognitively during verbal communication. The present study aims to explore the cognitive mechanism of politeness intention processing, and how it is related to pragmatic failure during cross-cultural communication. Using 30 Chinese EFL university students who were instructed to finish a probe word judgment task with 96 virtual scenarios, the results indicate that within both mono- and cross-cultural contexts, the response time in the experimental scenarios was significantly slower than that of the filler scenarios. This suggests that politeness intention was activated while understanding the surface meaning of the conversation; however, the EFL learners could not completely avoid the negative transfer of their native politeness conventions when they were comprehending the conversational intention of the target language. Furthermore, no significant differences in response time were found between the groups with high and low English pragmatic competence, illustrating that transferring the pragmatic rules and principles into cross-cultural communication skills was more cognitively demanding. Overall, this study adds to the literature on politeness research and provides some implications for foreign language pragmatic instructions.

Past studies reveal the prevalence of anxiety, coupled with low motivation and disengagement among students in English-medium instruction (EMI) programs. Given the detrimental impact these negative emotions can have on learning outcomes, it is imperative that teachers establish positive emotional rapport with their students. This study explores how experienced and highly rated EMI lecturers at a Chinese university’s overseas campus use communication strategies to build rapport with their students during interactive academic activities. It identifies the strategies used by these lecturers and examines how the strategies facilitate the teaching-learning process. The data, consisting of 10 hours of tutorials and 10 hours of supervisor-student supervision meetings, is analyzed using an adapted Conversation Analysis (CA) approach. The analysis reveals three types of communication strategies (CSs) frequently used by lecturers: back-channeling, code-switching, and co-creation of messages. By employing these strategies, the lecturers established a strong rapport with the students, which created an encouraging and supportive learning environment. Consequently, this positive atmosphere facilitated students’ learning of content knowledge through English. The findings of this study have implications for the training of lecturers who encounter difficulties in establishing rapport with multilingual students in the EMI setting.

Foreign language teaching practice is developing rapidly, but research on foreign language teacher learning is currently relatively fragmented and unstructured. The book Foreign Language Teacher Learning , written by Professor Kang Yan from Capital Normal University, published in September 2022, makes a systematic introduction to foreign language teacher learning, which to some extent makes up for this shortcoming. Her book presents the lineage of foreign language teacher learning research at home and abroad, analyzes both theoretical and practical aspects, reviews the cuttingedge research results, and foresees the future development trend, painting a complete research picture for researchers in the field of foreign language teaching and teacher education as well as front-line teachers interested in foreign language teacher learning. This is an important inspiration for conducting foreign language teacher learning research in the future. And this paper makes a review of the book from aspects such as its content, major characteristics, contributions and limitations.