Volume 7, Issue 2

Language play is playing with the rules of language for fun. This article is one of the first attempts at providing an overview of the traditional genres and current trends of language play in and with Chinese, a topic that has received relatively little attention in English. We explore the specific aspects of the Chinese language that are susceptible to play, and discuss a number of conventional formulas of Chinese language play. We also examine the affordances of new media and what we call translanguaging language play that involves mixing different named languages and scripts as well as mixing linguistic with other semiotic resources. The motivations and effects of language play are discussed, giving particular attention to the socio-political dimensions of language play. Throughout the discussion, we provide historical as well as contemporary examples to illustrate the ways in which Chinese language users play with language for specific purposes.

Due to the economic growth in East and Southeast Asia, the global interest in teaching and learning Asian languages has been continually increasing in the past two decades. More and more international schools are offering Asian languages as elective second/foreign languages to adolescent learners, such as Arabic, modern Chinese (Cantonese/Mandarin), Japanese, and Malay. Since 2008, the most common grammatical mistake, shi (literally to be ) had been highlighted by the Cambridge Assessment every single year in the IGCSE Mandarin (0547) examiner reports. This paper reviews the literature of the functions and the error patterns of copula verb shi and “ shi … de ” construction, then investigates how the textbooks describe the grammatical usages and sequence the different functions of shi for young learners. Based on the qualitative research findings, this study proposes suggestions for improving the description of grammar items in Mandarin textbooks, and illustrates the classroom activities and teaching strategies for parts of speech in the international school context. This research has implications for second language acquisition, pedagogical grammar, and teacher education for IGCSE Mandarin. 摘 要 隨著東亞及東南亞的經濟崛起, 近年來越來越多國際學校在初中階段提供亞洲語言給學生選修, 例如中文 (廣東話、普通話) 、日語、馬來語和阿拉伯語。從 2008 年起, 劍橋考試局 (Cambridge Assessment) 連續十二年, 在國際中學會考 (IGCSE) 「中文普通話作為外語」的考試年度報告中, 把「是」列為考生常見的語法偏誤之一 。即使報告每年都 提醒教師要加强「是」的語法操練, 但考試中的偏誤情況仍然沒有改善。本文首先回顧「是」字句和「是……的」句的語法功能及其偏誤和習得的相關研究, 再分析九套國際學校中文教材中的語法排序和描述。根據教學語法 (pedagogical grammar) 理論, 九套國際學校中文教材對這兩個語法點的術語使用和內容描述都不大理想。最後, 本文提出教材編寫和課堂教學的實務建議, 供前線教師、教材編者和課程規劃人員參考。

Based on the correlation between the multilingual ability of new generation Malaysian Chinese and language awareness within ethnic Chinese families, this study selects two typical fifth grade students of a Malaysian Chinese primary school as research objects and analyzes the impact of language awareness in two different ethnic Chinese families on children’s language ability. Research by means of two-way questionnaires, in-depth interviews, text analyses of Chinese and English compositions and comparison of Chinese, Malay and English language results reveals outstanding Chinese language ability in Case A while Case B shows remarkable English language ability. The findings indicate that Malaysian Chinese generally possess trilingual advantages while the ability of each particular language varies from person to person, which in turn is profoundly influenced by family language planning and attitude. The paper evinces that cultural consciousness among ethnic Chinese and awareness of ethnic language continuity, as reflected in family language practices, are main factors enabling Malaysian Chinese to retain a high level of Chinese language ability in a society substantially dominated by Malay culture.

The two sides of the Taiwan Strait have common ancestors and blood relations. The language and literature of both sides of the Strait are connected. Due to the reasons of history and geography, and long-term barrier, there are many differences in politics, economy, culture, education, social life, view, area culture, customs, etc, which are clearly reflected in the language practices. We chose a 302,939-character corpus from People’s Daily and United Daily News and analyzed the differences of cross-Strait news comments. We examined multiple language features, and concluded that the complexity and written register of People’s Daily are slightly higher, and United Daily News has a slightly richer vocabulary, more flexible language style, and more communicative language of the everyday. The subjective emotions of the writers of United Daily News are more intense, and sentences with emotional expressions are used to express their opinions and comments.

The younger age trend of overseas Chinese learners points out a key goal for the research of the function of overseas Chinese education, that is, to meet the needs of learners’ growth and development. Therefore, the discussion should not be limited to the perspective of traditional teaching objectives, but expended to the learning characteristics and needs of learners. Based on the theories of children’s language function, child developmental psychology and multiple intelligences, combined with the analysis of the learning characteristics and needs of overseas Chinese learners, this paper holds that overseas Chinese education for young learners should have the functions of “developing learners’ Chinese language abilities to meet their growth needs” and “promoting the integrated development of learners’ multiple intelligences”. Furthermore, how to realize these two functions are discussed respectively.

“Test of Chinese as a Heritage Language” is developed to test the Chinese proficiency of overseas Chinese adolescents. Overseas Chinese adolescent is a special group which is different from ordinary foreign Chinese learners. There is no a standardized Chinese proficiency test for this group until now. Guided by argument-based approach to validation, the overall design of the test and the test data are analyzed. The validity of the test is systematically demonstrated by qualitative and quantitative methods from many aspects, and the results of validity demonstration further feeds back the improvement of the test.

Based on Chao Foon (1955-1970), a Chinese literature Journal of Singapore and Malaysia, this paper describes the written features of Singaporean and Malaysian HUAYU in detail from the aspects of parts of speech and syntactic structures. In terms of research methods, based on the “chronological features” of this period, on the one hand, we explore the origin and follow the trail of the development and evolution, and find that some features have existed in Nanyang HUAYU since the late Qing Dynasty, and have their own development and changes. Some features correspond to the early modern Chinese, and the vast majority of "chronological features" still exist in today's Singaporean and Malaysian HUAYU; On the other hand, we make a horizontal comparison with modern Chinese in the same period through which we can not only confirm the origin of some features of HUAYU, but also provide an observation perspective for the study of the centennial changes of modern Chinese.

This article discusses the usage of “VP + De” of “subject-predicate structure + De”, and analyzes its referential function. Besides transferred referent agent, patient, dative, and “the person or object which has possessive relationship with the object referred by subject”, “subject-predicate structure + De” in legislative language may transferred refer to the valence of certain valent nouns in VP. That relates to the written language nature of legislative language, which amounts of nominal verbs are used in legislative language.