The Development of L2 Given/New Interpretation by L2 Learners of Chinese: Based on the Competition Model

Abstract

Based on the Competition Model, this study investigates the utilization of the surface cues of word order, marked cleft structure, animacy, and focal accent for given and new interpretation by L2 learners of Chinese with different L2 proficiency levels. Participants included 20 CFL adult learners with lower Chinese proficiency (LCP), 20 CFL adult learners with higher Chinese proficiency (HCP), and 20 monolingual Taiwanese Mandarin speakers (NCS). The results revealed that: (1) both CFL groups effectively utilized word order cue as NCS did; (2) only HCP utilized cleft structure cue as NCS did; (3) when animacy competed with word order cue, both CFL groups relied more on word order cue as NCS did; when animacy competed with cleft marked structure, only HCP displayed preference for the animacy cue as NCS did; (4) when focal accent competed, or converged with other cues, CFL groups didn't respond consistently; (5) when focal accent conspired with animacy over word order cue, CFL learners relied more on word order cue; when it conspired with animacy over cleft, they responded nonuniformly. Inter-language variations in CFL pragmatic processing were discussed from developmental, cross-linguistic, psycholinguistic, and pragmatic perspectives, with implications drawn for CFL teaching/learning, and theories on L2 acquisition.