Chinese L2 Learners Research Articles

Effects of Group Dynamic Assessment on L2 Chinese learners’ literacy development: Learners’ responsiveness to interactive mediation

Abstract Dynamic Assessment (DA), an innovative assessment approach, has begun to attract attention as a conceptualization of assessment that emphasizes the social interactive role of learning. Although DA receives attention in the field of language testing/assessment, its feasibility in engaging larger cohorts of individuals is concerned. This shortcoming of DA leads to the application of Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA). This study examined the extent to which mediation provided through G-DA frameworks – concurrent and cumulative – supported a group of language learners’ literacy development. It investigates five intermediate L2 Chinese learners’ rhetorical awareness via their performance on Chinese reading and writing tasks. One Chinese rhetorical structures, the ‘Qi-cheng-zhuan-he’ approach, was selected because it is considered the most difficult learning point for Chinese learners. Findings were reported: 1) the mediation provided to the participants through both concurrent and cumulative G-DA approaches promoted their understanding of the ‘Qi-cheng-zhuan-he’ approach, 2) the more times a participant engaged as the primary interactant, the better learning outcome he/she would present, 3) individual participant had different developmental level and thus showed various extent of responsiveness to the teacher’s mediation; yet, their active participation, either verbal or nonverbal behaviors, would foster their learning performance. Pedagogical applications are discussed.

함축 척도를 활용한 한국어 과거 시제 ‘-었-’의 습득 연구

This study was designed to research the developmental patterns of the past tense ‘-eott-’ produced by the L1 Chinese learners of Korean. For the purpose of this study, the participants were asked to produce a free writing assignment on the same topic, and different from previous studies, the assignments were analyzed using the Accuracy Method as well as the Implicational Scaling Method. The results of studies using the Accuracy Method are achievement verbs, accomplishment verbs, psycho-cognitive verbs, activity verbs, and stative verbs. This is different from the outcome of the Implicational Scaling Method, which are accomplishment verbs, achievement verbs, activity verbs, psycho-cognitive verbs, and static verbs. The results of the two methods differed, and this difference illustrates that in the study of past tense acquisition, using only the Accuracy Method is insufficient. However, both results are consistent with the current predictions that the past tense morphemes are generally acquired first on [+telic] semantic verbs. (Yonsei University)

Interference effects of radical markings and stroke order animations on Chinese character learning among L2 learners.

There is controversy around whether presenting sub-character units such as radicals and strokes are beneficial to L2 Chinese learning. The present study explored the effects of radical markings (i.e., marked radicals with different colors) and stroke order animations on learning Chinese characters. Forty Chinese L2 learners with native alphabetic languages were divided into high-and low-level groups. They were first required to learn Chinese characters under four conditions either: (a) presented radical markings with stroke animations; (b) presented no radical markings with stroke animations; (c) presented radical markings without stroke animations; or (d) presented neither radical markings nor stroke animations. After learning, the participants were given character recognition and character-meaning matching tests. Results showed that the presentation of radical markings increased the participants’ reaction times in the character recognition test and decreased their recognition accuracy. Moreover, presenting stroke order animations also decreased the participants’ accuracy in recognizing characters. Beyond that, presenting radical markings and stroke order animations had no significant influence on character-meaning matching tests. These results indicate that providing radical and stroke information might interfere with character learning instead of facilitating character learning. The results suggest that excessive visual information introduced in the learning process may increase L2 learners’ cognition load. Also, the findings contribute to theoretical arguments about the analytic and holistic processing of Chinese characters and the pedagogical implications for teaching Chinese as a second language.

Effects of proficiency and gender on learners’ use of the pragmatic marker 吧ba

The Chinese particle吧ba has not received much attention in pragmatic studies, particularly in learners’ uses. However, L2 pragmatic investigation will contribute to the literature of 吧ba and, more generally, Chinese linguistic studies on particles. Therefore, this study investigates the pragmatic marker 吧ba employed by L2 learners of Chinese using data collected from a Chinese learner corpus. The effects of proficiency level and gender were both explored. The findings indicated that proficiency affected learners’ uses differently across the four illocutionary types of 吧ba. Learners across the three proficiency levels in the corpus showed more similarities concerning the directive and interrogative usages of the marker but more differences regarding the assertive and topic-introducing usages. Male learners were found to employ 吧ba more frequently than female learners across the illocutionary types of assertive, directive, and interrogative. The L2 pragmatic study of 吧ba adds to previous Chinese linguistic research on this particle and contributes to theoretical debates over Chinese pragmatic markers. Implications for corpus pragmatic studies are also discussed.

Neural Correlates of Handwriting Effects in L2 Learners.

Learning to write involves integrating motor production and visual perception to develop orthographic representations. This study tries to test the effect of hand movement training as a pathway to neural correlates for L2 Chinese and L2 English readers. Twenty L2 Chinese and 20 L2 English (n = 20) adults participated in both behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) experiments. We designed six learning conditions: Hand Writing Chinese (HC), Viewing Chinese (VC), Drawing followed by Character Recognition in Chinese (DC), Hand Writing English (HE), Viewing English (VE), and Drawing followed by Word Recognition in English (DE). Behavioral and EEG results demonstrated that drawing facilitated visual word recognition in Chinese compared to viewing. The findings imply that hand movement could strengthen the neural processing and improve behavioral performance in Chinese character recognition for L2 Chinese learners and English word recognition for L2 Chinese learners. Furthermore, N170 amplitude at the drawing condition was positively correlated with N400 amplitudes. Thus, the early visual word recognition neural indicator (e.g., N170) was predictive of the late neural indicator of semantic processing (e.g., N400), suggesting that hand movement facilitates the neural correlates between early word recognition and later comprehension.

LexCH: a quick and reliable receptive vocabulary size test for Chinese Learners

Abstract The measurement of vocabulary size is crucial in applied linguistics research. Although increasing attention has been given to the study of Chinese vocabulary assessment, few reliable and valid tools are available to evaluate Chinese learners’ receptive vocabulary size, particularly for teenagers and adults. We aim to fill this gap by developing LexCH, a quick, reliable and free receptive vocabulary size assessment tool that researchers and language teachers can readily adopt. In developing LexCH, we chose items covering a range of difficulty levels and with strong discriminative power as test items for the final version of LexCH based on item response theory. In total, 480 students from a junior high school and a high school in China participated in this study. Our initial validation results suggest that LexCH is a reliable and valid receptive vocabulary size test for L1 Chinese speakers; it also shows great potential for use among L2 Chinese learners. Implications for assessing receptive vocabulary size in Chinese learning are provided.

Word Knowledge in L2 Chinese Lexical Inference: A Moderated Path Analysis of Language Proficiency Level and Heritage Status.

This study explored the effect of word knowledge facets (word-general and word-specific knowledge) on second language (L2) Chinese lexical inference by highlighting the moderating effect of language proficiency level and learners’ heritage status. L2 Chinese learners with a mixture of linguistic (low-intermediate and high-intermediate) and cultural (heritage and non-heritage) backgrounds completed a series of word-knowledge measurements as well as a lexical inferencing task. Through a moderated path model, the study demonstrated that word-general knowledge (morphological awareness) and word-specific knowledge (vocabulary knowledge) contributed to L2 Chinese lexical inference. In addition, the study underlined the moderating effect of heritage status on the correlation between word knowledge and lexical inference. Given the distinct patterns between heritage and non-heritage learners, morphological awareness may define the characteristics of reading profiles in the Chinese heritage learner population.

Using phrase-frames to trace the language development of L1 Chinese learners of English

A recent trend in corpus-based research emphasizes the importance to examine repeated, discontinuous word sequences in addition to continuous ones. The present study extends this trend into research on the use of phrase-frames (repeated word sequences with variable slots, e.g., it is * to) and their variants (e.g., important, easy) in a large corpus of L1 Chinese learner writing in English across five proficiency levels. Phrase-frames were automatically identified based on established frequency and range thresholds and manually filtered for meaningfulness. The analysis focuses on differences in the variability, predictability, and functions of the 100 most frequent phrase-frames (of spans three and four) across levels. The results revealed that, as learners move to more advanced proficiency levels, they tend to employ phrase-frames that are more variable and less predictable. Results also indicate that the functions expressed by high-frequency phrase-frames vary between proficiency levels. This study contributes to a better understanding of the process of L2 learners’ development of phraseological competence.

The effects of L1, task, and classifier type in Chinese-L2 learners’ use of classifiers

AbstractThis study explores three potential factors that influence Chinese L2 learners’ classifier use in a classroom setting: L1 background, task, and classifier type. We developed a picture-prompted test, including composition, free cloze, and multiple-choice cloze questions to elicit the use of classifiers. Participants were 50 Chinese L2 learners from Arabic, English, and Japanese L1 backgrounds. Although Japanese L1 participants performed numerically better than their Arabic and English counterparts, statistical analysis suggests that L1 was not a significant predictor of test performance. The composition task was shown to be conducive to the use of test-taking strategies, and it revealed a higher classifier accuracy than the more constrained multiple-choice task. Meanwhile, there was an interaction between L1 and task, suggesting that L1 influence may be conditioned by task type. Moreover, our logistic model predicts different levels of accuracy for classifier use by type, which potentially suggests a developmental path of acquiring classifiers licensed by the most prominent noun feature they are associated with, with shape being the earliest, followed by animate, inanimate, and concept.

Motor Compatibility Effect on the Comprehension of Complex Manual Action Sentences in L2: An ERP Study

Abstract Embodiment theories proposed that the comprehension of language involves sensory-motor simulation in the brain. The present study examined the brain response to motor compatibility effect in comprehending action-related linguistic materials for participants learning Chinese as a second language (L2). In this study, participants are required to read action-related sentences describing an agent performing two manual actions simultaneously or sequentially by manipulating temporal conjunctions. The sentences with simultaneous actions are marked by Chinese parallel structure 一边……一边…… (“while”) showing non-congruent motor condition while the sequential action sentences are marked by 先……然后…… (“after”) showing congruent motor condition. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded with the second verb phrase. A larger fronto-central late positivity was observed for the sentences with simultaneous actions rather than the sentences with sequential actions due to body constraints, revealing that late L2 Chinese learners integrate embodied knowledge while processing action-related complex sentence despite demanding more cognitive resources, and longer processing time.

An Examination of the Use of Subtitles in Learning L2 Collocations

Exposure to audiovisual input has been recognised as an engaging approach for implicit vocabulary learning. Recent studies have compared the effectiveness of different types of subtitling in enhancing viewers' learning gains in single word vocabulary, but research on multiword vocabulary , especially collocations, remains limited. The present study aims to examine which type of subtitling (i.e., English–Chinese subtitles or English-only subtitles) is more effective in L2 implicit collocation learning, and it attempts to identify Chinese L2 learners’ learning difficulties when acquiring collocations. Experiments and interviews were conducted with 66 Chinese undergraduates to investigate their acquisition, in terms of both form recognition and meaning recall. Results indicate that compared with English-only subtitles, the effectiveness of English–Chinese subtitles in enhancing the acquisition of L2 collocation meaning is more significant, although English-only subtitles can be more helpful in reinforcing collocation forms. The results of the interviews also suggest that participants are more likely to encounter difficulties with contextually marked phrasal verbs and idioms, and affective filters should be considered when analysing individual differences. The findings support the use of L1 in subtitles to improve the learning efficiency of vocabulary meaning, as well as to help teachers identify the sources of students’ learning difficulties.

A Comparative Study of Three Measurement Methods of Chinese Character Recognition for L2 Chinese Learners.

Measuring Chinese character recognition ability is essential in research on character learning among learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL). Three methods are typically used to evaluate character recognition competence by investigating the following properties of a given character: (a) pronunciation (phonological method), (b) meaning (semantic method), and (c) pronunciation and meaning (phonological and semantic or PS method). However, no study has explored the similar or dissimilar outcomes that these three measurements might yield. The current study examined this issue by testing 162 CSL learners with various L1 backgrounds and Chinese proficiency levels. Participants' performance in character recognition measured using a phonological method, a semantic method, and a PS method was compared, which led to two major findings. In terms of similarity, participants' performance in character recognition and the influence of L1 background and Chinese proficiency level on character recognition was similar across the three methods. As for differences, the semantic method could yield a character recognition test with better quality than the other two methods, and the three methods yielded different best fitting models and showed different predictions for Chinese proficiency across different L1 groups. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are proposed.

Refusing invitations and offers in second language Chinese: effect of proficiency at the actional and interactional levels

AbstractThe present study investigates the role of proficiency in the development of second language (L2) Chinese learners’ ability to negotiate refusals of invitations and offers in conversational interactions. Fifty-four American English learners of L2 Mandarin Chinese at three proficiency levels, and 22 native speakers, completed a four-item naturalized roleplay task. Findings suggest positive effects of proficiency on L1 American English L2 Chinese learners’ production of refusals at both actional and interactional levels, though different aspects of their pragmatic competence may not develop in parallel. NSs and learners across proficiency levels had access to a similar range of refusal strategies, but learner production showed a more target-like context-specific combination of refusal strategies with increasing proficiency. The effect of proficiency can also be observed on learners’ acquisition of sequential organization of refusals, in terms of delay and discourse patterns, in various context. Nevertheless, it is still unclear at what point along the developmental trajectory learners are sociopragmatically competent enough to show consistent orientation towards the hearer in their refusals as NSs do.

Analytic visual word recognition among Chinese L2 learners

AbstractThe process of word recognition can be analytic (or serial) or holistic (or parallel). They differ in the size of the processing units (lexical vs. sublexical) or in whether sublexical units are processed sequentially or simultaneously. First language (L1) reading development has been found to involve a transition from serial processing to parallel processing, as shown in a decreasing length or stroke number effect among readers of increasing proficiencies. The present study was intended to explore the use of analytic versus holistic character recognition strategies in the second language (L2) learners, an issue that has not received much attention. Chinese native speakers and learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) were tested in a variant of the lexical decision task on Chinese characters of different numbers of strokes. Regression analyses with reaction times as an outcome variable and stroke number as a predictor variable showed that CSL speakers produced a stroke number effect where native speakers did not. The results were interpreted as evidence for the employment of an analytic processing strategy by L2 speakers. The findings raised several important issues for future research and for pedagogical considerations.

The Influence of Cognitive, Affective, and Sociocultural Individual Differences on L2 Chinese Speech Performance: A Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes Approach.

Informed by Segalowitz's (Cognitive bases of second language fluency, Routledge, 2010) L2 speech production model and MacIntyre et al.'s (Mod Lang J 82(4):545-562, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1998.tb05543.x ) L2 willingness to communicate model, this study sought to understand the influence of cognitive, affective and sociocultural individual differences on advanced learners' L2 Chinese speech performance. A total of 240 advanced L2 Chinese learners in China participated in the study. The participants' perceptions of the impact of cognitive, affective, and sociocultural factors on their L2 Chinese speech performance were measured by an adapted questionnaire. A speaking test, following the Hanyu Shuiping Kouyu Kaoshi (HSKK, an international standardized L2 Chinese speaking proficiency test for non-native speakers), was employed to evaluate the participants' L2 Chinese speech performance. The results of multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) analysis show that (1) cognitive factors such as cognitive fluency, expression practice strategy, and assistance strategy, (2) affective factors such as speaking self-efficacy, speaking anxiety, and speaking motivation, and (3) sociocultural factors such as attitudes toward target language class and attitudes toward target language culture jointly influence advanced L2 Chinese learners' speech performance. Results and implications of the present study are discussed for enhancinglearners' L2 Chinese speech performance.

Measuring Orthographic Knowledge of L2 Chinese Learners in Vietnam Using a Handwriting Task - A Preliminary Report.

In the current study, the orthographic knowledge required for writing Chinese characters was assessed among participants with L1 Vietnamese background who learn Chinese as a foreign language. A total of 42 undergraduates were recruited. They were invited to participate in a delayed Chinese character copying task consisting of 32 characters. Their Chinese character reading abilities were also obtained using a character naming task. All the tests were conducted online during the pandemic in 2021. Results indicated that the participants’ accuracy in the copying task was affected by the familiarity of the characters and the number of strokes of the characters. These effects minimized as reading performance increased. In the inter-stroke interval (ISI) analysis, results indicated a significant boundary effect where ISIs between orthographic units were longer than ISIs within orthographic units, showing the participants’ tendency to chunk Chinese characters into functional units when they write. Only high achievers in the reading task demonstrated the use of both large and small grain-size units in writing (i.e., radical-boundary ISI > logographeme-boundary ISI > non-boundary ISI), while the low achievers only used small grain-size units in their writing. We suggest that the delayed copying task incorporated with handwriting measures is an effective method to assess orthographic knowledge of L2 Chinese learners.

A study of the effects of mobile media on L2 text processing: Beyond offline comprehension accuracy measures

Recent research on the processing effects of mobile media has incorporated offline research methods to demonstrate that reading on mobile media is as effective as reading on computers or paper in accuracy of text comprehension. The present study uses an eye-tracking methodology to compare the effects of reading on mobile media (mobile phone and tablet) and traditional media (paper and computer) on cognitive processing behaviours as well as on accuracy. Chinese L2 learners of English (n = 156) read an English novel, The Elephant Man, in one of the four reading conditions (mobile phone: 41, tablet: 39, computer: 38, and paper: 38) while their eye movements were recorded. Between-condition comparisons showed that mobile-assisted reading performance was equally accurate, fast and efficient to process texts, and fast to respond to posttests. Statistically significantly shorter mean fixation duration of mobile-assisted than computer-assisted reading suggests slightly more efficiency in cognitive processing. The overall findings of the present study add to other strong evidence that mobile-assisted reading is effective in text processing. We discuss the implications of our results and provide directions for future research and insights into mobile-assisted language learning, including online learning, e.g., during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Spanish L2 Chinese Learners' Awareness of Morpho-Syntactic Structures in the Reading Comprehension of Splittable Compounds.

Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists’ views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units.

An Event-Related Potentials Study on the Syntactic Transfer Effect of Late Language Learners.

This study explored the syntactic transfer effect of the non-local subject-verb agreement structure with plural head noun after two intensive phases of input training with event-related potentials (ERP). The non-local subject-verb agreement stimuli with the plural head nouns, which never appeared in training phases, were used for the stimuli. A total of 26 late L1-Chinese L2-English learners, who began to learn English after a critical period and participated in our previous experiments, were asked back to take part in this syntactic transfer experiment. Results indicated that a significant ERP component P600 occurred in the key region (the verb) of the sentences with syntactic violations in the experimental group, but none occurred in the control group. This demonstrated that there was a significant transfer effect of the input training. The possible theoretical explanation was provided and also the malleability of the late L2 learners was discussed.

The effects of linguistic measures in the analysis of L2 Chinese descriptive writing

Abstract The current study investigates whether the CAF (complexity, accuracy, and fluency) analysis framework, frequently used in L2 studies of English and other languages, may effectively analyze L2 essays in Chinese, a language typologically different from English. CAF measures were examined for both their discriminative and predictive effects for L2 Chinese writing quality. The results revealed that most of the measures captured linguistic differences between lower-score and higher-score essays. Similar to findings in other L2s, more advanced L2 Chinese learners achieved syntactic complexification increasingly through phrasal features in their essays, in contrast to lower-level learners. The predictive effects of the measures for writing quality differed between lower-score and higher-score essays. T-unit length, a syntactic measure successfully analyzing Indo-European languages, did not serve as an effective predictor for L2 Chinese textual quality. The current study provides implications for both L2 writing research and L2 writing curriculum.