two nominalization approaches and the acquisition of the attributive de -phrases
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Hongyuan Dong The George Washington University. Two Nominalization Approaches and the Acquisition of the Attributive DE -phrases . November 12, 2012 University of Maryland College Park, MD. Overview. Central Idea: - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
TWO NOMINALIZATION APPROACHES AND THE ACQUISITION OF THE ATTRIBUTIVE DE-PHRASES
November 12, 2012University of Maryland College Park, MD
Hongyuan DongThe George Washington University
2Overview
Central Idea:For difficult grammar patterns, different ways of teaching
them would have different effectiveness, as revealed by students’ performance. Take relative clauses as an example here.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
3Overview
Two theoretical approaches: movement vs. nominalization
Two pedagogical approaches: structural vs. functional Data collected: translation from English to Chinese Starting question: is one approach better than the other?
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
4Relative Clauses
我昨天买的那本书那本我昨天买的书我昨天买的书
Properties: The relative clause is pre-nominal The position of demonstrative-classifier phrase, e.g. 那本 is
flexible. Bare nouns are to be interpreted either as definite or generic, and
singular or plural.11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
5Two Theoretical Approaches
Approach 1: Movement (relativization):
我写书我写 ___ 的书 的 can be regarded as a complementizer equivalent to the
English “that” in relative clauses. The head noun 书 is moved from within the relative clause,
leaving a gap. Note that a resumptive pronoun is required in cases of indirect
objects and object of prepositions. E,g. 我给他书的那个人
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
6Two Theoretical Approaches
Approach 2: Nominalization ( 名物化 , e.g. 朱德熙 1980)Adjectives, nouns and verbs can be suffixed by 的 3 to form a
nominal phrase, which can be the subject, object, attributive and predicate.
E.g. used as an attributive: 白的纸 adjective DE 懂的人多 verb DE 昨天的报 noun DE
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
7Two Pedagogical Approaches
Approach 1: Structural approach: 我写书 insert 的 我写书的 move 书 我写的书
Advantages of this approach: Easy to derive the correct pre-nominal word order especially
for English speakers.The head noun is already supplied.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
8Structural Approach
Disadvantages of this approach:Too complicated, especially with the movements. Students get
confused.The starting sentence often sounds unnatural.The demonstrative-classifier phrase cannot be
straightforwardly derived. If we start with 我写那本书 , it sounds unnatural
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
9Structural ApproachDisadvantages of this approach (continued):
The flexible position of the demonstrative-classifier phrase cannot be easily derived.
E,g. Possibly: derive 我写的书 first, and append 那本 to get 那本我写的书Students do not really understand the transition from a
pseudo-sentence to a nominal phrase. They don’t know what the end-product is.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
10Modified structural approach
我写书 insert 的我写的书
Advantages: easy to follow /understand
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
11Modified structural approach
Disadvantages: Cannot derive relative clauses from the subject position. But:
According to the Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie 1977): Subject>DirectObject>Indirect
Object>Oblique>Genitive>Comparative
If we make it easy to teach the relative clauses from direct object first using this approach, students would have no difficult in grasping the subject type once they are good with the object type relative clauses.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
12Sentence Combination Tasks
This type of exercise is adopted in many textbooks, e.g. Integrated Chinese:
我昨天买了一本书,那本书很贵。我昨天买的那本书很贵。
The effectiveness in SLA is questionable.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
13Sentence Combination Tasks
Xu(2010) conducted a SLA experiment with 45 students at the ACTFL intermediate-mid to intermediate-high level.
A five-minute practice session with sample items was conducted before the main experiment.
Yet 7 miscombined almost all 20 sentences.4 didn’t produce any relative clause.Error rate is 11/45, i.e. 24.4%
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
14Sentence Combination Tasks
Note that these errors arose because: 7 students didn’t understand what the exercise was about. 4 students just couldn’t handle such exercises. These are intermediate-mid/high students (2.5 semesters). Thus for first-year students (e.g. Integrated Chinese Lesson 14, i.e.
1.5 semesters) such exercises are too complicated to handle. Also the mysterious disappearance of the aspect marker 了 has
never been explained to students. A side note here: the use of aspect markers within a relative clause
has not received much attention. It should be a good research topic.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
15Functional Approach
Approach 2: functional approach.Noun/Adjective 的 are easy structures which are normally
introduced early in the first year. E.g. in Integrated Chinese, noun 的 is introduced in Lesson 2,
adjective 的 is introduced in Lesson 7According to Zhu (1980), “verb 的” is essentially the same as
the other two nominal structures.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
16Functional Approach
Lead-in: 小的 refers to something, and if you want to make it more clear,
add a noun, e.g. 小的学校 .
Transition: then what about 跑的 ? Most students can guess it refers to
something that runs.
Introduction: how do you make that clear? Most students can say 跑的人 .
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
17Functional Approach
Further distinctions: but in Chinese a noun by itself could mean persons, a person, that
person, this person. How do you make it more clear? Most students can propose to add 那个
Here 这个/这些/那些 can also be introduced if necessaryWhere do you add 那个 ? Either in the front or right before the
noun.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
18Functional Approach
The same strategy is used to introduce 喜欢的Students can propose that it refers to something.But then we ask the question: does it refer to the thing that’s
liked or the person that likes something?Then we ask students to propose how to make it clear.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
19Functional Approach
If it is a thing, you can add a subject 我喜欢的 If it is a person, you can add an object 喜欢书的
Then the same is asked to add the head noun我喜欢的那本书喜欢书的那个人
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
20Functional Approach
To make a sentence, we use English to propose a scenario:Suppose you bought a book, how do you refer to it?我买的那本书 Is it expensive?我买的那本书很贵Do you like it我喜欢我买的书
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
21Functional Approach
Advantage: Easy to understand No technical movements or jargons The demonstrative-classifier phrase is introduced in a simple way
Disadvantage: Students need to provide the head noun Students need to do step-by-step derivation
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
22Research Hypothesis
The functional approach is more effective in enhancing students’ translation performances?
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
23Data Collection
In Spring 2011, the structural approach was implemented in Beginning Chinese II at GW
In Spring 2012, the functional approach was implemented in Beginning Chinese II at GW
A translation task in the final exam was givenStudents’ answers were collected and analyzed.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
24Type of answers and scores
Type Answer ScoreType I 我的女朋友给我的那个礼物 5Type II 我的女朋友给我的礼物 4Type III 我的女朋友给我那个礼物 3Type IV ( 那个 ) 礼物 ( 的 ) 我的女朋友给我
and various other translations0
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
The translation on the exam is: The gift that my girlfriend gave me is on
the bed.We only look at the part of the relative clause.All of the answers from students exam fall into one of these four type.
2 points for correct pre-nominal word order; 2 points for correct use of 的 ; 1 point for correct use of 那个:
25Student data
Semester
Total number
English/Spanish
Korean/Japanese
Mandarin/Cantonese
SP2011 79 61 9 9SP2012 80 53 20 7
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
The following table includes the total number of students in each semester. The students are further distinguished by their native language.
The students with Mandarin/Cantonese backgrounds have different levels of competence with their writing and speaking. They are not necessarily native speakers.
26Korean/Japanese
Korean: nay yeca chinkwu-ka cwu-n ku senmul my girl friend-SUBJ give-PAST-modifier that(Det) gift the gift that my girlfriend gave Japanese: gakusei ga katta hon student NOM bought book the book that the student bought
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
27Korean/Japanese
The relative clause is pre-nominalThere is no structural morpheme like 的The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses should be different
for Korean/Japanese students than it is for students with English/Spanish language background
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
28“Pre-teaching” levelThe grammar on relative clause was introduce right after a
unit test. Thus we provide the following data of students performance in that test as a basis of comparing the overall level of students linguistic ability before we introduced the new grammar.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
Semester Mean StDevSP2011 45.60 (out of
50)3.98
SP2012 45.39 (out of 50)
4.24
No significant difference (p=0.73). Then we can assume that overall SP2012 performances before the introduction of the relative clauses are not a lot better than SP2011.
29Descriptive Analysis
Type SP2011 SP2012Number Percentage Number Percentage
Type I 5 6.33% 13 16.25%Type II 48 60.76% 44 55.00%Type III 6 7.59% 4 5.00%Type IV 20 25.32% 19 23.75%
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
Overall performance:
Semester Mean StDevSP2011 2.97 1.78SP2012 3.16 1.83
p=0.51 (no overall significance), although the previous p=0.73.But if we look at individual types, there does seem to be a trend.
30Descriptive Analysis
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TYPE I TYPE II TYPE II TYPE IV010203040506070
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
SP2011SP2012
31Descriptive Analysis
English/Spanish performance
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Type SP2011 SP2012Number Percentage Number Percentage
Type I 4 6.56% 9 17.00%Type II 32 52.46% 26 49.06%Type III 6 9.84% 4 7.55%Type IV 19 31.15% 14 26.42%
English/Spanish:
Semester Mean StDevSP2011 2.72 1.89SP2012 3.04 1.90
p=0.38 (no overall significance), but in terms of individual types:
32Descriptive Analysis
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
TYPE I TYPE II TYPE II TYPE IV0
10
20
30
40
50
60
SP2011SP2012
English/Spanish performance
33Descriptive AnalysisKorean/Japanese
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
Type SP2011 SP2012Number Percentage Number Percentage
Type I 1 11.11% 3 15.00%Type II 8 88.89% 13 65.00%Type III 0 0.00% 0 0.00%Type IV 0 0.00% 4 20.00%
Semester Mean StDevSP2011 4.11 0.33SP2012 3.35 1.76
p=0.21 (no overall significance), but in terms of individual types
34
Korean/Japanese performance
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TYPE I TYPE II TYPE II TYPE IV
0102030405060708090
100
SP2011SP2012
Descriptive Analysis
35Descriptive AnalysisMandarin/Cantonese
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
Type SP2011 SP2012Number Percentage Number Percentage
Type I 0 0.00% 1 14.29%Type II 9 100.00% 6 85.71%Type III 0 0.00% 0 0.00%Type IV 0 0.00% 0 0.00%
Semester Mean StDevSP2011 4 0.00SP2012 4.14 0.38
p=0.27 (no overall significance)
36
Mandarin/Cantonese
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1 2 3 40
20
40
60
80
100
120
SP2011SP2012
Descriptive Analysis
37What do we know so farThere is no overall effect in terms of the difference between
the two groups.But among the four types of answers, all students show
improvements on Type I, while the other types didn’t change much. The English/Spanish students showed the most improvements in type I.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
38Qualitative Data
The quantitative data do not reflect our classroom observations.
We have four instructors. All reported more ease of teaching, and better teacher-student interaction.
Qualitative data suggest that the functional approach is more effective.
(An attitudinal report might be useful by using a questionnaire for the students and for the instructors)
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
39Explanation
Our different approaches only differ as to how the relative clauses are introduced to students.
Thus an initial advantage was observed in class.But once students understood such concepts, the initial
advantage would eventually be evened out.But in the short term, such advantage may still be observable,
as shown in the quantitative data here.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
40Conclusions
For difficult grammar concepts, different approaches to introduce them have different initial advantages.
For relative clauses, the functional approach has an observable advantage.
In the short term, such differences show up in students performances.
In the long term, the initial advantage will diminish with time.
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language
41Thank you!
非常感谢!
11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language