Key Issues in Chinese as a Second Language Research

Key Issues in Chinese as a Second Language Research presents and discusses research projects that serve as theoretical grounding for improving the teaching and learning of Chinese as a second language (CSL) in order to help researchers and practitioners better understand the acquisition, development, and use of CSL. With the exception of the first chapter, which is state-of-the-art, each chapter makes an attempt to bring together theory and practice by focusing on theory building and theory application in practice. The book is organized around areas where most future research is needed in CSL: phonology, semantics, grammar, and pragmatics. Consisting of contributions from an international group of scholars working on cutting-edge research, this is the ideal text for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the area of Chinese as a second or foreign language.

Istvan Kecskes is Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York, USA. He is the President of the American Pragmatics Association and the Chinese as a Second Language Research (CASLAR) Association. Chaofen Sun is Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and, by courtesy, Linguistics, and directs the Chinese language program at Stanford University, USA. He previously served as Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and as Director of Stanford Center for East Asian Studies.

Introduction Part I. SLA Theories as Related to Chinese Chapter 1. The Theoretical Landscape of Second Language Acquisition ZhaoHong Han Part II. Chinese Phonology Chapter 2. De-stress in Mandarin: Clitics, Cliticoids and Phonetic Chunks Hana T-ísková Chapter 3. The Effects of Tonal Markedness in Second Language Chinese Tones Hang Zhang Chapter 4. From Phonological Studies to Teaching Mandarin Tone: Some Perspectives on the Revision of the Tonal Inventory Carlotta Sparvoli Part III. Semantic Aspects and Vocabulary Chapter 5. Adjectival Category Giorgio Francesco Arcodia and Bianca Basciano Chapter 6. Chinese Vocabulary Acquisition and Teaching: Basic Concepts and Research Results Chiara Romagnoli Part IV. Chinese Grammar Chapter 7. The Grammar of Chinese Nouns Chaofen Sun Chapter 8. Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language: Replication and Extension Wenying Jiang Chapter 9. The Instantiation of Binding Through Pragmatic and Syntactic Processes Darcy Sperlich Chapter 10. L2 Acquisition of Aspect in Mandarin Chinese Feng-hsi Liu Part V. Pragmatic Aspects Chapter 11. Development of Pragmatic Competence: Compliment Responses by L2 Learners of Chinese Xiaoping Gao Chapter 12. Intercultural Communicative Competence and Emotion Amongst Second Language Learners of Chinese Wei-Lin Melody Chang and Michael Haugh Chapter 13. Foundations for Content Learning in Chinese: Beyond the European Base Jane Orton, Yin Zhang and Xia Cui