Sociolinguistic Variation in the Speech of Learners of Chinese

as a Second Language

NA1C0010 陳姵豫

Introduciton• this study investigates the use of the

morphosyntactic particle DE ( 的 ) by learners of Chinese as a second language. The general patterns are as follows: (a) DE tends to be deleted more in informal speech than in formal settings; (b) higher proficiency and longer residence in China—more interactions with native speakers—promote DE deletion; and (c) females tend to adopt more formal language style and use DE more than males.

Introduction

• The study also found that teachers and textbooks use DE much more often than native speakers. Learners’ patterns of DE use closely follow those of their teachers and textbooks, suggesting the necessity of explicit instruction in sociolinguistic variants in L2 classrooms.

Introduction

• The basic underlying assumption of this approach is that variation in language use is not random but highly systematic and characterized by “orderly heterogeneity” (Weinreich, Labov,&Herzog, 1968). As Bayley (2002) explained, “speakers’ choices between variable linguistic forms are systematically constrained by multiple linguistic and social factors that reflect underlying grammatical systems and that both reflect and partially constitute the social organization of the communities to which users of the language belong” (p. 117).

Introduciton• Two basic trends have emerged in L2 variation

studies. One group of studies focuses on the acquisition of target language (TL) obligatory forms, known as Type 1 variation (Mougeon et al., 2004) (e.g., past tense marking in English). The other group of studies looks at the acquisition of the TL forms that native speakers demonstrate variation, known as Type 2 variation

Research Questions• With native-speaker data as the baseline, this study

investigates sociolinguistic variability in the speech of high-intermediate and advanced learners of Mandarin Chinese (hereafter Chinese) as a second language (CSL). The lens that I use is the Chinese morphosyntactic particle DE ( ) (hereafter DE).

• Native speakers:1. What are the patterns of variation in DE use by Chinese native

speakers?2. What are the effects on Chinese native speakers’ DE use of (a)

linguistic functions of DE, (b) gender, and (c) formality?

Research Questions

• CSL learners:1. What are the patterns of variation in CSL learners’ DE

use?2. How are learners’ patterns of DE use different from native

speakers’ patterns?3. What are the effects on learners’ DE use of (a) function of

DE, (b) length of residence in China, (c) native language, (d) gender, (e) proficiency level, and (f) educational factors?

Grammatical Description of DE

• Generally, DE has three major functions: genitive marker, attributive marker, and nominalization marker (C. N. Li & Thompson, 1981; P.-C. Yip & Rimmington, 2004). In the following examples, which came from CSLspeaker data, DE in parentheses indicates that it is optional and the speaker did not use it.

Grammatical Description of DE

• As a genitive marker (1), DE indicates a possessive relationship between the modifier and the head noun (N)/noun phrase (NP):

• (1) 我 ( 的 ) 朋友 my friend

• In the case of DE as an attributive marker, the DE marked constituent can be an adjective (Adj. DE N/NP), a noun (N1 DE N/NP), a verb (V DE N/NP), a phrase (Phrase DE N/NP), or a relative clause (S’ DE N/NP) (examples 2–6).

• Adjective• (2) 好 ( 的 ) 方法 good method

Grammatical Description of DE

• Noun• (3) 中國 ( 的 ) 老師 native Chinese teacher

• Verb• (4) 輸 ( 的 ) 人 the person who lost

• Phrase• (5) 對我們 ( 的 ) 印象 the impression of us

• Relative Clause• (6) 他認識 ( 的 ) 韓國人 the Korean people that she

knows

Grammatical Description of DE

• Although DE in some of the no-head-N/NP contexts does not function to nominalize the modifier, those DE occurrences are included under this category because they share the feature of having no head words.

• 韓國人不喜歡吃的 What Korean people don’t like to eat

Grammatical Description of DE

• Furthermore, DE, together with hu`a ( 話 ), can also be used to mark a conditional clause, where it is always obligatory.

• 如果你真的不想告訴我們的話，就沒辦法了 If you really don’t want to tell us, there is no way out.

Purposes of the Study• This study aims to investigate all of the major

linguistic functions of DE used by advanced CSL learners. In addition, no previous studies investigated learners’ acquisition of DE Type 2 variation or the sociolinguistic/stylistic variation of DE.

Methodology

• The design of this study is primarily quantitative, but it also makes use of qualitative methods. Quantitative methodology is the most widely used method in L2 variation studies and has proven to be quite efficient and successful in understanding and analyzing interlanguage. However, quantification of some factors requires support from real social practices, which call for the addition of a qualitative component.

Methodology

Participants• The participants of the current study included Chinese

native speakers, CSL learners, and CSL instructors. Native speakers (NSs) were included to serve as the baseline for the analysis of learners’ Chinese language use. Instructors were recruited to enable an examination of the effect of teachers’ input on learners’ L2 performance.

• Twelve NSs (six males and six females) were recruited through my personal connections with instructors at Dongbei3 University based on the following criteria: (a) They are similar in age and educational level to the CSL participants and (b) they speak fluent Mandarin.

Methodology

Participants• All of the learners had 20 contact hours of classroom

instruction every week, 1–2 hours of Chinese tutoring every day, and many hours of activities each week with their Chinese friends, such as hanging out at the bar, going shopping together, having parties, and so on.

Data Collection

• The field work that provided the data for this study was conducted from March through June 2006. Multiple methods were adopted for data collection, including background questionnaires, sociolinguistic interviews, participant observation, and audiotaping of CSL instructors’ speech during teaching. The instructional materials used in the CSL classes were also collected for analysis.

Data Collection

• All learner participants were asked to respond to a background questionnaire in Chinese providing demographic information, language background, length of residence in China, length of prior Chinese learning, and so on.

Data Collection

Data Collection• Each interview lasted about 45–60 min. Most

topics for the first interview came out of my prepared interview protocol, including life experience in China, hobbies, family stories, favorite movies, home cultural stories, travel experiences, and Chinese learning experiences (see the Appendix). However, the topics were not discussed in the prepared order. Rather, each topic was introduced naturally and many of them were covered without my elicitation. The topics for the second interview varied greatly from speaker to speaker because most of them came from my outside classroom interactions with each of the learners.

Analytical Approach and Coding

• the program known as VARBRUL, which is a specialized application of logistic regression and is deliberately designed to handle the data obtained in the studies of variation and thus the most extensively used program in variation studies, was used to analyze the data in the current study.

• The greatest strength of VARBRUL analysis is that it can “account for the multiple cross-cutting and intersecting factors that influence learners speech” and thus “offer a rigorous and principled method for testing predictions that may derive from any comprehensive theory of interlanguage variation, as well as for testing existing claims in the literature”

Results

Native Speaker Results • Frequency analysis of NS data (Table 5) showed that NSs

always use DE in the conditional clause marker environment and never in lexicalized terms.

Results

• Female speakers were found to use DE significantly more frequently than male speakers in two functions of DE—namely, genitive marker and DE constructions followed by demonstrative or number + classifier phrase (Table 6).

Results

• By comparing NSs’ DE use in informal conversational data with DE use in formal situations such as teachers’ classroom speech as well as Chinese writings in language textbooks, it was shown that DE tends to be used significantly more in formal contexts and in writings, except the verb category in textbooks (which will be discussed in the “Discussion” section); see Tables 7 and 8.

Results

ResultsLearner Results• Table 9 shows that learners use DE all of the time in the

conditional clause marker environment. In lexicalized terms, learners almost never use DE. They treat all of the other functions as DE optional environments. Different from NSs, learners treat the relative clause marker as a DE obligatory environment with an acceptable margin of variability (1%) and use DE almost all the time.

Results

Results• Several other general patterns emerge from this

analysis:1. Females tend to use DE more than males do.2. The longer the learners stay in China and thus

the more interactions they have with NSs, the more likely they are to omit DE in optional contexts.

3. More proficient learners tend to omit DE more in optional cases.

4. Native language does not play a significant role in the use of sociolinguistic variation by these learners of Chinese.