A Corpus-Based Study on the Pragmatic Use of the ba Construction in Early Childhood Mandarin Chinese

Tsung, Linda; Gong, Yang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.607818

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Ba is found in all groups but doubles in likelihood by the older age group. The findings are in keeping with other studies that find ba early appearing (Liu & Ning, 2009; Tsung & Gong, 2021). However, the TD children are twice as likely to produce ba than the children with LD.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Did the children use ba in circumstances where bei might have been more suited (Deng et al., 2018; Her, 2009; Liu & Ning, 2009)? Were the ba uses as varied in form in the two groups (Tsung & Gong, 2021)? Furthermore, as in English (Watkins et al., 1993), the types of verbs may be restricted in children with LD, or the subtypes of nouns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, Tsung and Gong (2021) conducted a very linguistically thorough study of the spontaneous production of ba . They looked at the language transcripts in the Early Childhood Mandarin Language Corpus of 168 children aged 2;6–5;6 from the University of Hong Kong.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The characteristics of spontaneous language in young children identified as language delayed in Mandarin

Liu

Ning

Villiers

et al. 2022

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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BackgroundLittle is known about the spontaneous speech characteristics of young children with language delay in Mandarin, relative to their peers. Until the recent development of standardized language assessments normed in China on Mandarin‐speaking children, it was difficult to independently identify atypically developing children to study their spontaneous speech, and only case studies have been available.AimTo investigate which aspects of spontaneous speech might be distinctive for atypical development in a short play session.Methods & ProceduresA total of 86 Mandarin‐speaking children, boys and girls aged 2;6–4;6, were tested using the new standardized assessment for Mandarin, Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin—Comprehensive (DREAM‐C), at a major urban hospital in China. Of the children, 39 were identified by DREAM‐C as atypically developing in language development (Total Standard score M = 72, SD = 8.9), and 47 scored in the typical range (Total Standard score M = 103, SD = 10.8), using the four scales of Receptive, Expressive Semantics and Syntax. All children then took part in a 15‐min semi‐structured play session during which their spontaneous speech was recorded by professionals. A variety of games and pictures were used in an attempt to elicit spontaneous questions, negatives and descriptions. Their recorded speech samples were then coded by linguists directly into a database in FilemakerPro for different aspects of vocabulary, sentence variety and grammatical morphemes/structures heard.Outcomes & ResultsThe results describe the characteristics of the speech samples for the typical and atypical groups for age groups 2;6–3.5 (N = 52) and 3;6–4.6 (N = 34). Vocabulary diversity was indicated on an ordinal scale ranging from simple communicative signals including headshakes and words such as ‘hi’ to ‘a rich variety of different content words’. Grammatical diversity similarly ranged from ‘only yes/no answers’, through to the appearance of multi‐clause sentences. Morphosyntax was coded in terms of which morphemes were observed at all in the session, such as aspect markers (LE, ZAI, GUO), and nominal morphemes (DE, GE), and also whether function words such as pronouns, Wh‐questions and classifiers were singular or varied in the session. There is considerable optionality in morpheme expression in Mandarin, so measurements such as the percentage supplied in obligatory contexts, though useful for languages such as English, are harder to compute. Nevertheless, the data show change over age in all these aspects of language, and reveal what a typically developing child might be expected to produce in a 15‐min sample in such a session. For example, it was rare for the typically developing children by age 3.5 not to have at least simple sentences with some function words, and to use adjectives, nouns and verbs, unlike the children with atypical scores. The morphemes DE, LE and GUO showed significant differences in likelihood across groups for both ages, but BA and ZAI were significantly different only for the older age group. In contrast, GE was common in all groups. The atypical group has markedly lower frequency in several grammatical aspects such as the use of diverse questions, classifiers and pronouns, with much less change across age groups, implying slower growth. The results provide useful information on the relative likelihood of observing different varieties of words, sentence types and morphemes in a short speech sample, which are substantially different in the typical versus atypical groups in both age bands, and change over age.Conclusions & ImplicationsThese data validate the DREAM‐C classifications, but the details can also be used to inform the choice of targets for intervention for young children who experience delays in Mandarin language acquisition.WHAT THIS PAPER ADDSWhat is already known on the subject Spontaneous language samples have been used as a means of studying language in China. However, because of the amount of training and time required to transcribe and analyse spontaneous language samples, there is not yet a sufficient basis for identifying language differences between children with and without language disorder in mainland China.What does this paper add to existing knowledge After using DREAM‐C to provide an objective measurement of children with and without language disorders, an easy‐to‐administer spontaneous language assessment protocol and scoring record form allowed the comparison of the spontaneous language of 39 children with atypically developing language with 47 children who scored in the typical range to observe language differences between those with and without typical language development.What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The study documents differences in vocabulary and sentence variety, and use of different morphemes such as classifiers, passives and aspect markers to aid in choosing targets for intervention by demonstrating the path of development. In addition, the spontaneous language assessment protocol and scoring record form holds promise for allowing clinicians and researchers to more easily study the language of individual children to personalize intervention, but also of groups of children to understand the emergence of basic Mandarin linguistic features.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The characteristics of spontaneous language in young children identified as language delayed in Mandarin

Liu

Ning

Villiers

et al. 2022

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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“…It marks that the noun right after it is the direct object of the action denoted by the main verb. Relevant to our study, research shows that Chinese children acquire the collocation of bǎ with simple causative verbs as early as around age 2 (Erbaugh, 1982), but they do not fully acquire bǎ with RVCs until age 5;6 (Tsung & Gong, 2021) or age 6 (Fahn, 1993). As this study focuses on verb compounding features of Chinese (i.e., considering all the four types of RVCs in (2)), the use of bǎ will not be focused on in our analysis.…”

Section: Chinese As a Context-based E-framed Languagesupporting

confidence: 72%

Learning to express causal events in Mandarin Chinese: A multimodal perspective

et al. 2022

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Previous research has shown language-specific features play a guiding role in how children develop expression of events with speech and gestures. This study adopts a multimodal approach and examines Mandarin Chinese, a language that features context use and verb serializations. Forty children (four-to-seven years old) and ten adults were asked to describe fourteen video stimuli depicting different types of causal events involving location/state changes. Participants’ speech was segmented into clauses and co-occurring gestures were analyzed in relation to causation. The results show that the older the children, the greater the use of contextual clauses which contribute meaning to event descriptions. It is not until the age of six that children used adult-like structures – namely, using single gestures representing causing actions and aligning them with verb serializations in single clauses. We discuss the implications of these findings for the guiding role of language specificity in multimodal language development.

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“…The main contribution of this study is that the results reveal typical Chinese connective errors, their possible causes, the learning strategies adopted by native English-speaking learners in response and their internal connections, which provide insights for teachers and educators to make better teaching procedures, and therefore has significant theoretical and practical value. Further studies can be conducted to explore grammatical errors in foreign learners writing with different native language backgrounds and explore the learners’ learning strategies from different perspectives ( Tsung and Gong, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Error Types of and Strategies on Learning Chinese Connectives: A Study on Chinese as a Second Language Learners’ Writing

2022

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The correct use of connectives has great influence on language learners’ writing proficiency, while errors of connectives are common in foreign learners’ interlanguages. This study examines the types of errors that occur in native English-speaking learners’ Chinese writing, the possible causes for the errors, and the learners’ consequent learning strategies. The present research adopted corpora investigation, questionnaire survey, and focus-group interviews to examine the error types, causes of identified errors, and related learning strategies. Data analysis indicated that: (1) the main error types made by native English-speaking learners from high to low are misuse, overuse, mismatch, misplacement, and underuse of connectives; (2) causes related to intralingual transfer greatly contributes to the presence of errors; and (3) memory, social, and cognitive strategies were the most preferred, followed by metacognitive and compensation strategies, and then by effective strategies which were the least preferred. These findings showed that different strategies can be employed to cope with different errors in writing. The study further suggests that teachers and educators need to help native English-speaking learners find strategies that work best for them in terms of learning Chinese connectives.

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A Corpus-Based Study on the Pragmatic Use of the ba Construction in Early Childhood Mandarin Chinese

Cited by 6 publications

References 18 publications

The characteristics of spontaneous language in young children identified as language delayed in Mandarin

The characteristics of spontaneous language in young children identified as language delayed in Mandarin

Learning to express causal events in Mandarin Chinese: A multimodal perspective

Error Types of and Strategies on Learning Chinese Connectives: A Study on Chinese as a Second Language Learners’ Writing

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