Two Nominalization Approaches and the Acquisition of the Attributive DE -phrases

1. Hongyuan Dong The George Washington University Two Nominalization Approachesand the Acquisition of the Attributive DE-phrases November 12, 2012 University of Maryland College Park, MD

2. Overview • 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

3. Overview • 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? The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

4. Relative 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

5. Two 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

6. Two 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

7. Two 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

8. Structural 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

9. Structural Approach • Disadvantages 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

10. Modified structural approach • 我写书 insert 的 • 我写的书 • Advantages: • easy to follow /understand The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

11. Modified 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

12. Sentence 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

13. Sentence 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% The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

14. Sentence 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

15. Functional 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 7 • According to Zhu (1980), “verb 的” is essentially the same as the other two nominal structures. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

16. Functional 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

17. Functional 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 necessary • Where do you add 那个? Either in the front or right before the noun. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

18. Functional 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

19. Functional 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

20. Functional 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

21. Functional 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

22. Research Hypothesis • The functional approach is more effective in enhancing students’ translation performances? The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

23. Data 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 given • Students’ answers were collected and analyzed. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

24. Type of answers and scores • 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： The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

25. Student data 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

26. Korean/Japanese • Korean: nay yecachinkwu-kacwu-n kusenmul my girl friend-SUBJ give-PAST-modifier that(Det) gift the gift that my girlfriend gave • Japanese: gakuseigakattahon student NOM bought book the book that the student bought The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

27. Korean/Japanese • The relative clause is pre-nominal • There 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 The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

28. “Pre-teaching” level • The 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. 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

29. Descriptive Analysis Overall performance: 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

30. Descriptive Analysis The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

31. Descriptive Analysis English/Spanish: • English/Spanish performance p=0.38 (no overall significance), but in terms of individual types: The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

32. Descriptive Analysis English/Spanish performance The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

33. Descriptive Analysis • Korean/Japanese p=0.21 (no overall significance), but in terms of individual types The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

34. Descriptive Analysis Korean/Japanese performance The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

35. Descriptive Analysis • Mandarin/Cantonese p=0.27 (no overall significance) The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

36. Descriptive Analysis • Mandarin/Cantonese The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

37. What do we know so far • There 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

38. Qualitative 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) The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

39. Explanation • 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

40. Conclusions • 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. The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

41. Thank you! 非常感谢！ The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language