Finds significant incidental learning of word meanings in 447 American and Chinese children in third and fifth grades. Notes that, in each country, incidental word learning appeared on both easy and difficult test questions and among children of all levels of ability. Suggests that incidental acquisition of word meanings while reading is a…

Presents a postmodern discussion of the playful recreation of Chinese New Year "cards" by Chinese students using the Internet. Signifies the increasingly popular practice of incorporating festive symbols from other cultures into electronic greetings. Notes that users must often install Chinese-language software before these encoded texts…

A correspondence is shown between grammatical categories and grammatical functions in Chinese. Some syntactic properties distinguish finite verbs from nonfinite verbs, nominals from other categories, and verbs from other categories. (Contains seven references.) (LB)

Applies prototype theory to the question of how to understand the concept of polysyllabic morphemes in Chinese. Analysis reveals that, because there is considerable disagreement on whether particular examples are in fact members this category, the traditional view that membership is an either/or matter is not accurate. (39 references) (MDM)

Examines the language games found in the 18th century Chinese novel "Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan." Examination focuses on distinctly Chinese literary conventions and devices that have no equivalent in English, such as "xiehouyu" and "qiaopihua," as well as puns, character splitting, enigmatic expressions, and reification of…

Demonstrates that "already" in Singapore English expresses two aspectual properties, namely the completion or the beginning of an action. The sentence "My son goes to school already" is potentially ambiguous, meaning that my son has already gone to school or that my son now goes to school, having reached the school-going age.…

This study investigated 14 English speakers' interlanguage constructions using the Chinese perfective aspect and the sentence-final modal particle. The results show that although the surface forms of the perfective aspect "-le" and the sentence-final "le" are identical, they are learned differently, with the perfective aspect…

Describes the acquisition and use of a Chinese metalanguage with which ambiguous spoken words are graphically contextualized. The metalanguage is composed of strategies that range from the actual writing of the Chinese graph (character) to those where the graph is accommodated in a verbal presentation. (12 references) (JL)

Contrasts symmetrical and asymmetrical features of word order in Mandarin and English, focusing on the preverbal and postverbal positional contrast, and revealing several cognitive sources for similarities between the two languages. (53 references) (CB)

Discusses both Canale's and Bachman's theoretical frameworks of language proficiency (LP). These theories share the same standpoint: language use for communication is dynamic; LP is both knowledge and skills; and LP includes at least grammatical competence, discourse/textual competence, and sociolinguistic competence. (Contains 38 references.) (JP)

Analyzed 145 Chinese American outpatient clients to determine how long they would stay in psychotherapy when ethnic- and language-matched therapists were provided. Results indicated that median duration of psychotherapy was 8 sessions, mean duration was 12 sessions, and drop-out rate was 12.38%. Results were comparable to those from general…

Describes the benefits of and processes necessary for teaching Chinese as a functional language, focusing on the three teaching and learning objectives of goal orientation in curriculum planning; cultural/contextual clarity in instruction; and clear guidelines for evaluation. (CB)

Examines how the cultural revolution in China has changed, to some extent, the rules governing the use of address terms, discussing the close interrelation between the use of address terms and cultural values and how the change in mental outlook has led to the depreciation or appreciation of certain terms. (Author/CB)

Examines the role of context effects in the processing of homophones in Chinese and Chinese-English bilingual speech. Finds that prior sentence context has an early effect on the disambiguation of various homophone meanings in both monolingual and bilingual situations. Accounts for results by interactive activation models of lexical processing.…

Investigates the size and shape of the effective visual field in Chinese reading by systematically manipulating the availability of meaningful information on both sides of a fixated character. Shows that the effective visual field was asymmetric and skewed in the direction of scanning with a highly limited size, composed of the fixated character…