There are three hallmarks of core linguistic properties. First, they are expected to be manifested in typologically different languages. Second, they should unify superficially unrelated linguistic phenomena. Third, they are expected to emerge early in the course of language development, all things being equal (Crain, 1991). The present study…

Two experiments tested the role of morphemic information and interword spacing in reading in experienced and inexperienced Chinese readers. Chinese is normally written in "hanzi," or characters, which mostly represent monosyllabic morphemes, but it can also be written in "pinyin," or romanised Chinese, which represents phonemes and is word-spaced.…

For almost 80 years, Chinese linguists have been fascinated by sentences like "Pijiu ba, he dianr!" ("Beer, I'll have some!"), which look superficially like a jumbled-up version of "normal-order sentences." Numerous accounts have been proposed to explain their structure and meaning, but no consensus has been reached as to how their true essence…

Previous research has found that a speaker's native phonological system has a great influence on perception of another language. In three experiments, we tested the perception and representation of Mandarin phonological contrasts by Guangzhou Cantonese speakers, and compared their performance to that of native Mandarin speakers. Despite their rich…

Purpose: This study investigates the impact of intertalker variations on the process of mapping acoustic variations on tone categories in two different tone languages. Method: Pitch stimuli manipulated from four voice ranges were presented in isolation through a blocked-talker design. Listeners were instructed to identify the stimuli that they…

This collaborative project explores the affordances of a translation assignment in the context of a learner-centered pedagogy that places composition students' movement among languages and cultures as both a site for inquiry and subject of analysis. The translation assignment asks students to translate scholarly articles or culture stories from…

How are languages learned, and to what extent are learning mechanisms similar in infant native-language (L1) and adult second-language (L2) acquisition? In terms of vocabulary acquisition, we know from the infant literature that the ability to discriminate similar-sounding words at a particular age does not guarantee successful word-meaning…

Research Findings: The main aim of this study was to examine whether language skills and emotion regulation are associated with social competence and whether the relationship between English skills and social competence is moderated by emotion regulation in Mandarin-English bilingual preschoolers. The language skills of 96 children ages…

The role of corrective feedback in second language classrooms has received considerable research attention in the past few decades. However, most of this research has been conducted in English-teaching settings, either ESL or EFL. This study examined teacher feedback, learner uptake as well as learner and teacher perception of feedback in an adult…

This paper aims to identify how Taiwanese and Mandarin (the two dominant languages in Taiwan) are used as interactional resources by Vietnamese female spouses in bilingual Taiwanese families. Three Vietnamese-Taiwanese transnational families (a total of seventeen people) participated in the research, and mealtime talks among the Vietnamese wives…

The Pinyin Tutor has been used the past few years at over thirty institutions around the world to teach students to transcribe spoken Chinese phrases into Pinyin. Large amounts of data have been collected from this program on the types of errors students make on this task. We analyze these data to discover what makes this task difficult and use…

Sex differences in social and communication behaviours related to autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have been investigated mainly in Western populations. Little research has been done in Chinese populations. This study explored sex differences related to ASC characteristics by examining differences in item responses and score distributions in…

The current study aims to investigate the effects of three key demographic factors -- the language of marking, gender and age -- on markers' reactions to onscreen marking (OSM). A total of 1743 markers completed a post-marking questionnaire consisting of two previously validated scales, i.e. "Ease of Use in the OSM Environment" and…

Objective behavioral assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in early childhood is essential for guiding appropriate treatment and intervention. In contrast to Western societies, validated measures of ASD are very limited in different Chinese contexts. The present study attempted to examine the construct validity of the Chinese version of…

This case study aims to explore the best practice of applying task-based language teaching (TBLT) via the web conferencing tool Blackboard Collaborate in a beginners' online Chinese course by evaluating the technical capacity of the software and the pedagogical values and limitations of the tasks designed. In this paper, Chapelle's (2001) criteria…