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

TWO NOMINALIZATION APPROACHES AND THE ACQUISITION OF THE ATTRIBUTIVE DE-PHRASES

November 12, 2012University of Maryland College Park, MD

Hongyuan DongThe George Washington University

2Overview

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.

11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

3Overview

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?

4Relative 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.11/12/2012The 1st Maryland International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language

5Two 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

6Two 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

7Two 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.

8Structural 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

9Structural ApproachDisadvantages 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.

10Modified structural approach

我写书 insert 的我写的书

Advantages: easy to follow /understand

11Modified 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.

12Sentence 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.

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%

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.

15Functional 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 7According to Zhu (1980), “verb 的” is essentially the same as

the other two nominal structures.

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 .

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 necessaryWhere do you add 那个 ? Either in the front or right before the

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.

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

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

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

22Research Hypothesis

The functional approach is more effective in enhancing students’ translation performances?

23Data 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 givenStudents’ answers were collected and analyzed.

24Type of answers and scores

Type Answer ScoreType I 我的女朋友给我的那个礼物 5Type II 我的女朋友给我的礼物 4Type III 我的女朋友给我那个礼物 3Type IV ( 那个 ) 礼物 ( 的 ) 我的女朋友给我

and various other translations0

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：

25Student data

Semester

Total number

English/Spanish

Korean/Japanese

Mandarin/Cantonese

SP2011 79 61 9 9SP2012 80 53 20 7

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.

26Korean/Japanese

Korean: nay yeca chinkwu-ka cwu-n ku senmul my girl friend-SUBJ give-PAST-modifier that(Det) gift the gift that my girlfriend gave Japanese: gakusei ga katta hon student NOM bought book the book that the student bought

27Korean/Japanese

The relative clause is pre-nominalThere 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

28“Pre-teaching” levelThe 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.

Semester Mean StDevSP2011 45.60 (out of

50)3.98

SP2012 45.39 (out of 50)

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.

29Descriptive Analysis

Type SP2011 SP2012Number Percentage Number Percentage

Type I 5 6.33% 13 16.25%Type II 48 60.76% 44 55.00%Type III 6 7.59% 4 5.00%Type IV 20 25.32% 19 23.75%

Overall performance:

Semester Mean StDevSP2011 2.97 1.78SP2012 3.16 1.83

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.

TYPE I TYPE II TYPE II TYPE IV010203040506070

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

SP2011SP2012

English/Spanish performance

English/Spanish:

p=0.38 (no overall significance), but in terms of individual types:

TYPE I TYPE II TYPE II TYPE IV0

SP2011SP2012

English/Spanish performance

33Descriptive AnalysisKorean/Japanese

p=0.21 (no overall significance), but in terms of individual types

Korean/Japanese performance

TYPE I TYPE II TYPE II TYPE IV

0102030405060708090

SP2011SP2012

Descriptive Analysis

35Descriptive AnalysisMandarin/Cantonese

Semester Mean StDevSP2011 4 0.00SP2012 4.14 0.38

p=0.27 (no overall significance)

Mandarin/Cantonese

1 2 3 40

SP2011SP2012

Descriptive Analysis

37What do we know so farThere 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.

38Qualitative 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)

39Explanation

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.

40Conclusions

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.

41Thank you!

非常感谢！

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

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