Toward a Pedagogy of Conventional Expressions in Chinese Culture DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jia Yang, M.A. Graduate Program in East Asian Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Professor Galal Walker, Advisor Professor Marjorie K. M. Chan Professor Charles Quinn Copyright by Jia Yang 2014 Abstract Conventional expressions refer to any expression with a stable form that is commonly repeated in the routinized social interactions of a given culture. Expressions, such as “how are you?” “Nice to meet you,” are examples of such repetitions in the context of “greetings” in American culture. Conventional expressions are easily recognizable to members of a given culture so that no special efforts are needed to interpret desired meanings. They are culture specific and are often utilized to help newcomers (or novices) and language learners to be socialized in the interactions of a particular culture. Considering the importance of conventional expressions in language learning, this dissertation reports on a written-discourse-completion production test and a multiple- choice recognition test that were conducted to investigate the development of American learners’ recognition and production of conventional expressions in typical social routines in Chinese culture, such as greetings, refusals, apologies and displays of gratitude. Results show that the length of exposure to the target language environment enables students to recognize more conventional expressions, but it does not ensure the students’ abilities to produce these expressions. Students’ successful production of the target forms are more likely to be related to their uses of different study strategies. In the data, high-performing students use the strategy of “making a mental picture of a situation ii in which the expression is used” and the strategy of “connecting a new expression to an image or picture associated with the expression” more frequently than low performing students do. The adoption of these deep mental processing strategies enable high performing students to store and retrieve useful expressions better, and hence they are more likely to successfully produce and recognize conventional expressions. The obtained results suggest three developmental stages for students’ ability to produce conventional expressions: recognizing the expression in context, distinguishing the communicative intention conveyed by a set of related expressions, and producing the expression automatically in typical contexts that evoke the target expression. This dissertation brings the CFL field’s attention to the fact that even in ordinary talk, contemporary Chinese will often display their personal versatility and ingenuity by using a number of expressions drawn from the cultural tradition. Consequently, a foreigner’s ability to understand and use conventional expressions is often considered by Chinese speakers to be an important indicator of acculturation and high-language proficiency. Training of students to recognize, to understand, and then to automatically use these expressions in typical social situations in Chinese culture can enable students to be effective communicators in Chinese, and thus shorten their time to achieving higher level of proficiency. Empirical studies from this dissertation also show that the training should not only provide ample opportunities of practice for students to perform the target iii expressions in context, but also provide the coaching of effective strategies for students to notice, to interpret and then to remember these expressions. iv Dedicated to my parents v Acknowledgments I am most grateful to the members of my dissertation committee for their advice and support during this course of study: Dr. Galal Walker, Dr. Marjorie K. M. Chan, and Dr. Charles Quinn. As my advisor, Dr. Walker inspired my research and provided me valuable suggestions on my academic and professional career development. His superior teaching techniques allow me to grasp complex information by performing exercises that are fun and practical. His academic guidance, intellectual support and constant encouragement enable me to become a competent researcher and educator in the field of Chinese language pedagogy. I am also grateful to Dr. Marjorie Chan for her training of my research skills in linguistics, and her guidance on how to be a good researcher in academia. Her constant encouragement and support motivate me to finish this dissertation. I also want to express my appreciation to Professor Charles Quinn. His careful reading and critical comments were invaluable to my dissertation. My gratitude also goes to Professor Mari Noda, Dr. Eric Shepherd and Mr. Steve Knicely, who gave me much latitude in exploring multiple ways of teaching and learning, and inspired me to integrate the two. I would also like to thank Debbie Knicely for her kind assistance and tremendous support throughout my dissertation writing. Special thanks must be given to my classmates and friends who shared with me their ideas on this topic and helped me tremendously with editing. Last, but not the least, I would like to thank my parents. Their love and encouragement granted me much strength and motivation in the past years. vi Vita May, 1980…………..Born - Kunming, P. R. of China 1998-2002…………..B.A. Department of Chinese Languages and Literatures, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. of China 2002-2005…………...M.A., Department of Chinese Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. of China 2005-2007…………...M.A., Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Publications 1. Jia Yang, 2010. Memory and the design of Chinese class activities. Chinese Your Way- Teaching Chinese in International Settings, 2010(6): 15. 2. Jia Yang, 2008. How to say 'No' in Chinese: a pragmatic study of refusal strategies in five TV series. In M. Chan & H. Kang (eds.) Proceedings of The 20th North American Conference of Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-20) 2008, Columbus, Ohio, 1041-1058. 3. Jia Yang & Zhensheng Luo, 2005. Pronoun resolution in Chinese using genetic algorithms. Proceedings of International Conference on Chinese Computing 2005, Singapore 2005, 74-81. 4. Jia Yang, 2004. Potential complements in Kunming dialect. Journal of Yunnan Normal University, 12: 604-607. 5. Jia Yang, 2004. A Corpus-based Resolution for NP anaphora zhe/na+NP in Chinese. Chinese Academic Forum, 12: 12-20. vii Fields of Study Major Field: East Asian Languages and Literatures Minor Field: Chinese Linguistics viii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ VI VITA ................................................................................................................................ VII TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. IX LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... XIII LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... XVI CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1.1 DEFINING CONVENTIONAL EXPRESSIONS .................................................................... 1 1. 1. 1 Conventional expression as a subset of multiword units .................................. 3 1. 1. 2 Conventional expression as a sociocultural phenomenon ................................ 4 1. 1. 3 Conventional expression as pragmatic resources ............................................. 7 1. 1. 4 The operational definition of conventional expression .................................... 9 1.2 THE PURPOSE OF THE DISSERTATION ........................................................................ 10 1.3 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................ 11 CHAPTER TWO THE ROLE OF CONVENTIONAL EXPRESSIONS IN FOREIGN/SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING ........................................................... 14 2.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF CONVENTIONAL EXPRESSIONS IN SECOND/FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING ....................................................................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Facilitating language comprehension ............................................................... 14 2.1.2 Promoting language production ........................................................................ 19 ix 2.1.3 Socializing language learners in the daily routines of a particular culture ....... 21 2.2 THE CHALLENGES OF CONVENTIONAL EXPRESSIONS FACED BY SECOND/FOREIGN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNERS ......................................................................................... 23 2.2.1 L1 interference .................................................................................................. 24 2.2.2 Insufficient exposure ........................................................................................ 25 2.2.3 The cultural barrier ........................................................................................... 26 2.3 THE INSTRUCTION OF CONVENTIONAL