Based on materials on the localized Chinese overseas, including the Melaka Babas, who are mostly Malay-speaking Chinese, this article reflects on the use of such terms as acculturation and assimilation, as well as hyb...Based on materials on the localized Chinese overseas, including the Melaka Babas, who are mostly Malay-speaking Chinese, this article reflects on the use of such terms as acculturation and assimilation, as well as hybridization and creolization, in relation to highly localized Chinese. All these concepts are seen as different ways of describing cultural formation in transcultural context. In particular, the relevance of using creolization to refer to the kind of creative process of cultural formation beyond its original usage in the Caribbean is discussed. This results in the identification of fragmented creolization as in the case of the Caribbean and a rooted creolization as in the case of the Babas. The author shall first discuss the issues of assimilation and integration, followed by hybridization and creolization. This is followed by the discussion on localization of Chinese overseas and identity. The concluding section provides some remarks on the concepts reviewed, and three main categories of acculturated Chinese are identified, namely, Chinese who are linguistically assimilated but still observe major Chinese traditions, Chinese who are so acculturated to the mainstream society that they hardly practice Chinese traditions, and Chinese who are both highly localized and highly mixed “racially”.展开更多
Idioms have attracted great attention over recent decades. Nevertheless, controversies still remain in regard of the most plausible cognition mechanism for idiom comprehension, especially concerning non-Indo-European ...Idioms have attracted great attention over recent decades. Nevertheless, controversies still remain in regard of the most plausible cognition mechanism for idiom comprehension, especially concerning non-Indo-European languages and second/foreign language users. Event Related Potential (ERP) experiments on proficient English learners whose native language was Mandarin Chinese were conducted to test the influences of idioms' familiarity on both Chinese and English (as foreign language) idiom comprehension. Data including accuracy rates, reaction time, and latency and peak amplitudes of N400 were recorded and analyzed, indicating that familiarity might play a significant role in idiom comprehension in both native and foreign languages. Further, idioms, should they have similar familiarity levels, may be easier to process in the native language (Chinese) than in the foreign language (English).展开更多
Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) has become a prevalent phenomenon around the world in recent years. Current TCFL pedagogies are influenced by Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language (TESL/TEFL)...Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) has become a prevalent phenomenon around the world in recent years. Current TCFL pedagogies are influenced by Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language (TESL/TEFL) so much that many traditional TESL/TEFL pedagogies such as the Grammar-Translation approach and the Audio-Lingual approach dominate current Chinese classes. This article provides an introduction and an initial validation of a newly developed pedagogy, Sheltered Initiation Language Learning (SILL), and its recent application in TCFL in San Diego, California. Compared with traditional ESL/EFL pedagogies which have been criticized for the neglect of the learner's communicative development, SILL is innovative for its emphasis on authentic and spontaneous speech, modified input as well as asymmetric teaching sequencing. With these factors, SILL is designed to promote students' oral language skills for communicating effectively in concrete situations. The initial validation of SILL suggests that despite several fallacies in classroom activity designs, SILL is a successful pedagogy welcomed by both teachers and students. Based on these discussions, the article proposes that SILL has the potential to be an effective pedagogy for Chinese Oral Language Teaching.展开更多
文摘Based on materials on the localized Chinese overseas, including the Melaka Babas, who are mostly Malay-speaking Chinese, this article reflects on the use of such terms as acculturation and assimilation, as well as hybridization and creolization, in relation to highly localized Chinese. All these concepts are seen as different ways of describing cultural formation in transcultural context. In particular, the relevance of using creolization to refer to the kind of creative process of cultural formation beyond its original usage in the Caribbean is discussed. This results in the identification of fragmented creolization as in the case of the Caribbean and a rooted creolization as in the case of the Babas. The author shall first discuss the issues of assimilation and integration, followed by hybridization and creolization. This is followed by the discussion on localization of Chinese overseas and identity. The concluding section provides some remarks on the concepts reviewed, and three main categories of acculturated Chinese are identified, namely, Chinese who are linguistically assimilated but still observe major Chinese traditions, Chinese who are so acculturated to the mainstream society that they hardly practice Chinese traditions, and Chinese who are both highly localized and highly mixed “racially”.
基金supported by the National Social Sciences Fund Program"Critical discourse analyses of the cyber language violence"under Grant 15BYY057the Fundamental Research Funds for Dalian University of Technology under Grant DUT13RW303~~
文摘Idioms have attracted great attention over recent decades. Nevertheless, controversies still remain in regard of the most plausible cognition mechanism for idiom comprehension, especially concerning non-Indo-European languages and second/foreign language users. Event Related Potential (ERP) experiments on proficient English learners whose native language was Mandarin Chinese were conducted to test the influences of idioms' familiarity on both Chinese and English (as foreign language) idiom comprehension. Data including accuracy rates, reaction time, and latency and peak amplitudes of N400 were recorded and analyzed, indicating that familiarity might play a significant role in idiom comprehension in both native and foreign languages. Further, idioms, should they have similar familiarity levels, may be easier to process in the native language (Chinese) than in the foreign language (English).
文摘Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) has become a prevalent phenomenon around the world in recent years. Current TCFL pedagogies are influenced by Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language (TESL/TEFL) so much that many traditional TESL/TEFL pedagogies such as the Grammar-Translation approach and the Audio-Lingual approach dominate current Chinese classes. This article provides an introduction and an initial validation of a newly developed pedagogy, Sheltered Initiation Language Learning (SILL), and its recent application in TCFL in San Diego, California. Compared with traditional ESL/EFL pedagogies which have been criticized for the neglect of the learner's communicative development, SILL is innovative for its emphasis on authentic and spontaneous speech, modified input as well as asymmetric teaching sequencing. With these factors, SILL is designed to promote students' oral language skills for communicating effectively in concrete situations. The initial validation of SILL suggests that despite several fallacies in classroom activity designs, SILL is a successful pedagogy welcomed by both teachers and students. Based on these discussions, the article proposes that SILL has the potential to be an effective pedagogy for Chinese Oral Language Teaching.