Jiang Wenying. Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language

Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. — xv, 320 pages. — (Studies on Language Acquisition). — ISBN: 978-3-11-021618-9; ISSN: 1861-4248.Research in the field of Chinese as a second/foreign language (L2) acquisition, at present, does not match the increasing demand to learn Chinese as an L2, given that Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada, UK and Australia.Particularly, research in Chinese L2 word order acquisition requires more attention because word order plays a more complex role in Chinese than in English due to the fact that Chinese relies heavily on word order for information structuring. Experience with Chinese L2 learning and teaching shows that ChineseStatus of second language acquisition research in Chinese
Importance of word order in grammar
Centrality of word order in Chinese
Cross-linguistic comparison of Chinese and English word orders
The problem: how to describe and explain Chinese L2 word order errors?
Objectives and research questions
Significance of the study
An overview of the book
Terminology issues in this study
Literature review (1)
Theoretical approaches applied in L2 word order acquisition research
The Universal Grammar approach
The Processability Theory approach
The Competition Model approach
The Cognitive Functionalist ApproachLiterature review (2)
Chinese L2 word order acquisition, word order errors and word order principles
Studies of Chinese L2 word order acquisition
Studies on Chinese L2 word order errors
Explanatory value of PTS and WBP for Chinese L2 word order errors
Underlying principles governing Chinese word order and its variations
The proposed criterion for categorizing Chinese L2 word order errorsResearch methodology
Broad methodological concerns
A cross-sectional research design
Error Analysis (EA)The study
Data collection
Data analysisA principle-based taxonomy of Chinese L2 word order errorsKo’s (1997) three-category taxonomy
A principle-based taxonomy of word order errors
Characteristics and significance of the principle-based taxonomyChinese L2 word order errors: Relative frequency of occurrence
Calculation method of word order error rates
Error rates for all word order error categories in the new taxonomyA brief review of research objectives
Summary of the findings and contributions
Limitations
Pedagogical implications of the findings
Suggested topics for further research
Concluding remarks