Pedagogical implications are provided based on the linguistic analysis of the written language of English-speaking learners in their errors with respect to cohesion, information structure, and thematic structure.
Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission, R.O.C. (Taiwan) (2000) investigated Chinese teaching in the U.S. and ranked Chinese textbooks according to the usage rates.
The ranking is displayed below. The results were based on the investigation of 30% of Chinese departments or programs in American’s universities.
Table 8
Textbooks Used in America’s Universities (Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission, R.O.C., 2000)
1 Integrated Chinese (I)
2 Practical Chinese Reader I & II 3 Integrated Chinese (II)
4 Practical Chinese Reader II 5 Taiwan Today by Teng & Perry 6 Chinese Primer
7 A Chinese Text for a Changing China 8 A Trip to China
Luo (2010) investigated the textbooks in 30 universities in the United States, including seven ivy league schools and other colleges known for their Chinese teaching.
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Table 9
Textbooks Used in America’s Universities (Luo, 2010:73-74) Year in the College Ranking Textbook
First-year Chinese
1 Integrated Chinese 2 Practical Chinese Reader
3
Oh, China!
(Elementary Reader of Modern Chinese for Advanced Beginners)
Second-year Chinese
1 Integrated Chinese 2 David and Helen in China
1 All Things Considered 2 Beyond the Basics 3 The Routledge Advanced
Chinese Multimedia Course
Fourth-year Chinese
1 China Scene 2 Anything Goes
She indicated that Integrated Chinese was the most widespread textbook for the first-year and second-year Chinese in US schools, and the gap between the textbook that ranked first (Integrated Chinese) and the second one was huge. As for the third-year and fourth-year Chinese, no leading textbook was found. In other words, textbooks for intermediate and advanced learners at the university level were exposed to many and varied types of Chinese textbooks.
In other words, textbooks for intermediate and advanced learners were various, and the universities had different choices about their Chinese textbooks.
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Based on the surveys above, this study chose the following textbooks to examine the explanation and descriptions in terms of cohesion, information structure and thematic structure.
Table 10
Textbooks Examined in This Study 1 Integrated Chinese I &II
2 New Practical Chinese Reader I, II, III, and IV
3 Oh, China!
(Elementary Reader of Modern Chinese for Advanced Beginners) 4 Chinese Primer (Revised Edition)
5 All Things Considered 6 China Scene
7 Beyond the Basics 8 Anything Goes 9 A Trip to China
10 A Chinese Text for a Changing China
Pedagogical application will be provided according to the research results and the examination of the following textbooks.
5.1.1 Cohesion
This section presents the descriptions and explanations in terms of cohesion in Integrated Chinese and Beyond the Basics. The relevant concepts of cohesion were not found in the following textbooks: New Practical Chinese Reader I, II, III, and IV, Oh, China!, Chinese Primer, All things considered, China Scene, Anything Goes, A trip to China, and A Chinese Text for a Changing China.
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5.1.1.1 Integrated Chinese
Four stages of teaching of cohesion are found in Integrated Chinese: (1) omission of nouns or pronouns, (2) three kinds of cohesive devices (time expressions, place expression, and connectives), (3) the differences between written Chinese and spoken Chinese, (4) “le”as a marker to complete the sentence.
Cohesion I (Level 2: 165)
The textbook (2009) points out that cohesive devices are used to link sentences together in speaking or writing. One of the cohesive devices is omission of nouns or pronouns.
It also indicates that “xuéxiào lǐtáng” (the school auditorium) in (87) (b) and (c) should be deleted in order to connect the sentences, as (87) (d) shows:
(87) (a) 學校禮堂幾乎每天晚上都演電影．
Xuéxiào lǐtáng jīǐhū měitiān wǎnshàng dōu yǎn diànyǐng.
There’s a film at the school auditorium almost every evening.
(b) 學校禮堂演的多半是藝術片．
Xuéxiào lǐtáng yǎn de duōbàn shì yìshùpiàn.
Most of the films shown at the school auditorium are art films.
(c) 學校禮堂偶爾也有紀錄片．
Xuéxiào lǐtáng ǒuěr yě yǒu jìlùpiàn.
Occasionally, there’s a documentary at the school auditorium.
(d) 學校禮堂幾乎每天晚上都演電影，Ø演的多半是藝術片，Ø偶爾也有紀錄
89 片．
Xuéxiào lǐtáng jīǐhū měitiān wǎnshàng dōu yǎn diànyǐng, yǎn de duōbàn shì yìshùpiàn, ǒuěr yě yǒu jìlùpiàn.
There’s a film at the school auditorium almost every evening. Most are art films. Occasionally, there’s a documentary.
In addition, pronouns are deleted due to the cohesion of the discourse. In (88),
“Zhāng Tiānmíng” in (b) and (c) are deleted to connect the sentences to a cohesive discourse (d).
(88) (a) 張天明閒著沒事．
Zhāng Tiānmíng xiánzhe méishì.
Zhang Tianming didn’t have anything to do.
(b) 張天明坐在沙發上看電視．
Zhāng Tiānmíng zuò zài shāfā shàng kàn diànshì.
Zhang Tianming sat on the sofa watching TV.
(c) 張天明等他的女朋友．
Zhāng Tiānmíng děng tāde nǚ péngyǒu.
Zhang Tianming was waiting for his girlfriend.
(d) 張天明閒著沒事，Ø坐在沙發上看電視，Ø等他的女朋友．
Zhāng Tiānmíng xiánzhe méishì, zuò zài shāfā shàng kàn diànshì, děng tāde nǚ péngyǒu.
Zhang Tianming didn’t have anything to do. [He] sat on the sofa watching TV and waiting for his girlfriend.
Furthermore, it also elaborates that Chinese tends to use pronouns to refer to the
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subjects that have appeared previously in the text. For example:
(89) 你沒聽說有個女的向她（女的）男朋友的女兒開槍，她（女的）說她（女的）
以為她（女的）男朋友的女兒是他（男朋友）的另一個女朋友，（女的）還 說她（女的）開槍是因為受了一部電影的影響．
Nǐ méi tīngshuō yǒu ge nǚde xiàng tā (nǚde) nán péngyǒu de nǚér kāiqiāng, tā (nǚde) shuō tā (nǚde) yǐwéi tā (nǚde) nán péngyǒu de nǚér shì tā (nán péngyǒu) de ling yí ge nǚ péngyǒu, (nǚde) hái shuō tā (nǚde) kāiqiāng shì yīnwèi shòu le yí bù diànyǐng de yǐngxiǎng.
Didn’t you hear that there was a woman who shot at her boyfriend’s daughter? She said that she thought that her boyfriend’s daughter was another girlfriend. She also said that the reason that she fired (at her boyfriend’s daughter) was she had been influenced by a film (that she had seen).
Although it is mentioned clearly that nouns and pronouns could be deleted to achieve the cohesion of the discourse, and pronouns are usually used to refer to the subjects that have appeared before, no specific rules are provided. In other words, it is very difficult for students to judge when to use the pronouns and when to use the zero pronouns. Relevant suggestions will be provided in the section “pedagogical application”.
Cohesion II (Level 2: 261)
In the second stage, three kinds of cohesive devices are provided for students to link narrative sentences, as displayed below:
a. Time expressions: 今天(jīntiān)、1998年（1998 nián）、星期五（xīngqīwǔ）、後來
（hòulái）、然後（ránhòu）、這時候（zhè shíhòu）、以後（yǐhòu）、突然（túrán）、
馬上（mǎshàng）
b. Place expressions: 在那兒（zài nàér）、房間裡（fángjiān lǐ）、前面（qiánmiàn）、
91 街上（jiē shàng）
c. Connectives: 因為…所以（yīnwèi…suǒyǐ…）、不但…而且（búdàn…érqiě…）、就
（jiù）、也（yě）
The discourse (90) is provided to present how sentences are linked together.
(90) 張天明今天早上十點起床，十點半吃早飯．十分鐘以後就給麗莎打電話，約她 逛街．然後他開車去接麗莎．幾分鐘以後他們就到了購物中心，在那兒他們 買了很多東西，還在一家中國飯館吃了午飯．下午三點回到了家．
Zhāng Tiānmíng jīntiān zǎoshàng shídiǎn qǐchuáng, shídiǎn bàn chī zǎofàn.
Shífēnzhōng yǐhòu jiù gěi Lìshā dǎdiànhuà, yuē tā guàngjiē. Ránhòu tā kāichē qù jiē Lìshā. Jǐ fēnzhōng yǐhòu tāmen jiù dào le gòuwù zhōngxīn, zài near tāmen mǎi le hěnduō dōngxī, háizài yì jiā Zhōngguó fànguǎn chī le wǔfàn. Xiàwǔ sāndiǎn huí dào le jiā.
Zhang Tianming got up at 10:00 this morning. At 10:30 he had breakfast. Ten minutes later [he] called Lisa and asked her to go shopping. Then he went to pick up Lisa in his car. Several minutes later they arrived at the shopping center.
There they bought a lot of things. They also had lunch at a Chinese restaurant.
At 3:00 PM they got back home.
This section indicates that time expressions, place expressions, and connectives function as cohesive devices in Chinese writing. However, the expressions listed are not sufficient because more expressions are needed in a Chinese composition, especially for the category of connectives. More details will be discussed in the section “pedagogical application”.
Cohesion III (Level 2: 283)
In the third stage, the textbook indicates that written Chinese differs from spoken Chinese in four aspects. First, written Chinese has longer sentences and more modifiers.
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Second, words that are the vestiges of classical Chinese are used in the written style.
Third, more connectives are used in a written form. Last, function words tend to be monosyllabic.
An exercise of linking sentences is provided for students to practice writing a discourse. In this exercise, 18 sentences as well as some connectives are displayed. Two steps are presented to guide the learners. The first step is to omit superfluous nouns and pronouns, followed by the second step in which students are required to adjust the word order based on the old-new information. The textbook content is not displayed because of the limited space in this article. The researcher believes the practice is very helpful for students to develop their concept of cohesion and their writing ability. However, as noted above, more rules and introductions should be contained in the textbook to make the content more complete.
Cohesion IV (Level 2: 310)
In the fourth stage, the textbook indicates that “le” at the end of a sentence signals the completion of a sentence. Therefore, “le” could function well in a discourse to signal the completion of the narration.
The following passage (91) is provided in the textbook to explain how “le”
functions as the marker of completion.
(91) 去年我去中國旅行．先到南京遊覽（了）中山陵、夫子廟、和玄武湖公園，後 來到西安遊覽（了）名勝古蹟，最後去上海買東西，在中國待了差不多一個 月．
Qùnián wǒqù Zhōngguó lǚxíng. Xiān dào Nánjīng yóulǎn (le) Zhōngshānlíng, fūzimiào, hé xuánwǔhú gōngyuán, hòulái dào Xīān yóulǎn (le) míngshèng gǔjī, zuìhòu qù Shànghǎi mǎi dōngxī, zài Zhōngguó dài le chàbùduō yíge yuè.
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Last year I took a trip to China. First, I went to Nanjing and toured Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum, the Confucian Temple, and Lake Xuanwu. Then I went to Xi’an and saw some famous historic sights. Finally, I went shopping in Shanghai. I stayed in China for almost a month.
As for conjunctions, this study attempted to investigate all conjunctions that students used incorrectly in their Chinese compositions. One of the most typical textbooks “Integrated Chinese” was chosen. Every conjunction was looked up, and descriptions as well as examples were listed in Appendix B.
As for the omission of conjunctions, the sets of conjunctions such as
“yīnwèi…suǒyǐ…” and “suīrán…dànshì, kěshì” were not clearly explained. There are no specific rules to illustrate how the sets should appear together in Chinese. Thus, students failed to produce coherent and cohesive sentences. Furthermore, there should be several steps to elaborate how usage changes with different situations.
For other omissions of conjunctions, some resulted from the complex and various meanings of one word, some were caused due to lack of understanding by the student of the functions of conjunction. In the investigation of the words in the category of mis-selection of conjunction, some conjunctions with similar meanings and subtle differences are not compared together and given clear explanation of their differences.
For addition of conjunction, the English translations presented in the textbook are not sufficient for students to produce the conjunctions correctly in the consideration of contexts in the discourse. In addition, examples at the discourse level are not found.
Therefore, lack of information in the textbooks negatively impacts in students’ ability to correctly use conjunctions at the discourse level.
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5.1.1.2 Beyond the Basics
Discourse Connectors (Lesson I: 7)
The textbook points out that for an intermediate high or advanced student, it is extremely important to learn how to use discourse connectors because learners need to focus on how to speak and write coherent paragraphs. Three of the most commonly used discourse connectors are discussed in detail: “érqiě, bìng” (and, but also); ”dànshì, kěshì” (but, however); and “huò (zhě) ” (or). However, it still does not provide clear rules of how to use these conjunctions. In addition, the common correlative connectors of “suīrá..,dànshì..” and “búdàn…érqiě…” are not mentioned in the textbook.
Discourse Function of Pronouns (Lesson IX: 10)
Two rules are given in the use of pronouns: (1) pronouns must be specified by the speaker the first time they are used in the discourse, (2) pronouns must be used when they cannot be understood by both the speaker and the listener in the given context.
(92) Clause 1: 喂，老王，Wèi, lǎowáng,
Clause 2: ø今天有事嗎？Jīntiān yǒu shì ma?
Clause 3: 沒有的話，méiyǒu dehuà,
Clause 4: 我們去看電影好嗎？Wǒmen qù kàn diànyǐng hǎo ma?
Clause 5: ø然後還可以到公園轉轉．Ránhòu hái kěyǐ dào gōngyuán zhuànzhuàn.
Clause 6: 我在家裡待煩了，Wǒ zài jiālǐ dài fánle, Clause 7: 很想到外邊去．hěn xiǎng dào wàibiān qù.
Clause 8: ø怎麼樣？Zěnmeyàng?
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“Hello, elder Wang, are (you) free today? If (you) do not have anything to do, we can go to see a movie. Then (we) can go to the park and take a walk. I am pretty bored at home, and (I) really want to go out. What do (you) think? Do (you) want to go (to see the movie and to the park) or not?”
In Clause 1 and 2, the second person is omitted because both of them refer to Lao Wang, which is specified at the beginning of the conversation. “Wǒmen” in Clause 4 could not be omitted because it would be unclear to whom the person intends to refer. In Clause 5, the pronoun is omitted since it has been specified in Clause 4. In Clause 8 and 9, it makes no effort to identify who the person is; therefore, there is no need to add pronouns.
Even though the textbook indicates two rules for students to follow, it still does not clearly specify the rules of when to use the pronouns and the zero pronouns.
(93) 白雪公主吃了這個毒蘋果之後呢，a Ø就昏睡不醒。七個小矮人回到家裡面，b Ø看到昏睡的白雪公主，c 他們‧‧
非常傷心，d Ø又很悲憤，e所以他們‧‧
決定要去 找那個壞心的王后嗯算帳。
Báixuě gōngzhǔ chī le zhè ge dú píngguǒ zhīhòu ne, jiù hūnshuì bù xǐng. Qī ge xiǎo ǎirén huí dào jiā lǐmiàn, kàn dào hūnshuì de báixuě gōngzhǔ, tāmen fēicháng shāngxīn, yòu hěn bēifèn, suǒyǐ tāmen juédìng yào qù zhǎo nà ge huàixīn de wánghòu ēn suànzhàng.
After Snow White ate the poisoned apple, she fainted away. Seven dwarves came home and saw her in unconscious status. They were very sad and angry, so they decided to go to the evil queen and take revenge.
（Teng 2000: 92）
For instance, in (93), the pronouns in a and b could be omitted because the person has been specified at the beginning “báixuě gōngzhǔ”. The first rule applies well.
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Nevertheless, the second rule is apparently not sufficient for the use of pronouns. In other words, there are other circumstances in which pronouns should be used. The second rule is that pronouns need to be used when the person intended to refer to could not be understood by both the speaker and the listener in the context. In c and e, “qī ge xiǎo ǎirén” is the only possible referent in the text if a zero pronoun instead of “tāmen”
is used. Hence, there are more rules of pronouns in the system of cohesion in Chinese.
In addition, the example in the textbook is a conversation which is different from a narrative or other types of writing.
Sentence Linking Words (Lesson XII: 11)
This section provides a brief summary of linking words. Two types of linking words are introduced: one is to link sentences in the immediately following discourse, the other is to connect sentences in the immediately preceding discourse. The textbook also lists 35 most commonly used conjunctions in Chinese. However, no further explicit explanation of usage or examples are provided.
As analyzed above, only two among ten most popular textbooks present and discuss the concepts in cohesion. This reflects the weakness of discourse in Chinese teaching. Furthermore, the discussions in Integrated Chinese and Beyond the Basics are simple explanations of the concept of cohesion. There is still much room for improvement. Pedagogical applications will be presented in later sections of this chapter.
5.1.2 Information Structure and Thematic Structure
As for information and thematic structures, relevant concepts are found in
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Integrated Chinese, Oh, China!, and Chinese Primer, as presented in the following text.
The other seven textbooks do not contain the content (New Practical Chinese Reader I, II, III, and IV, All things considered, China Scene, Beyond the Basics, Anything Goes, A trip to China, and A Chinese Text for a Changing China).
5.1.2.1 Integrated Chinese
Topic-comment Sentences (Level 1: 264-265)
The textbook mentions that when a noun or noun phrase is the known element in a conversation, it could serve as a “topic” at the beginning of the sentence. The rest of the sentence is a “comment” which the topic relates to. In a “topic-comment sentence”, the object of the verb could be brought forward to serve as the topic of the sentence.
(94) A: 我昨天買了一本書．
B: 那本書你看了嗎？
A: Wǒ zuótiān mǎi le yì běn shū.
B: Nà běn shū nǐ kàn le ma?
A: I bought a book yesterday.
B: Did you read that book?
In (94), A has mentioned the book he bought; therefore, the old information “nà běn shū” (the book) is used in the beginning by B to relate to the question “nǐ kàn le ma?” (did you read it?).
In addition, the textbook argues that if a noun signifies something that is known, and the adjective describing it delivers new information, the noun should be positioned at the beginning of the sentence as the “topic”, followed by the adjective, to form the
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unmarked order of a sentence (old-new information) (Level 2: 309), as the following
unmarked order of a sentence (old-new information) (Level 2: 309), as the following