2.2 Previous Empirical Studies of Mandarin Clefts and Pseudo-Clefts
2.2.3 Liao (2014)
Liao (2014) discussed Taiwanese students’ acquisition of English it-clefts by observing the issues of L1 transfer, difficulty hierarchy of English it-clefts, and contrastive effects.
Sixty freshmen were recruited and divided into three groups according to their English language proficiency. In addition, 20 native English speakers participated in this experiment as a control group for further observation. An acceptability judgment (AJ) task was performed.
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The L1 transfer was found to affect learners’ L2 acquisition. The study revealed no positive transfer, but only negative transfer, in L2 learners’ performances and showed that L2 learners’ performances were affected by their L1 knowledge. Thus, the transfer effect
was clear.
The second crucial issue was the difficulty hierarchy of different types of English
it-clefts. The results showed that L2 learners’ performances on the seven cleft types were
significantly different (p = 0.000). The difficulty hierarchy of the seven cleft types is presented in (17) (Liao 2014, p.65).
(17) NP/Zero/PP > N-F CL/ADV P > FIN CL > ADJ P
Regarding the performances of each proficiency group, only the high-proficiency group exhibited near native-like performance. The low- and intermediate-proficiency groups did not show such an inclination. Liao (2014) further explained that English it-cleft sentences are marked sentences for low and intermediate learners, thus making it difficult for L2 learners to demonstrate native-like performances. Liao’s findings showed that L2 proficiency was a factor influencing L2 learners’ performances on English cleft
acquisition.
The contrastive effects were also examined, and the results revealed that cleft sentences with contrasting information provided sentences with more cues and did not
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affect L2 learners’ performances. As L2 learners’ language proficiency improved, they no longer needed this contrastive information to learn cleft sentences. Accordingly, the contrastive effects were not obvious in the study.
In summary, the study examined four critical issues regarding English cleft acquisition: the transfer effect, cleft type effect, L2 proficiency effect, and contrastive effect. The effects of L2 proficiency and cleft type were clearly exhibited. However, the study did not consider other English clefts such as pseudo-clefts. Furthermore, Liao did not mention or examine whether the pragmatic functions of clefts were factors influencing L2 learners’ cleft acquisition.
2.2.4 Mai and Yuan (2016)
Mai and Yuan (2016) examined how semantic and pragmatic features of Mandarin cleft sentences are acquired by adult English-speaking learners. They first argued that Mandarin cleft sentences include three features ([+past], [+telic], and [+given]). Mai and Yuan claimed that Mandarin clefts have an obligatory past-tense reading, as demonstrated in (18), and that this reading is incompatible with the future-oriented temporal adverbials, as exemplified in (19). Thus, Mandarin clefts are assumed to possess a [past] feature5 (Paul & Whitman 2008):
5 According to our observations, Mandarin clefts may denote present events, as illustrated in (i):
(i)Hua shi Xiaming xihuan de.
flower SHI Xiaming like DE
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(18) Obligatory past-tense reading
Mali shi cong Xianggang qu Meiguo de.
Mary SHI via Hong Kong go America DE
‘It was via Hong Kong that Mary went to the US.’
‘*It is via Hong Kong that Mary (will) go to the US.’ (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.249)
(19) Incompatible with future-oriented temporal adverbials *Mali shi mingtian qu Meiguo de.
Mary SHI tomorrow go America DE
Intended: ‘It is tomorrow that Mary will go to the US.’ (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.249) Moreover, the VP of a Mandarin cleft must be telic (Cheng 2008, Paul & Whitman 2008). Stative VPs cause unacceptability6, as in (20).
(20) Incompatible with stative predicates
*Mali shi zuotian hen shengqi de.
Mary SHI yesterday very angry DE
Intended: ‘It was yesterday that Mary was very angry.’ (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.249)
As Mai and Yuan (2016) indicated, the VP event in Mandarin clefts is typically discourse-given information, whereas in Mandarin declarative sentences, the VP event denotes a new change of state. Therefore, in a context where the speaker verbalizes an event and adds information about the time of the same event, a cleft sentence such as (21) is chosen. However, if the speaker wishes to describe two sequential past events, a
‘It is flowers that Xiaoming likes.’
6 According to our committee members, the VP in a Mandarin cleft can be compatible with a stative predicate, as shown in (i), where ‘hen renzhen’ is stative:
(ii) Ta shi hen renzhen.
he SHI very hardworking ‘He is very hardworking.’
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declarative sentence such as (22) is preferred. Hence, Mai and Yuan argued that Mandarin clefts have a [given] feature, whereas Mandarin declarative sentences do not have such a feature (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.251).
(21) Same-event context
‘It was yesterday that she broke it. She broke it yesterday.’
(22) Different-event context
Wo shangge xingqi song le Xiaozhang yi tai diannao.
1SG last week give PERF Xiaozhang one CL computer
‘I gave Xiao Zhang a computer last week.’
Continuation:
? Ta shi zuotian nonghuai de/ Ta zuotian nonghuai le.
3SG SHI yesterday break DE. 3SG yesterday break PERF
‘It was yesterday that she broke it. She broke it yesterday.’
On the basis of this observation, Mai and Yuan (2016) investigated whether English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese had acquired Mandarin cleft features. They also investigated whether these learners map their L1 cleft knowledge to their L2 Mandarin
cleft acquisition. In English, [past] and [telic] features are not associated with it-clefts.
Thus, if L1–L2 mapping is observed in the performance of English-speaking learners of
Mandarin Chinese, the results should demonstrate that L2 learners did not acquire the
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[past] and [telic] features. Furthermore, English it-clefts were assumed to be different from Mandarin clefts in that English it-clefts are not triggered by the [given] feature to mark the distinction between discourse-new and discourse-given information; instead, English it-clefts are triggered by the [focus] feature to mark the distinction. If English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese map the [focus] feature to Mandarin cleft acquisition, they might use Mandarin clefts as English it-clefts. The feature sets of L1 and L2 clefts are shown schematically in (23) (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.255).
(23)
To test these predictions, Mai and Yuan (2016) compared data from four groups (LI, HI, advanced, and native). The subjects performed sentence completion (SC), multiple choice question (MCQ), acceptability judgment (AJ), and sentence ranking tasks. The results first indicated that LI learners interpreted the cleft sentences as past-tense sentences only 46% of the time. The percentage was similar to that of the past-tense interpretation of declarative sentences (bare shi sentences). This shows that they did not associate the Mandarin clefts with a fixed past-tense reading. However, as the L2 learners’ proficiency improved, their performances in Mandarin Chinese became more native-like.
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Table 2-2 Group Choices (out of 6) in Multiple Choice Questions
Second, the [telic] feature was examined. The results of the AJ task are listed in Table 2-3 (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.111).
Table 2-3 Mean Ratings in Acceptability Judgment (Telicity, Scale 1–4).
The native Mandarin speakers strongly rejected *[−telic] shi … de. Concerning the English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese, the HI and LI learners achieved correctness rates of only 43% and 10%, respectively. The advanced group showed a 71%
target-like rate, signifying that [telic] was not typically assembled in Mandarin clefts.
The findings for the [given] feature are presented in Table 2-4 (Mai & Yuan 2016, p.265).
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Table 2-4 Group Ratings in Sentence Ranking (Scale 0–6).
Table 2-4 reveals that native speakers had a clear preference for Mandarin clefts in the same-event context and a clear preference for declaratives in the different-event context.
Nevertheless, such phenomena were not clearly exhibited among the performances of the English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese. The two intermediate groups did not show any clear preference for clefts or declarative sentences in either context. The members of the advanced group were aware of the contextual differences and the fact that cleft sentences were more felicitous in the same-event context. On the basis of the results, Mai and Yuan (2016) concluded that English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese did not acquire the [past], [telic], and [given] features. These results demonstrate that English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese mapped their L1 cleft knowledge to Mandarin cleft acquisition. The [past] and [telic] features were not acquired because English it-clefts do not have these features. The [given] feature was not acquired, thus suggesting
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that the English-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese were still using the [focus]
feature to differentiate the discourse-new and discourse-given information.
In brief, the study claimed that Mandarin clefts have three features, namely [past], [telic], and [given]. The results also showed that English-speaking learners had not acquired the semantic and pragmatic features of Mandarin clefts. However, in the study, the pragmatic functions of clefts were not clearly presented and examined. Moreover, the study did not investigate Mandarin pseudo-clefts. Hence, more research would be desirable.
2.2.5 Summary
Table 2-5 presents a summary of the major findings and limitations of the empirical studies.
Table 2-5 Major Findings and Limitations of the Empirical Studies
Major Findings Limitations
Xie (2008) 1. Transfer Effects: Yes
Beginners tended to transfer their L1 knowledge to L2.
2. Cleft Type Effects: Yes
Different cleft types yielded different difficulties for L2 learners.
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Irgin (2013) 1. Transfer Effects: Yes L1 influence was adopted.
2. Different Structural cleft types posed difficulties for L2 learners.
1. L1 interference and L2 complexity were not clearly discussed.
2. Cleft type effects were not discussed.
Table 2-5 shows that L1 interference effects were mentioned by most of the studies (Irgin 2013, Liao 2014, Mai & Yuan 2016, Xie 2008). However, these studies did not discuss this issue clearly. Because of this limitation, the current study was also conducted to determine whether L1 interference influences Japanese-speaking learners’ performances on Mandarin Chinese cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences. In addition, the structural complexity effect was not clearly examined in the studies presented in Section 2.2 (Irgin 2013, Liao 2014, Mai & Yuan 2016, Xie 2008). As mentioned in Chapter One, structural complexity might be a factor affecting L2 learners’ language acquisition (DeKeyser 2008, Housen et al., 2005, Williams and Evans 1998). Hence, we assumed that structural
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complexity is a critical issue that requires further investigation. In addition, the cleft types and contextual effects mentioned in Chapter One were not clearly discussed in these studies.
According to the mentioned limitations, the present study investigated the structural complexity, cleft types, and contextual effects by observing Japanese-speaking learners’ performance levels on Mandarin Chinese clefts and pseudo-clefts.
2.3 Summary
In this chapter, the syntactic structures of Mandarin and Japanese clefts and pseudo-clefts are explored, and four empirical studies conducted on L2 learners’ acquisition of English or Mandarin clefts are reviewed.
Empirical studies have shown that L1 interference is a factor affecting L2 learners’
cleft acquisition. However, structural complexity, cleft type, and contextual effects have not been clearly examined in these studies. Because few studies have investigated Japanese-speaking learners’ acquisition of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts, we conducted an empirical study on these issues to determine whether the factors (structural complexity, cleft type, and contextual effects) influence Japanese-speaking learners’
performances. The research design of the current study is introduced in Chapter Three.
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C HAPTER T HREE
R ESEARCH D ESIGN
In this chapter, the research design of the present study is illustrated in detail.
Section 3.1 presented the description of the subjects. Section 3.2 introduces the methods and materials. In Section 3.3, the experimental procedures are described.
3.1 Subjects
The subjects in the study were 30 Japanese-speaking adults: 15 low-intermediate (LI) and 15 high-intermediate (HI) and 15 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The Japanese-speaking adults’ Mandarin Chinese proficiency was assessed and categorized according to the Mandarin Chinese placement test from the Mandarin Training Center (MTC) at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), Taipei, Taiwan. They had no prior experience in learning Mandarin clefts and were studying Mandarin Chinese as their L2 at the MTC. In addition, a control group, comprising 15 native speakers of Mandarin
Chinese, was recruited to facilitate the task of observing whether Japanese-speaking learners’ cleft performances were similar to those of the native speakers. Our subjects in
the control group were students who chose Mandarin Chinese as their major or minor at NTNU. A summary of the subjects is presented as follows.
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Table 3-1 Summary of the Subjects
Group Language Proficiency Mean Age Number
LI Low Intermediate Level 24.43 15
HI High Intermediate Level 27.03 15
Control Native Speaker 19 15
Total 45
3.2 Methods and Materials
Qualitative (longitudinal) and quantitative (cross-sectional) methods have often been applied in studies regarding language acquisition (Cook & Reichardt 1979, Larsen-Freeman 1991, Walliman 2011). In a qualitative study, researchers observe a group of people or an individual case over a specific period. The advantages of conducting a
qualitative study are that researchers can collect data over a long period and observe L2 learners’ language performances in a natural setting. However, this type of study usually
takes a long time to complete and cannot ensure that the target structure can be triggered in a natural context. By contrast, a quantitative study entails measuring and expressing data numerically, and the results are thus more objective and accurate. Through a quantitative study, researchers can have a more effective control of the test items to test particular sentence structures. Because Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts are marked sentences that cannot be easily elicited in a natural context, the present study adopted a quantitative method to investigate JSLs’ acquisition of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts.
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As discussed in Chapters One and Two, the following three main factors may influence L2 learners’ cleft acquisition: syntax (Xie 2008), cleft types (Liao 2014), and
pragmatics (Mai & Yuan 2016). To determine whether these factors affect Japanese-speaking learners’ cleft performances, three studies were conducted.
3.2.1 Study I
Previous empirical studies (Liao 2014, Mai & Yuan 2016, Xie 2008) have conducted various tasks to test L2 learners’ competence with cleft sentences. Xie (2008) used a grammaticality judgment (GJ) task to test L2 learners’ intuition of the
well-formedness of cleft sentences, whereas Liao (2014) and Mai and Yuan (2016) have conducted an acceptability judgment (AJ) task to test L2 learners’ preferences for cleft
sentences. In the present study, to observe whether Japanese-speaking learners’
performances can be affected by structural complexity, we investigated the learners’
intuitive judgment about two constructions (clefts and pseudo-clefts). A GJ task is effective because it can be employed to test whether L2 learners are sensitive to syntactic
differences. Thus, the present study adopted this task. AJ tasks are mainly used to test L2 learners’ acceptance of sentences, but not their intuition of sentence structures. Hence, it
was unsuitable for Study I.
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In the GJ task, the length of the sentences and the vocabulary choice were controlled to prevent the results from being affected by external factors. The task included two sentence types, namely grammatical and the ungrammatical sentences. The grammatical and ungrammatical sentence types included three and six questions, respectively. Additional four filler questions were added to the task as distractors. These questions were designed to test whether the subjects could distinguish between the well-formed and the ill-well-formed sentences. Table 3-2 presents the structure of the GJ task:
Table 3-2 Test Items for the Grammatical Judgment Task Sentence Types Questions
Grammatical 3 Qs 2, 5, 16 Ungrammatical 6 Qs 1, 3, 6,7, 8, 10 Fillers 7 Qs 4,9,11,12,13,14,15
Total 16
In the GJ task, the subjects were asked to judge whether a sentence was correct on the basis of its structure. Two examples are presented as follows:
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Table 3-3 Test Samples of the Grammatical Judgment Task
Example (a) is grammatical in Mandarin Chinese, whereas (b) is not. Thus, our subjects should mark (a) with an O and (b) with an X. For the complete version of the GJ task, please refer to Appendix A.
3.2.2 Study II
As mentioned in Section 3.2.1, Acceptability Judgment tasks are mainly used to test L2 learners’ preferences for different cleft types (Liao 2014, Mai & Yuan 2016), whereas GJ tasks assess L2 learners’ understanding of the syntactic structures of
Mandarin clefts. By conducting an AJ task, we could investigate Japanese-speaking learners’ interpretation of different cleft sentences. Therefore, an AJ task was considered
to be suitable for Study II.
1 In the formal test, the test items were presented in Mandarin Chinese. Since our subjects have reached the intermediate level, we assumed that they were able to read the Chinese characters in this task.
( ) a. Zhangsan shi Xiaoming xihuan de.1 Zhangsan SHI Xiaoming like DE ‘It is Xiaoming who likes Zhangsan.’
( ) b. Xiaoming xihuan Zhangsan shi de.
Xiaoming like Zhangsan SHI DE
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3.2.2.1 An Analytical Framework
According to Xie (2008) and Liao (2014), L2 learners’ performance is affected by
cleft type differences. Therefore, to clearly examine whether JSLs cleft interpretation is influenced by the substitution of focus phrases as previous studies have claimed, a new classification was necessary to help us conduct an in-depth investigation.
In this section, analytical frameworks for the sentence configuration of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts are presented in (1a) and (1b), respectively.
(1) a. Cleft Configuration: Subject + shi + cleaved XP + (de)2
b. Pseudo-Cleft Configuration: Sentence + (de) + (Noun) + shi + cleaved XP
The 2 major types and 10 subtypes of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts are illustrated as follows.
Type 1: S + shi + cleaved NP + de
In a Mandarin cleft, the cleaved NP can be either definite or indefinite as in (2a) and (2b), respectively.
(2) a. Zhe xie hua shi Mali xihuan de.
this CL flower SHI Mary like DE ‘It is Mary that likes these flowers.’
b. Chuanghu shi yige nanhai dapo de.
window SHI one-CL boy broke DE
‘It is a boy that broke the window.’ (Zhang 2012, p.144)
2 In some types of cleft sentences, de is omitted.
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‘It is Xiaoming that like you.’
b.*Ta shi didaji chang de.
he SHI arrive airport DE
*’It is arrived at the airport that she has.’
In (3), the VP in the focal part of (3a) is transitive, whereas the VP in the focal part of (3b) is intransitive. When an intransitive VP is inserted, the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
Thus, in Mandarin VP clefts, the cleaved VP must be transitive.
Type 3: S + shi + cleaved PP + (de)
Lee (2005), Liao (2014), Tang (1980), and Xie (2008) have noted that a cleaved PP that denotes location is grammatical in Mandarin Chinese.
(4) a. Wo jiari shi zai tushuguan dushu de.
I weekend SHI in library study DE
‘It is in the library that I studied during the weekend.’
b. Zhangsan shi cong zhejian yinhang touqian de.
zhangsan SHI from this bank stole DE ‘It is from this bank that Zhangsan stole money.’
In Mandarin Chinese, two types of prepositions, namely zai and cong, denote location.
These prepositions can form a PP and be the focal part of Mandarin clefts.
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Type 4: S + shi + cleaved ADJP + (de)
An adjective phrase as the cleaved XP can denote size as in (5):
(5) Zhe jian fangzi shi henda de.
this CL house SHI big DE
‘It is big that this house is.’ (Liao 2014, p.40)
Moreover, de in an ADJ cleft can be optional in Mandarin Chinese, as in (6):
(6) Zhe ge nusheng shi hen piaoliang.
this CL girl SHI very beautiful ‘It is very beautiful that the girl is.’
Thus, an ADJP can be in the focal position of a Mandarin cleft and de is optional.
Type 5: S + shi + cleaved ADVP + (de)
The ADVP in a Mandarin cleft sentence can be either a time adverbial or a manner adverbial:
(7) a. Women shi zuotian gang renshi (de).
we SHI yesterday just meet DE
‘It was yesterday that we met each other for the first time.’
. b.Wo shi manman kaiche de.
I SHI slowly drive DE ‘It is slowly that I drive.’
The focal phrase in (7a) is a time ADVP Mandarin cleft, whereas that in (7b) is a manner ADVP. The two cleft types are both grammatical in Mandarin Chinese. Moreover,
de in the ADVP clefts is optional, similar to ADJP clefts.
Type 6: S + de shi + cleaved NP
By observing NP pseudo-clefts in Mandarin Chinese, we found that the focused NP can be either definite or indefinite.
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indefinite NP. This type of cleft is commonly used in Mandarin Chinese.
Type 7: S + V + de shi + cleaved VP
Another pseudo-cleft type in Mandarin Chinese is the VP pseudo-cleft type (Xie 2008). In a Mandarin VP pseudo-cleft, the VP must be transitive.
(9) a. Zhangsan zuo de gongzuo shi dasao fangjian.
Zhangsan do DE work SHI tidy up room
‘What Zhangsan did was tidy up the room.’ (Ishihara 2012, p58) b. *Zhangsan zuo de shi dida jichang.
Zhangsan did DE SHI arrive airport
*‘What Zhangsan did was arrive at the airport.’
When an intransitive verb is placed in the focal part of the cleft sentence, as in (9b), the
result is ungrammatical. Therefore, the VP in the focal part must be transitive.
Type 8: S + V + shi + cleaved PP
When the cleaved XP is a PP denoting location, the resulting Mandarin pseudo-cleft sentence is grammatical (Lee 2005).
(10) Zhangsan jiandao Mali (*de) shi zai donjing chezhan.
Zhangsan meet Mary (DE) SHI at Tokyo station ‘Where John met Mary was at Tokyo station.’
In a PP-focused Mandarin pseudo-cleft, de is unnecessary. Adding de results in the
In a PP-focused Mandarin pseudo-cleft, de is unnecessary. Adding de results in the