Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1982.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wyoming, 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 18, 2007). Includes bibliographical references (p. 126-140).

The study aims to investigate how deaf learners with impoverished linguistic input in early life acquire Chinese passives and to what extent it impacts their ultimate attainment of the target structures defined in terms of knowledge representations and processing efficiency. While research on how deaf learners acquire syntactic movement remains scanty, available evidence with English, Hebrew, Arabic and Italian as target languages suggests difficulty in acquiring structures derived by A’-movement generally invoked in object relative clauses, object questions, and OVS topicalizations (Friedmann & Szterman,2006, 2011; Friedmann & Haddad,2008; Volpato & Adani, 2009; etc.). / In this study, we focused on Chinese passives because they involve non-canonical word order (i.e. O-BEI-(S)-V) as well as long distance dependencies. To account for the base-generated NP which is associated with the object of the embedded VP of Chinese bei-passives, Huang(1999) and Huang et al. (2009) argue for A-movement of PROin short bei-passives and A’-movement of a null operator in long bei-passives, assuming that the empty category merges with the embedded V in Chinese bei-passives and is subsequently coindexed with the grammatical subject through control or predication. Semantically, canonical Chinese passives are said to impose constraints on verb transitivity (Huang, 2013),and under some specific conditions, telicity of the embedded VP(Yang, 1995; Yang, 2012), the latter of which usually requires specific verb complement structures. / Three experiments were designed to investigate these issues.The picture selection task investigated how deaf learners developed knowledge of syntactic derivations involved in long bei-passives and short bei-passives; the grammaticality judgment task tested whether deaf learners acquired knowledge that intransitive verbs, like unaccusative and unergative verbs, are not allowed in canonical Chinese passives; and lastly,the elicited production task investigated deaf learners’ production of verb complements targeted in this study, namely activity-resultative complement [V+R], activity-completive complement [V+C], and activity-locative/directional complement [V+L], as it has been argued by Yang (1995) and Yang (2012) that these verb complements encode a telic event. In addition to examining their knowledge of Chinese passives, we also measured their response time in the first two tasks as a means to examine their efficiency in processing the structures in question. / Thirty five deaf learners aged between 14 and 24 took part in the current study. They were divided into three groups based on levels of Chinese proficiency. From the perspective of knowledge representations, their acquisition outcomes were highly variable, unlike the first language acquirers but similar to second language learners. In general, only those deaf learners at Level 3 completely acquired the syntactic derivations involved in passives while a great majority of the deaf learners at Levels 1 and 2 failed to demonstrate full mastery of the relevant linguistic structures. In addition, about half of the deaf learners at Levels 1 and 2 failed to recognize the verb transitivity constraint of the embedded VP in Chinese bei-passives, as they wrongly judged the passives with an intransitive verb to be grammatical. As for the knowledge of encoding telicity using verb complement structures, deaf learners at all levels experienced much difficulty and resorted to adopting the perfective aspect marker ‘le’ instead. Such difficulty persisted for a long time, as even deaf university students failed to acquire such knowledge ultimately, implying that verb complement structures for encoding a telic eventmight become a vulnerable residual domain to deaf learners in acquisition terms. / In terms of types of passives, the results showed that they developed Chinese passives in the order pseudo passives > short bei-passives > long bei-passives, similar to the Mandarin-speaking children, albeit at a slower rate (Xu & Yang, 2008).Also, deaf learners found it easy to acquire A-movement of an overt NP in pseudo passives. However, they experienced much difficulty with short passives and long passives. We argue that the cause of such difficulty is the syntactic movement which in this case involves an empty category (i.e. PRO and NOP) that needs to be coindexed with the grammatical subject in order to yield a correct interpretation regarding the thematic role of the subject NP.The extremely late acquisition of long bei-passives, as we argue, shares a similar acquisition process involved in first language acquisition of English tough constructions (Guasti, 2002; Anderson, 2005; Wexler, 2012; etc.). In their analysis, the late acquisition might be due to maturation of the null operator or Universal Phase Requirement that holds among children whose developing grammar takes the aP (i.e. the adjective Phrase as in ‘Everyone is tough for us to please.’) in the tough constructions to bea phase, preventing T from probing beyond the edge of aP leaving the phi-features of T remain unchecked. / Another aspect of ultimate attainment as measured in the current study is response time used by the deaf learners to process the relevant linguistic structures. Results showed that deaf learners’computational capacities are highly constrained. Even deaf university students who performed just as well as the native controls on the comprehension and judgement of linguistic knowledge of passives still demonstrated low processing efficiency. It is suggested that impoverished linguistic input in the early years, as well as continually inadequate input impedes language acquisition and language processing. / 本文旨在研究聋人在早期语言输入贫乏的环境下如何获得汉语被动式，以及它在何种程度上影响聋人目标语的最终获得状态，包括语言知识的呈现(knowledge representations) 和语言处理的效率(processing efficiency)。长期以来，关于聋人如何获得句法移位(syntactic movement)的研究极少，现有的研究主要来自英语，希伯来语，阿拉伯语和意大利语，并且发现聋人在获得通过非论元移位(A’-movement)派生而来的语法结构时存在许多困难，如宾语关系子句(object relative clause)，宾语疑问句(object questions)，以及宾语位于句首的话题句(OVS topicalizations) (Friedmann & Szterman, 2006, 2011; Friedmann et al., 2008; Volpato & Adani, 2009; etc.)。 / 研究聋人汉语被动式的获得，不仅因为被动式的非典型语序(i.e. O-BEI-(S)-V)，还因为汉语长短被动句句式中蕴含的长距离依赖关系。Huang (1999)和Huang et al. (2009)提出汉语短被动句的生成源自大代词(PRO)的论元移位(A-movement)，长被动句的生成源自空算子(null operator)的非论元移位(A’-movement)，通过移位，这两个空语类通过控制(control)或述谓(predication)与长短被动句中基础生成的(base-generated)主语同指。从语义的角度来看，典型的汉语被动式内嵌动词短语(embedded VP)具有及物性(transitivity)(Huang, 2013)；而且在某些特定语境下，还需具有终结性(telicity)，终结性的表达往往通过特定的动词补足语结构(verb complement structures)(Yang, 1995; Yang, 2012)。 / 为探讨以上问题，我们设计了三个实验：图片选择任务(picture selection task)旨在探讨聋人如何获得长被动句和短被动句中蕴含的不同句法移位；语法判断任务(grammaticality judgment task)用于测试聋人是否获得典型汉语被动式不允许不及物动词的知识；最后，诱导产出任务(elicited production task)用于研究聋人被动式中动词补足语的使用，以及他们是否能够掌握通过补足语来表达状态或位置的改变，从而满足被动式的终结性特征。该任务中涉及的动词与补足语的结合类型包括：“活动动词-结果类补足语(activity-resultative complement)” [V+R]，“活动动词-完成类补足语(activity-completive complement)” [V+C]，以及“活动动词-方位词/方向性短语(activity-locative/directional complement)”[V+L]。除此以外，我们还测量聋人在图片选择和语法判断这两个任务中的反应时长，以考察聋人加工处理汉语被动式的效率。 / 35位14岁到24岁的聋人参与了该研究，并且通过汉语水平测试分数将他们分到三个不同的组别。从掌握语言知识的角度来看，聋人汉语被动式的获得表现出高度的多样性，虽然不同于一语学习者，但与二语学习者相似。简言之，只有高级组(Level 3)的聋人才完全掌握汉语被动式的句法生成，大部分初级组(Level 1)和中级组(Level 2)的聋人都未能完全掌握相关的语言知识。另外，将近一半的初级组和中级组的聋人尚未获得汉语被动式中内嵌动词及物性的要求，他们错误地认为汉语被动句中使用不及物动词是合语法的。最后，关于被动句内嵌动词短语使用各类动词补足语来表达终结性，所有组别的聋人普遍遇到困难，并且用完成体标记‘了’来替代。这种困难一直持续很长时间，即使是聋人大学生都未能系统完整地获得，意味着使用各类动词补足语来表达终结性可能是缺乏早期语言输入的聋人学习汉语被动式最终难以完全获得的。 / 关于不同类型汉语被动句的获得，结果显示聋人获得的先后顺序与健听儿童一致(Xu & Yang, 2008)，即：假被动句(pseudo passives) > 短被动句> 长被动句。整体而言，假被动句中显现成分(overt element)的论元移位对聋人来说比较容易获得；但是，他们在获得长被动句和短被动句的句法移位，以及正确解读空算子或大代词与句子主语的共指方面存在许多困难。对于长被动句的最迟获得，我们认为这与以英语为母语的儿童延迟获得‘tough-句式’类似(Guasti, 2002; Anderson, 2005; Wexler, 2012; etc.)，有可能因为空算子的成熟(the maturation of null operator)要到6至7岁，或者是未成熟儿童坚持普遍阶段要求(Universal Phase Requirement)，而导致句法生成受阻。 / 本研究所定义的最终获得的另一方面即加工处理相关语言结构所用反应时长。结果显示聋人的加工处理能力高度受限，即使是较好地获得了汉语被动句相关知识的聋人大学生依然表现出较低效率的加工处理能力。这些研究结果表明早期贫乏的语言输入以及随之的不充足语言输入都会阻碍语言的最终获得及加工处理的效率。 / Li, Qun. / Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-253). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 09, September, 2016). / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Educational Psychology)) --University of Limpopo, 2012 / This research project was an endeavor to investigate the effects of the languages of instruction (English and Shona), to teach Tsonga (Shangani) speaking children in Chiredzi district of Zimbabwe. Because of the nature of the study, a mixed method design was used where both qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted to study the performance of the Tsonga (Shangani) minority language speaking learners in five purposively sampled schools. 222 learners participated in the study. The main aim of the study was to investigate the effect of the language instruction in teaching Tsonga (Shangani) speaking Grade Seven children in Environmental Science. In fact, the researcher was interested in finding out whether teaching learners in a foreign language was a bridge or barrier to learning. In this case, the research did not only look at the effect of using English for instructional purposes, but also investigated how other major or dominant indigenous languages which are used for instructional purposes affect the performance of minority language speaking children in Chiredzi district of Zimbabwe. Data for this study were collected using lesson observation, document analysis, the questionnaire and a knowledge test. In this case, fifteen lessons were observed. Fifteen Tsonga (Shangani) speaking Grade Seven learners per school were purposively selected and taught in Tsonga (Shangani) only and the other fifteen Shona speaking Grade Seven children per school were also purposively selected and taught the same topic in Shona, and a third group of fifteen Grade Seven learners per school, were randomly selected and taught in English only. A knowledge test was given to each group thereafter. Children from each language condition were allowed to answer questions in their home languages, except for the third group which was taught in English. This group answered the questions in English with the restricted use of Shona. Each of the test results from the knowledge tests were analysed using a One Way Anova of Variance (ANOVA) and conclusions drawn. The results from other data collection instruments were analysed using qualitative methods like narrative discussions of data. A sample of five learners per school had their exercise books analysed. Data were presented in tables. The results from the knowledge tests given showed a significant difference in the mean marks obtained from the three groups (the Shangani, Shona and English group). The result showed that language has a significant influence on the performance of learners since the p – value was 0.000. This implies that the performance of learners between the three groups is significantly different. On the basis of these observations, the Null hypothesis was rejected. The same picture was also shown in document analysis and in the questionnaires. Consequently,conclusions were drawn and recommendations made.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 90-94). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981.

This study, entitled “Understanding the Choice of Chinese Graduate Students’ English Learning Strategies in a Canadian Context,” explores the English learning strategies employed by six graduate students from China after their arrival in Canada, and documents and analyses changes in their learning strategies. These Chinese students encountered a change of language context because when in the unilingual Chinese environment they spoke Mandarin and upon their arrival in Canada, they were obligated to use English to communicate with Canadians and other international students. These students employed different English learning strategies in the Canadian context from what they were accustomed to in China. Thus, the researcher’s central objective in this study is to discover and document those changes in learning strategies and to investigate the factors accounting for the changes. In the process, the researcher aims to fill a gap in research exploring the learning strategies of Chinese students in foreign contexts, and create valuable new knowledge to benefit prospective Chinese international students, policy makers at the international universities, and English educators in China. The theoretical framework of this research is the qualitative co-constructivism paradigm along with narrative inquiry. Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary method of collecting data in this study, beginning with individual interviews, and followed by a focus group interview. The data collected through the interviews showed that the six participants’ reliance on the memory and cognitive strategies employed in China were abandoned in favor of utilization of compensation strategies and social strategies after moving to Canada. Furthermore, these participants were more open to making mistakes and taking risks during interactions with others in English. Moreover, these participants made these changes mainly because they desired to use the English-speaking environment in Canada to improve English proficiency. An important finding of my research is that their immersion in the English-speaking environment inspired these participants to employ different English learning strategies that led to significant improvement in their English proficiency.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.