CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Aim 2
1.2 The Chinese language 2
1.3 Structure 3
CHAPTER 2 CODE SWITCHING AND CODE CHOICES 5
2.0 Introduction 6
2.1 Definitions of code switching 8
2.2 Code switching and borrowing 10
2.3 Types of code switching 11
2.4 Grammatical constraints and other universal issues on code switching 15
2.4.1 Grammatical constraints on code switching 15
2.4.2 Other issues 18
2.4.2.1 Trigger-words and triggering 18
2.4.2.2 'Mixed grammar'or'grammar for code switching' 20
2.4.2.3 Matrix language and marginal passages 20
2.4.3 The Matrix Language Frame model 21
2.5 Functions motivated by pragmatic or sociolinguistic factors 24
2.5.1 'Transactional'or conversational functions 26
2.5.1.1 Topic or referential function 28
2.5.2 Discourse functions 30
2.5.2.1 The function of distinguishing direct speech from reported one or quotations 30
2.5.2.2 The function of specifying an addressee as the recipient of the message 31
2.5.2.3 The function of making injections or serving as sentence fillers 31
2.5.2.4 The function of clarifying or emphasising a message 31
2.5.2.5 The function of qualifying the message 31
2.5.2.6 The function of marking personalization vs.objectivization 31
2.5.2.7 The function of marking types of discourse or genres 32
2.5.2.8 Discourse strategies and the markedness model 32
2.5.3 Stylistic functions 35
2.5.4 The function of gap in vocabulary 36
2.6 Conversational analysis,social network and family 37
2.7 Attitudes toward code switching 40
2.8 Language policy in Victoria,Australia and the role of education in minority language maintenance 44
2.9 Conclusion 46
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY 47
3.0 Introduction 48
3.1 Hypothesis and research questions 48
3.2 Justification 49
3.3 Subjects 49
3.4 Methodology 50
3.5 Session A 51
3.5.1 The collection of narratives 51
3.5.2 The descriptive task 51
3.6 Session B 52
3.6.1 Addition 52
3.6.2 The collection of narrative depicted on video 55
3.6.3 The collection of narrative about holidays 55
3.7 Session C 55
3.7.1 The collection of Chinese family narrative 55
3.7.2 The narrative task of zoo 56
3.8 Session D 56
3.8.1 The language background questionnaire 56
3.8.2 The students' everyday life questionnaire 56
3.8.3 The students' family life questionnaire 57
3.9 Notes on terminology 57
CHAPTER 4 TONAL ASPECTS OF SWITCHING 59
4.0 Introduction 60
4.1 Tones in Chinese and stress patterns of Chinese and English 60
4.1.1 Tones in Chinese 60
4.1.2 Stress patterns of Chinese 62
4.1.3 Stress patterns of English 63
4.2 Effect of tones and stress patterns on switching 66
4.3 Quantification of tones 69
4.4 Single switching facilitated by the Chinese falling tones and stress patterns 71
4.4.1 The fourth falling tone 72
4.4.2 The half third falling tone 74
4.4.3 The neutral falling tone 75
4.4.4 Summary of single switches to English facilitated by falling tones 77
4.5 Switching in and out of English facilitated by the Chinese falling tones 79
4.6 Switching of English phrases at the beginning of an utterance which is part of Chinese discourse with switch back to Chinese occurring 81
4.7 Chinese utterances but with frequent switching facilitated by falling tones 84
4.8 Switching at other tones(i.e.Tone 1 and 2) 90
4.8.1 Switching motivated by'repairs' 90
4.8.2 Switching motivated by various functions 91
4.9 Summary and conclusions 92
CHAPTER 5 THE PLACE OF GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES IN CHINESE UTTERANCES AND SWITCHING 94
5.0 Introduction 95
5.1 Chinese and English syntax 95
5.2 Syntactic and semantic transference from English without switching 96
5.2.1 Syntactic transference at sentence level 96
5.2.1.1 The adverbial position factor 97
5.2.1.2 Attributive position 98
5.2.1.3 The order of the date transferred from English 98
5.2.1.4 The order of comparison of adjective/adverb transferred from English 99
5.2.2 Syntactic transference or convergence at unit level 100
5.2.2.1 The structure of predicate unit transferred from English 100
5.2.2.2 The structure of prepositional phrase converged towards English 101
5.2.3 Semantic transference-collocation based on English models 102
5.2.3.1 Semantic transference of English idioms 102
5.2.3.2 Semantic transference of English nouns or noun phrases 104
5.2.3.3 Semantic transference of a preposition 104
5.2.4 Concluding remarks on syntactic/semantic transference 105
5.3 Syntactic convergence and switching 105
5.3.1 Grammatical systems 106
5.3.1.1 The marked use of case morphology 106
5.3.1.2 The marked use of the progressive 107
5.3.1.3 Overt-verb marker facilitators 110
5.3.1.3.1 'Bare form of the verb' 110
5.3.1.3.2 'EL islands' 112
5.3.1.3.3 Chinese auxiliary+English verb 113
5.3.1.4 The coverb facilitators 114
5.3.1.5 Concluding remarks on typology 115
5.3.2 Word order 116
5.3.2.1 Adverbial position 116
5.3.2.2 Attributive position 117
5.3.2.3 Order of residential address and date 118
5.3.2.4 The order of comparison of adjective/adverb 119
5.3.3 Grammatical classes 120
5.3.4 Concluding remarks on syntactic convergence and switching 121
5.4 Other structural constraints on switching 121
5.4.1 The phrase boundary as a point of switching 122
5.4.1.1 Switching of a prepositional phrase and 'semantic constraint' 122
5.4.1.2 Switching of an adverbial phrase 124
5.4.1.3 Concluding remarks on the phrase boundary as a point of switching 125
5.4.2 'Conjunction constraint'or'sentence insertion' 125
5.4.3 'Free-morpheme constraint' 127
5.4.3.1 Switching to a Chinese structure particle-DE 127
5.4.3.2 Switching to a Chinese modal particle-LE 129
5.4.3.3 Concluding remarks on contraventions of the'free-morpheme constraint' 129
5.4.4 Violations of'the government constraint' 130
5.4.4.1 Switching from a Chinese V to an English O 130
5.4.4.2 Switching between English V and Chinese O 131
5.4.4.3 Switching between Chinese preposition and English noun or noun phrase 132
5.4.4.4 Switching between English preposition and Chinese noun or noun phrase 133
5.4.4.5 Concluding remarks on the violation of'government constraint' 135
5.5 Interpretation of some switching data according to the Matrix Language Frame model 135
5.5.1 The hypothesis of ML and EL constituents 136
5.5.2 The'EL islands'hypothesis 136
5.5.2.1 'Obligatory EL islands' 137
5.5.2.2 'Optional EL islands' 137
5.5.3 Discussion 138
5.6 Summary and conclusions 139
CHAPTER 6 CONTEXTUAL FACTORS IN SWITCHING 140
6.0 Introduction 141
6.1 The sociolinguistic and conversational functions of switching 141
6.1.1 The linguistic tasks 141
6.1.1.1 The settings of pictures that are common to Australia and China 142
6.1.1.2 The Australian setting of pictures 147
6.1.1.3 The Chinese setting of pictures 152
6.1.1.4 The statistical analysis of switching on the different settings of pictures 157
6.1.2 The function of topic 158
6.1.2.1 Australia-based,China-based and ambivalent topics 159
6.1.2.1.1 The differences between topics about China 159
6.1.2.1.2 The differences between topics about Australia 161
6.1.2.1.3 The differences between the ambivalent Australia-based and China-based topics 162
6.1.2.2 The task of addition 163
6.1.2.3 The three topics in Session D 164
6.2 The discourse functions 167
6.2.1 The function of quotations 167
6.2.2 The function of interjections 169
6.2.3 The function of reiteration 169
6.2.4 The function of making up a deficiency of language competence 170
6.2.5 The function of message qualification 171
6.2.6 The function of personalization vs.objectivization 172
6.3 The stylistic functions 173
6.3.1 The function of filling gaps in vocabulary 173
6.3.2 The function of indicating influence of school context and Australian environment 175
6.4 Summary 178
CHAPTER 7 SCHOOL EDUCATION AND CHINESE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE 179
7.0 Introduction 181
7.1 Language education programs and sociolinguistic environment of the schools 181
7.2 Attitudes towards bilingualism and switching 182
7.2.1 Attitudes towards Chinese and English 183
7.2.2 Language spoken at home 184
7.3 Response to Chinese questions 186
7.4 Differences between the schools 189
7.4.1 Switching 190
7.4.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 190
7.4.3 Attitudes towards the LOTE courses 191
7.4.4 Language spoken at home 192
7.4.5 Parents'occupations 193
7.4.6 Children from the three schools in the various categories 193
7.5 School B 194
7.5.0Summary of informants 194
7.5.0.1 Switching 195
7.5.0.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 195
7.5.1 The first generation:Category 1—resident in Australia for a period of less than two years 196
7.5.1.1 Switching 196
7.5.1.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 197
7.5.1.3 Attitudes 198
7.5.2 The first generation:Category 3—resident in Australia for at least five years 198
7.5.2.1 Switching 199
7.5.2.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 199
7.5.2.3 Attitudes 199
7.6 School A 200
7.6.0 Summary of informants 200
7.6.0.1 Switching 201
7.6.0.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 202
7.6.1 The first generation:Category 1—resident in Australia for a period of less than two years 203
7.6.1.1 Switching 203
7.6.1.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 204
7.6.1.3 Attitudes 205
7.6.2 The first generation:Category 2—resident in Australia for a period of three years 205
7.6.2.1 Switching 206
7.6.2.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 207
7.6.2.3 Attitudes 207
7.6.3 The first generation:Category 3—resident in Australia for at least five years 207
7.6.3.1 Switching 208
7.6.3.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 208
7.6.3.3 Attitudes 208
7.6.4 The second generation 209
7.6.4.1 Switching 209
7.6.4.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 210
7.6.4.3 Attitudes 210
7.7 School C 211
7.7.0 Summary of informants 211
7.7.0.1 Switching 212
7.7.0.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 213
7.7.1 The first generation:Category 1—resident in Australia for a period of up to two years 214
7.7.1.1 Switching 215
7.7.1.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 216
7.7.1.3 Attitudes 217
7.7.2 The first generation:Category 2—resident in Australia for a period of three years 217
7.7.2.1 Switching 218
7.7.2.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 218
7.7.2.3 Attitudes 219
7.7.3 The first generation:Category 3—resident in Australia for at least five years 219
7.7.3.1 Switching 220
7.7.3.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 221
7.7.3.3 Attitudes 221
7.7.4 The second generation 222
7.7.4.1 Switching 222
7.7.4.2 Responses to Chinese questions in English 223
7.7.4.3 Attitudes 223
7.8 Variation across the schools 223
7.8.1 Variation in switching 223
7.8.2 Variation in English responses 224
7.8.3 Variation in attitudes 225
7.8.4 Family environment 226
7.8.4.1 Parents'employment in Australia 226
7.8.4.2 Family communication patterns 226
7.8.4.3 Relationship between family environment,and switches and English responses 227
7.9 Conclusions 229
7.9.1 School education 229
7.9.2 Period of residence in Australia 229
7.9.3 Family communication pattern 230
CHAPTER 8 IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE 231
8.0 Code-switching amongst bilingual Chinese-Australian children 232
8.1 Language policy and school education 232
8.2 Contextual factors and cross-cultural communication 233
8.2.1 Instructing Chinese characters in context 234
8.2.2 Introducing Chinese culture in conversations and articles 235
8.2.3 Comparing the languages and cultures of Chinese and English 235
8.2.4 Interpreting and translating across the languages and cultures 236
8.3 Grammatical structures and a proficiency-oriented approach 238
8.4 Tonal aspects and standard pronunciation and intonation 240
8.5 Becoming proficient in Chinese 241
8.5.1 The gentle pathway of learning Chinese 242
8.5.2 Small learning steps to get right quickly 244
8.5.3 Validation in many practice and performance settings 244
8.5.4 Outcomes of acquiring Chinese are truly valuable to students 245
8.5.5 Interactive teaching and learning activities 245
8.5.6 Achieving the goals of becoming proficient in Chinese 246
8.6 Concluding remarks 247
APPENDIX A Sample Questionnaire 250
Bibliography 253