Purpose: This study sought to 1) identify linguistic features important for Chinese text complexity with a theory-based and systematic approach, and 2) address how feature sets and algorithms affect the performance of Chinese text complexity models. Method: Texts from Chinese language arts textbooks from Grades 1 to 6 (N = 1,478) in Mainland China…

This paper addresses the complexity of the linguistic situation in China by examining the language policy and language categorisation in the People's Republic of China (PRC), which has implications for how multilingual speakers conceptualise and practice 'language'. In addition, this paper examines the conceptual framework of translanguaging and…

Purpose: This research explores the standard language ideology in Chinese foreign language education policies. The most substantial in relation to language policy and management in regard to language ideology are beliefs associated with the values on the named language and its varieties (Spolsky, 2009). In the standard language ideology, the…

Despite having numerous Chinese language varieties and non-Chinese ethnic minority languages, China is often considered a monolingual nation (Liang, Sihua. 2015. "Language Attitudes and Identities in Multilingual China: A Linguistic Ethnography." London: Springer, 154). The country's strong monolingual language policy heavily promotes a…

This study investigates language attitudes held by Chinese-English bilinguals toward two types of switching to English in mandarin Chinese discourse, that is, intraclausal and interclausal switching. Participants with varying degrees of English proficiency were sampled from four cities in mainland China and one oversea city, London. A variation of…

Owing to its economic growth and social changes in the past two decades, China has become a popular destination for tourists, investors, and diverse communities of migrants. When foreign-language-speaking migrants interact with Chinese criminal justice system, they rely on interpreters to participate in the proceedings. Based on four-month trial…

As one of the most widespread linguistic phenomena, code-switching has attracted increasing attention nowadays. Inspired by previous studies in this field, this paper addresses code-switching under the guidance of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), with the primary goal of analysing the interpersonal meanings of code-switching in three TV…

Oscar Wilde is one of the most hilarious playwrights in the history of English literature. And 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is his masterpiece. With Wilde's humorous and witty language as the starting point and aided by the concordancing software WORDSMITH TOOLS, a detailed analysis was carried out on this comedy from lexical level and…

This research investigates the ideological character of the English language in East Asia. It focuses on the prevailing beliefs, values and propositions relating to English as a global language and the spread of English in the non-English East Asian countries, namely China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. By analyzing how English is presented in…

"Although" is a frequently used subordinating conjunction in English. However, non-nativeness is often observed in Chinese EFL learners' "although" output during pedagogical practice. This paper aims at exploring the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners' "although" employment in Chinese EFL learners' writing. The…

This article aims at the feature analysis of four expository essays (Text A/B/C/D) written by secondary school students with a focus on the differences between spoken and written language. Texts C and D are better written compared with the other two (Texts A&B) which are considered more spoken in language using. The language features are…

Many studies have found EFL/ESL learners over/under/misuse linking adverbials. Because their use is specific to genre and register (Biber et al., 1999), and news writing is a compulsory course for EFL journalism majors at many Chinese universities, this study investigates their usage patterns in news and suggests teaching material design for the…

The vocative use of the Chinese term of address "tongzhi" ("comrade"), is analyzed. It was found that in its unmarked form it is a neutral term, but marked, its use becomes a negotiation to change the social distance between speaker and addressee, possibly explaining how certain such structures evolve and are maintained. (MSE)

Considers a selection of discourse and rhetorical norms of Modern Standard Chinese and contrasts them with a comparable selection of discourse and rhetorical norms of an "inner circle" variety of English. Because transfer of discourse and rhetorical norms from a first to a second language commonly occurs, predicts that a Chinese variety…