title: Different or similar: patterns of lexical cohesion in Chinese non-narrative text and their applications in the study of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language-A corpus-based contrastive study

authors: Li, Shouji

subjects: Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

abstract: This study identifies and investigates patterns of lexical, cohesive devices in Chinese argument texts by two groups of writers: native speakers and learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language (hereafter CFL). The purposes of the research are twofold: first to inform instruction in the writing of extended Chinese texts to CFL learners and secondly to provide a basis for the further investigation of the linguistic competences that relate to the writing of such Chinese texts. To achieve such purposes, the study employs two corpora: a corpus of 50 native-speaker Chinese texts written for the National College Entrance Examination (hereafter the NCEE) and a corpus of 50 CFL texts written for the HSK (the Chinese language proficiency test). The overall framework adopted for the data analysis was Contrastive Analysis Study and the texts were analyzed using corpus-based methods. The first stage of the research involved using the NCEE Corpus of native-speaker texts as the basis for a critical review of Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Hoey (2000)’s approaches to the classification of cohesive devices in English, and through this review, adapting and extending the categories of these two theoretical approaches in order to account for salient linguistic elements used to achieve cohesion in Chinese texts. Using this modified system of classification of lexical cohesive devices that was developed for Chinese texts, the NCEE Corpus was then reanalyzed and the patterns of the use of lexical devices were identified. The same analysis was then performed on the texts from the HSK Corpus. The findings of the analyses of the two corpora were then compared to identify the different patterns of use of lexical cohesive devices by native-and non-native speaker writers of Chinese. 

The findings derived from the comparison of the analyses of the NCEE texts and the HSK texts show that there are a number of important differences in the use of lexical devices between the two corpora. The findings seem to suggest that learners of CFL are less competent in the use of a range of lexical devices, such as simple and complex paraphrase, constituent repetition, superordinate and hyponymic repetition. The comparison also reveals that learners of CFL have relatively low capacity to use lexical devices to create adequate and effective cohesive links across texts between non-adjacent sentences, and that they have difficulty in employing various types of lexical items to form repetitions appropriate to the development of argument in this type of text. 

On the basis of the findings, discussion of the pedagogical implications for the teaching of Chinese writing is provided. A further outcome of the research is that it appears to indicate the need for more in-depth investigations to inform both the teachers of Chinese writing and the developers of teaching and learning materials.

text: Different or similar: patterns of lexical cohesion in Chinese non-narrative text and their applications in the study of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language-A corpus-based contrastive study This study identifies and investigates patterns of lexical, cohesive devices in Chinese argument texts by two groups of writers: native speakers and learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language (hereafter CFL). The purposes of the research are twofold: first to inform instruction in the writing of extended Chinese texts to CFL learners and secondly to provide a basis for the further investigation of the linguistic competences that relate to the writing of such Chinese texts. To achieve such purposes, the study employs two corpora: a corpus of 50 native-speaker Chinese texts written for the National College Entrance Examination (hereafter the NCEE) and a corpus of 50 CFL texts written for the HSK (the Chinese language proficiency test). The overall framework adopted for the data analysis was Contrastive Analysis Study and the texts were analyzed using corpus-based methods. The first stage of the research involved using the NCEE Corpus of native-speaker texts as the basis for a critical review of Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Hoey (2000)’s approaches to the classification of cohesive devices in English, and through this review, adapting and extending the categories of these two theoretical approaches in order to account for salient linguistic elements used to achieve cohesion in Chinese texts. Using this modified system of classification of lexical cohesive devices that was developed for Chinese texts, the NCEE Corpus was then reanalyzed and the patterns of the use of lexical devices were identified. The same analysis was then performed on the texts from the HSK Corpus. The findings of the analyses of the two corpora were then compared to identify the different patterns of use of lexical cohesive devices by native-and non-native speaker writers of Chinese. 

The findings derived from the comparison of the analyses of the NCEE texts and the HSK texts show that there are a number of important differences in the use of lexical devices between the two corpora. The findings seem to suggest that learners of CFL are less competent in the use of a range of lexical devices, such as simple and complex paraphrase, constituent repetition, superordinate and hyponymic repetition. The comparison also reveals that learners of CFL have relatively low capacity to use lexical devices to create adequate and effective cohesive links across texts between non-adjacent sentences, and that they have difficulty in employing various types of lexical items to form repetitions appropriate to the development of argument in this type of text. 

On the basis of the findings, discussion of the pedagogical implications for the teaching of Chinese writing is provided. A further outcome of the research is that it appears to indicate the need for more in-depth investigations to inform both the teachers of Chinese writing and the developers of teaching and learning materials.

year: 2012

title: Book Review: Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents

authors: McCraw, John

subjects: review

abstract: This article reviews the book: “Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents”, by Patrick D. Nunn. Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009. xiiþ269 pp., illus., figures, endnotes, references, index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3219-3.

text: Book Review: Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents This article reviews the book: “Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents”, by Patrick D. Nunn. Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009. xiiþ269 pp., illus., figures, endnotes, references, index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3219-3.

year: 2009

title: Te ahi tawhito, te ahi tipua, te ahi nā Mahuika: Re-igniting native women’s ceremony

authors: Murphy, Ngahuia Aroha Grace

subjects: Native women's ceremony

abstract: This research examines the multiple ways in which Māori, and Hawai’ian and Native American women, are re-activating feminine ceremonial forms and recovering sacred relationships with customary feminine deities. Attention is focused on the creation of personal ritual practices that respond to contemporary decolonising and ecological contexts.
A mana wahine theoretical and methodological framework motivated by emancipatory agendas that seek to facilitate transformation is used. Key to mana wahine projects is the creation of space for Native women to define themselves and their own stories and knowledges. This is important because Native women’s voices, knowledge and ritual histories continue to be marginalised. Furthermore, debased colonial renditions of femininity, which have been reproduced, perpetuate patriarchal and colonial politics that engender discord in Native communities today.  
The study used a suite of complimentary methods to engage 45 Native women and men. Interviews and kōrero (discussion), ceremony, mana wahine wānanga (women’s sacred learning space), Native sacred site visits, solicited journals, collaboration in ritual theatre productions, and analysis of mana wahine artworks as discursive texts were employed to gather stories of spiritual continuation that are unique and largely unchartered in academia. 
The empirical material is organised around four themes in four different chapters. The first of these empirical chapters re-interprets colonial ethnographic material alongside karakia (incantations), mōteatea (songs), cosmological and tribal stories, to reveal bold examples of Māori female ritual leadership. The second empirical chapter comprises an analysis of key colonial processes that have attempted to erase Native women’s ritual ontologies and the strident expressions of Native women’s resistance to colonial imperatives. The third empirical chapter investigates the multiple channels through which Native women are restoring their ceremonial lives. The fourth chapter investigates rerenga atua (menstruation) rituals that celebrate the Native feminine body as a cosmological site of communion with feminine deities. 
The rich weave of Native women’s stories of ceremony, old and new, threads into decolonising Indigenous scholarship around the world that also seeks to recover the sacred feminine as a key site of Native sovereignty. These discussions reveal a self-renewing Native belief system based on vibrant and evolving rituals that respond directly to current socio-political, spiritual and ecological realities.

text: Te ahi tawhito, te ahi tipua, te ahi nā Mahuika: Re-igniting native women’s ceremony This research examines the multiple ways in which Māori, and Hawai’ian and Native American women, are re-activating feminine ceremonial forms and recovering sacred relationships with customary feminine deities. Attention is focused on the creation of personal ritual practices that respond to contemporary decolonising and ecological contexts.
A mana wahine theoretical and methodological framework motivated by emancipatory agendas that seek to facilitate transformation is used. Key to mana wahine projects is the creation of space for Native women to define themselves and their own stories and knowledges. This is important because Native women’s voices, knowledge and ritual histories continue to be marginalised. Furthermore, debased colonial renditions of femininity, which have been reproduced, perpetuate patriarchal and colonial politics that engender discord in Native communities today.  
The study used a suite of complimentary methods to engage 45 Native women and men. Interviews and kōrero (discussion), ceremony, mana wahine wānanga (women’s sacred learning space), Native sacred site visits, solicited journals, collaboration in ritual theatre productions, and analysis of mana wahine artworks as discursive texts were employed to gather stories of spiritual continuation that are unique and largely unchartered in academia. 
The empirical material is organised around four themes in four different chapters. The first of these empirical chapters re-interprets colonial ethnographic material alongside karakia (incantations), mōteatea (songs), cosmological and tribal stories, to reveal bold examples of Māori female ritual leadership. The second empirical chapter comprises an analysis of key colonial processes that have attempted to erase Native women’s ritual ontologies and the strident expressions of Native women’s resistance to colonial imperatives. The third empirical chapter investigates the multiple channels through which Native women are restoring their ceremonial lives. The fourth chapter investigates rerenga atua (menstruation) rituals that celebrate the Native feminine body as a cosmological site of communion with feminine deities. 
The rich weave of Native women’s stories of ceremony, old and new, threads into decolonising Indigenous scholarship around the world that also seeks to recover the sacred feminine as a key site of Native sovereignty. These discussions reveal a self-renewing Native belief system based on vibrant and evolving rituals that respond directly to current socio-political, spiritual and ecological realities.

year: 2019