"This volume features a discourse empirical orientation from diverse perspectives and various methodologies, in which narratives, interviews, surveys, and large-scale databases or self-created written and spoken corpora are employed and analyzed to gain a better understanding of new developments and changes in the Chinese language and discourse. Authors employ updated approaches from a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, functional linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics, to describe the structure of the Chinese language and discourse and to examine its critical issues, many focusing on globalization-induced language developments and changes. With an empirically-based discourse/socio-cultural approach, this collection makes valuable contributions to research on Chinese language and discourse and serves as a sound reference for Chinese researchers and educators in diverse fields such as Chinese language and discourse, Chinese linguistics and language education, Chinese multiculturalism, and more"--.

• Current Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Contributors
• 1. Chinese discourse from diverse perspectives
  • References
• 2. New words in contemporary Chinese language use
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Language change and lexicalization: Processes and tendency
  • 3. Studies on Chinese word: Structure, length, and constraints
  • 4. The study
    • 4.1 Word length
    • 4.2 Word length patterns
    • 4.3 Word-internal structures
    • 4.4 Word formation processes
    • 4.5 The case of 互联网+ ‘Internet-plus’
  • 5. Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 3. Usage based language change and exemplar representations in Beijing Mandarin Chinese
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Mandarin Chinese and the current study
    • 2.1 Mandarin Chinese pertaining to the present study
    • 2.2 The current study
  • 3. Phono-syntactic conspiracy and grammaticalization
  • 4. Usage-caused grammatical change
    • 4.1 The data and the specific construction of this study
    • 4.2 Usage frequency, consonant lenition and an optional allophone
    • 4.3 Tone sandhi, the rhotic approximant and exemplar representations of /sh/
    • 4.4 Language variation, grammaticalization, and language change
      • 4.4.1 Misperception and transcription
      • 4.4.2 Impact of 普通话 Putonghua ‘common language’
    • 4.5 Interim summary
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 4. Contextual variations of internal and external modifications in Chinese requests
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Literature review
    • 2.1 Request modifications and contextual variations
    • 2.2 Internal and external modifications in Chinese requests
  • 3. Method
    • 3.1 Participants
    • 3.2 Instrument
    • 3.3 Procedures
    • 3.4 Data analysis
  • 4. Results
  • 5. Discussion
  • 6. Conclusions, limitations, and future research
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Appendix A. Request scenarios in the Oral Discourse Completion Test
• 5. Some interactional functions of ‘Yinwei’-clauses in Mandarin Chinese conversation
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical and methodological background
  • 3. ‘Yinwei’-clauses as accounts for speakers’ prior actions
    • 3.1 Accounts for disagreements
    • 3.2 Accounts for assertion
  • 4. ‘Yinwei’-clause as parentheticals to provide background information
    • 4.1 Within an ongoing TCU
    • 4.2 Between TCUs
  • 5. Conclusions
  • References
• 6. Preliminaries to delicate matters
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Data and methodology
  • 3. Some preliminary quantitative results
  • 4. Analysis of some ‘I-say-to-you’ sequences
    • 4.1 Prefacing delicate matters with ‘I say to you’
    • 4.2 ‘Preparing the ground’ with ‘I say to you’
  • 5. Achieving interactional goals with ‘I-say-to-you’ sequences
  • 6. Concluding remarks and further discussions
  • References
    • Appendix I. Transcription conventions
• 7. Chinese near-synonyms ‘jian’ (建), ‘zao’ (造), ‘gai’ (蓋) ‘to build’ revisited
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Method
    • 2.1 Definition
    • 2.2 Data sources
    • 2.3 Data collection
    • 2.4 Data coding
      • 2.4.1 Word length of the object NP
      • 2.4.2 Preverbal locative phrase
      • 2.4.3 Building types
    • 2.5 Statistical analysis
  • 3. Results
    • 3.1 The interpretation of jian
    • 3.2 The interpretation of zao
    • 3.3 The interpretation of gai
  • 4. Discussion
  • 5. Conclusions
  • References
    • Appendix 1. Token exclusions
    • Appendix 2. Data coding schemes
• 8. Constraints on the collocational behaviors of Chinese near-synonyms
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Literature review
  • 3. Methodology
    • 3.1 Selecting near-synonyms for analysis
    • 3.2 Identifying typical collocates
    • 3.3 Data for the study
  • 4. Constraints on the collocational behaviors of synonyms
    • 4.1 Grammatical constraint
    • 4.2 Semantic constraint
    • 4.3 Prosodic constraint
    • 4.4 Stylistic constraint
    • 4.5 Pragmatic constraint
  • 5. Discussion and pedagogical implications
  • 6. Conclusion
  • References
• 9. Genericity and sentences with an AP state complement in Mandarin Chinese
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The semantics of AP complements in Chinese SC sentences
    • 2.1 Event-oriented AP complements
    • 2.2 Participant-oriented AP complements
  • 3. The generic domain and interpretation of Chinese SC sentences
    • 3.1 Generic quantification over situations
    • 3.2 The generic reading of Chinese SC sentences
  • 4. The generic/episodic interpretation of Chinese SC sentences with AP complements
    • 4.1 Repeatable events and sum events
    • 4.2 The role of AP complements and pragmatic knowledge
    • 4.3 The generic interpretation of other constructions in Chinese
  • 5. Conclusion
  • References
• 10. Kinship metaphors in the Chinese construction A ‘shi’ B ‘zhi fu/mu’
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Data for analysis
  • 3. Methodology
    • 3.1 Metaphor identification
    • 3.2 Statistical procedure
  • 4. Results
    • 4.1 Research object and A has [+human]
    • 4.2 Research object and B has [+human]
    • 4.3 Research object and A has [+specific]
  • 5. Discussion
  • 6. Conclusion
  • References
• 11. The classification of Chinese time expressions from Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspectives
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Time expressions: Extent
    • 2.1 Definite time
    • 2.2 Indefinite time
    • 2.3 Duration time
    • 2.4 Frequency time
  • 3. Time expression: Location
    • 3.1 Definite temporal location
    • 3.2 Indefinite temporal location
    • 3.3 Absolute temporal location
    • 3.4 Relative temporal location
    • 3.5 Rest temporal location
    • 3.6 Motion temporal location
  • 4. Time expressions and classfications
  • 5. Conclusion
  • References
• 12. Being a Kam in China
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Identities in narrative
  • 3. Interview participants
  • 4. Power relations in interaction
  • 5. Representations of the exterior and interior worlds
  • 6. Membership categorisation
  • 7. Performance devices
  • 8. Conclusion
  • References
• 13. Specialised corpora for Chinese language education in Singapore
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Specialised corpora for language education
  • 3. Data collection
  • 4. Data processing
  • 5. Results of the Written Corpus
  • 6. Results of the Spoken Corpus
  • 7. Application of the corpora
  • 8. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
    • Appendix A. List of Parts-of-Speech, sub-types and examples
    • Appendix B. List of sentence types and sentence patterns
• Index