Chinese L2 users as active social agents: Sentence final particles variation and identities
This study investigated the sociolinguistic pragmatic
performance of eight advanced Chinese learners from a variationist
sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on the variable appearance versus absence
of Mandarin sentence final particles (SFPs) in non-interrogative sentences.
These learners participated in a Chinese TV talk show and have become popular on
social media platforms. The speech data from the talk show (400 tokens) and
online data from Chinese social media platform Weibo (400 tokens) were collected
and analyzed. These Chinese L2 users productively demonstrated variation in
their use of SFPs in non-interrogative sentences, in that they added SFPs to a
sentence in around 20% of variable contexts. Rbrul (logistic regression)
analyses revealed that the variable presence of SFPs was conditioned by their
duration of time spent in China and gender-related personalities. Follow-up case
analyses explored how they made use of SFPs in different situations and how they
were received by other participants. The study found that these Chinese L2 users
became active social agents who made decisions to shift styles in different
contexts or to strengthen their identities. The results are discussed within a
broader context of identity, language socialization, and L2 social agency. This
study also attempts to offer pedagogical implications for the acquisition of
Chinese SFPs.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1Previous research on SFPs and acquisition of SFPs
- 2.2Expanding second language socialization
- 2.3Sociopragmatic competence and variationist sociolinguistics
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Informal talks
- 3.2
Weibo.com
- 3.3Data collection
- 3.4Statistical and qualitative procedures
- 4.Results
- 4.1Quantitative findings
- 4.2Qualitative analysis
- 4.2.1Madam Qian
- 4.2.2Daddy Mu
- 4.2.3Summary of findings
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
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