Situation-bound utterances in Chinese as a foreign language: the effectiveness of the identification task

• Published in: Chinese as a second language research Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1 - 29
• Main Authors: Conti, Sergio, Lepadat, Carmen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin De Gruyter 01.05.2021; Walter de Gruyter GmbH
• Subjects: Chinese as a second language; Chinese languages; Cultural factors; Educational activities; Foreign language learning; form recall; formulaicity; Identification; identification task; Italian CFL learners; Italian language; Second language vocabulary learning; situation-bound utterance; Statistical analysis; vocabulary learning; 情景专用语; 意大利汉语学习者; 识别任务; 词汇学习; 语块性; 语形回忆
• ISSN: 2193-2263; 2193-2271
• DOI: 10.1515/caslar-2021-0001

This paper investigates the effectiveness of the identification task on the retention of situation-bound utterances (SBUs) in Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). The participants were Italian CFL learners with different lengths of learning experience, divided into an experimental and a control group. The target SBUs were selected by means of a discourse completion questionnaire previously submitted to Italian and Chinese native speakers and Italian CFL learners. During the treatment, the experimental group was provided with six communicative functions and was asked to identify the corresponding SBUs from eight short dialogues. Subsequently, a posttest was administered to both the experimental and the control groups. Overall, the statistical analysis of the test results suggests a significant effect of the task on the participants’ ability to recall the target SBUs, both from an immediate and a longitudinal perspective. However, the data also suggest that, while the participants’ length of learning experience and minor linguistic or cultural specificities of the target formulae did not significantly influence the effectiveness of this specific vocabulary learning task, the presence vs. absence of the SBUs in either the L1 or the L2 might be a crucial factor for their successful recall.