Acta Linguistica Asiatica Volume 13, Issue 1, 2023 ACTA LINGUISTICA ASIATICA Volume 13, Issue 1, 2023 Editors: Andrej Bekeš, Nina Golob, Mateja Petrovčič Editorial Board: Alexander Alexiev (Bulgaria), Cao Hongquan (China), Luka Culiberg (Slovenia), Tamara Ditrich (Slovenia), Kristina Hmeljak Sangawa (Slovenia), Hsin Shih-chang (Taiwan), Terry Andrew Joyce (Japan), Jens Karlsson (Sweden), Byoung Yoong Kang (Slovenia), Lin Ming-chang (Taiwan), Wei-lun Lu (Czech Republic), Nagisa Moritoki Škof (Slovenia), Nishina Kikuko (Japan), Sawada Hiroko (Japan), Chikako Shigemori Bučar (Slovenia), Irena Srdanović (Croatia). Published by: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press) Issued by: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts). For the publisher: Dr. Gregor Majdič, Rector of the University of Ljubljana For the issuer: Dr. Mojca Schlamberger Brezar, Dean of the Faculty of Arts The journal is licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Journal's web page: https://journals.uni-lj.si/ala The journal is published in the scope of Open Journal Systems ISSN: 2232-3317 Abstracting and Indexing Services: Scopus, COBISS, dLib, Directory of Open Access Journals, MLA International Bibliography, Open J-Gate, Google Scholar and ERIH PLUS. Publication is free of charge. Address: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts Department of Asian Studies Aškerčeva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia E-mail: nina.golob@ff.uni-lj.si TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword ................................................................................................................ 5 RESEARCH ARTICLES The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative Case Particle wo by Persian Learners of L2 Japanese Anubhuti CHAUHAN, Ayat HOSSEINI .............................................................................. 9 Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF ................................................................................................. 35 Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and Proficiency Degree of the Chinese Language Among Trainee Teachers CHEW Fong Peng ........................................................................................................... 53 Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews Maria QUEROL-BATALLER ............................................................................................. 73 Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies to Chinese Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ ............................................................................................... 91 BOOK REVIEWS Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (=Comprehensive Japanese-German Dictionary) Band 3 O — Z (2510 pp.). München: IUDICIUM Verlag. Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR ........................................................................................ 109 “Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínsky jazyk”: Book review Mateja PETROVČIČ ...................................................................................................... 119 5 Foreword Education is a medium of subject-matter instruction that has shown a constant evolution. In a second or “foreign” language field, it boasts close to countless combinations of a target and source language or dialect and characteristics of each individual who participates in the process, as well as all direct and indirect learning material adding to this abundance. Though having narrowed the scope of the winter ALA issue to no more than two languages, namely Japanese and Chinese in focus, a great variety of the articles nevertheless demonstrate a great variety of perceived problems and methodological approaches used to solve them. What is more, this issue also contains reviews of two new publications, yet another tool for the more advanced acquisition of the Japanese and Chinese languages respectively. We hereby express our gratitude to every single contributor to this issue, not leaving out the reviewers and others involved in the publication. This issue opens with the article “The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative Case Particle wo by Persian Learners of L2 Japanese” written by Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI. In the article, the authors focused on the selection pattern of the Japanese case particle wo by Persian-speaking learners to find out that learners were, in a specific way, sensitive to the degree of predicate transitivity and that learners’ particle selection strategy is influenced by proficiency level. The article “Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese” by Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF investigated the effectiveness of reading skills by L2 learners of Japanese from the “Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese” and concluded on the types of strategies non-kanji native speakers use to grasp the meanings of individual words, sentences, or whole texts. CHEW Fong Peng wrote the article “Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and Proficiency Degree of the Chinese Language Among Trainee Teachers”, in which she briefly introduced the consolidating position of the Chinese language in Malaysia, and looked into motivational intensity and its incentives among Malaysian trainee teachers of the Chinese language. The following article “Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews”, written by Maria QUEROL-BATALLER conducted research on the communicative style in Chinese. By using semi-structured oral interviews from the C- ORAL-CHINA corpus she identified and accounted for the strategic mechanisms through which mitigation is carried out by native Chinese speakers. 6 Yet another article with an inviting topic “Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies to Chinese” was written by Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ. The article is a lexicological analysis of the neologisms that occurred in Harry Potter films and in it, the author defined loanword categories that were used for borrowing neologisms from English to Chinese, and assessed their productivity. Last but not least are the two book reviews. First, Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR reviewed the dictionary “Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch” by Stalph J. et al. (2022), in her words a remarkable achievement as, besides offering word searches, it is an excellent reference for researchers and students on Japan. In the second book review, Mateja PETROVČIČ evaluated a book entitled “Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínsky jazyk” written by Ľuboša Gajdoša and published in 2022. The book was described as a systematic step-by-step guide to understanding the Chinese language and is recommended for readers with prior knowledge of Chinese, as well as for beginners and intermediate users in the field of corpus linguistics. Editors and Editorial board wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration, and a rise of new research ideas inspired by these papers. Editors RESEARCH ARTICLES Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 13(1), 2023. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.9-33 The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative Case Particle wo by Persian Learners of L2 Japanese Anubhuti CHAUHAN The University of Tsukuba, Japan anubhuti.chauhan.ft@u.tsukuba.ac.jp Ayat HOSSEINI University of Tehran, Iran ayathosseini@ut.ac.ir Abstract This study attempts to account for Japanese language learners’ selection pattern of case particle wo by taking a prototype-based approach to language learning. A cross-sectional study of Persian-speaking learners was conducted to examine whether the degree of predicate transitivity influences case particle selection, and whether proficiency level and L1 play a role in such a selection pattern. The results reveal that learners were sensitive to the degree of predicate transitivity. However, the test scores were significantly higher for verbs of contact (‘throw’, ‘use’) which express object manipulation compared to those for the linguistic prototype which involves a change in the object’s state (‘cut’, ‘reduce’). This suggests that learners may consider contact verbs as the more ‘typical’ or basic transitive construction. The results also show that lower proficiency learners were more likely to select particles based on L1 surface marking, suggesting that learners’ particle selection strategy is influenced by proficiency level. Keywords: transitivity, prototype theory, L2 Japanese, accusative case particle wo, Persian learners Povzetek Študija pojasnjuje izbirni vzorec členka wo pri učencih japonskega jezika s pomočjo prototipske teorije. Izvedena je bila presečna študija, v kateri so sodelovali naravni govorci perzijščine. Študija je preverila, ali stopnja prehodnosti glagola vpliva na izbiro tožilniškega členka wo ter ali raven znanja japonskega jezika ter materni jezik igrata vlogo pri izbiri. Rezultati kažejo, da so bili učenci občutljivi na stopnjo prehodnosti glagola. Vendar pa so bili rezultati testa bistveno boljši pri glagolih stika ('vreči', 'uporabiti'), ki izražajo ravnanje s predmetom, v primerjavi s tistimi za jezikovni prototip, ki vključuje spremembo stanja predmeta ('rezati', 'zmanjšati'). To nakazuje, da lahko učenci obravnavajo glagole stika kot bolj "tipični" ali osnovni ustroj prehodnosti. Rezultati poleg tega kažejo, da učenci z nižjo ravnijo poznavanja japonskega jezika z večjo verjetnostjo izbirajo členke s pomočjo informacij iz maternega jezika, kar kaže na to, da na učenčevo strategijo izbire členka vpliva raven njegovega znanja tega jezika. Ključne besede: prehodnost, prototipska teorija, japonščina kot tuji jezik, členek wo, učenci, naravni govorci perzijščine 10 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI 1 Introduction 1.1 Prototype effect in language acquisition In recent years, usage-based approaches to language acquisition have received increasing attention. According to these approaches, linguistic categories should display prototype effects the same as natural categories (see Baybee, 2010). The notion of prototype has been applied to linguistic categories in both L1 and L2 acquisition studies since its conception by Rosch and her colleagues; one of which is the transitive construction. Transitive constructions are found in all languages in one form or another and are used consistently from an early stage of acquisition. Furthermore, since the seminal study by Hopper and Thompson (1980), researchers like Tsunoda (1981, 1985, 1991), Malchukov (2005), Næss (2007), and Kittilä (2009) have strongly argued for a prototype-based approach to defining linguist transitivity. Studies that adopt a prototype view to acquisition assume that an internal structure exists within the transitive construction, with some verbs being more central or prototypical than others. Since prototypical verbs are the most salient category members, they are acquired earlier than non-prototypical verbs (see Ninio, 1999; Goldberg et al., 2004; and Ibbotson et al., 2012 for L1; Ellis & Ferriera Junior, 2009; Ellis & Römer, 2014; and Chauhan, 2015, 2017a, 2017b for L2). These studies not only show that linguistic categories can behave in similar ways to natural categories, but they also add psychological validity to the evidence for prototypical transitivity. However, these studies have left a few questions unexplored. The first is whether a definition of prototype based on linguistic observations, such as the ones proposed by Hopper and Thompson (1980) and Tsunoda (1981, 1985, 1999), can account for the selection patterns of learners. Among studies that report observing prototype effects some, such as Ibbotson et.al (2012) and Chauhan (2015, 2017a, 2017b), adopt a linguistic definition of prototypes. In this approach, high transitivity or prototypical transitivity is associated with dynamic action involving a volitional actor acting on a highly affected object. Contrary to this view, Ninio (1999) reports that the VO structures first produced by children do not include high transitivity verbs as defined by Hopper and Thompson (1980). Instead, the concept underlying prototypical transitivity is the most fundamental type of transaction a person can have with autonomous objects, that is, “making contact with”, “relinquishing contact with”, or else “keeping an object in their possession” (Ninio, 1999, p. 644). This makes it important to explore whether ‘high transitivity’, linguistically prototypical verbs (examples include verbs like, ‘kill’ and ‘break’) are more salient than verbs that are placed high in the transitivity hierarchy but are not considered linguistic prototypes (examples include verbs like ‘take’, ‘put in order’, ‘give’, ‘throw’, ‘keep’, ‘hold’). Secondly, it is important to explore the relationship between proficiency level and prototype effect. Few studies targeting L2 learners have taken proficiency level into The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 11 consideration. Chauhan (2015, 2017a) reports that though learner errors concentrated in non-prototypical transitive verbs irrespective of proficiency level, a U-shaped learning curve was also observed in certain test categories. Chauhan also notes that lower proficiency learners were more likely to select particles based on L1 case markings. This suggests that while prototype effects may be observed in all proficiency levels, there may be variations in case selection patterns. 1.2 Linguistic transitivity and verb hierarchy Linguistic approaches to transitivity pay special attention to case markings. Canonical transitive constructions involve a controlling agent which is either marked with nominative (NOM) or ergative case (ERG), and a completely affected patient which is marked with the accusative (ACC) or absolutive case (ABS). Any deviation from this semantic prototype leads to other case-frames like DAT–NOM or NOM–INST being used to code the event. Tsunoda (1981, 1985) conducted a crosslinguistic study of the case frame of ‘two- placed predicates’, that is, predicates that take two arguments. Based on this, he proposed a hierarchy of semantic verb classes that display graded membership - prototypical transitive verbs take a transitive case frame ((NOM–ACC or ERG–ABS)) and are placed at the left end of the hierarchy; however, we observe a relative gradation in acceptability of a transitive case-frame pattern as we move down the hierarchy. Tsunoda categorizes verbs into six semantic types1 based on both semantic factors like the degree of impingement of the patient and syntactic factors like case marking. The prototype, Direct effect (+result), represents actions directed towards an object where the object undergoes a change. On the other hand, verbs belonging to Direct effect (−result) are impinged but do not undergo a physical change. Examples of the former include ‘break’ and ‘bend’ which involve a physical change in the object whereas the latter include ‘kick’ and ‘shoot’ which may involve a change in location. Perception verbs like ‘see’, ‘find’, and ‘hear’ are neither altered nor impinged but are ‘obtained’ in an abstract sense, which is absent in Pursuit verbs (‘search’, ‘wait’). The placement of the remaining semantic classes – Knowledge (‘understand’, ‘forget’), Emotion (‘want’, ‘fear’), and Relation (‘have’, ‘lack’) – is mainly based on syntactic factors. The last two categories constitute low agency as well as low kinesis verbs which are often states. Tsunoda further states that the languages of the world differ in how far down the hierarchy they allow a transitive case frame. Languages like Japanese and English extend the transitive case frame to Relation. On the other hand, languages such as Avar only extend it to Pursuit. 1 The hierarchy also includes non-verbal predicates grouped under 7. Ability, which do not take the NOM-ACC case frame and are therefore not addressed in this study. 12 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI Though Tsunoda’s two-place predicate hierarchy is seen as a major contribution to the field of cross-linguistic research, Malchukov (2005, pp. 75-77) summarizes some fundamental issues with the hierarchy as it currently stands. Notably, 1) the hierarchy conflates several semantic dimensions such as properties associated with agenthood and patienthood and 2) it is evident only at the two extremes with some of the intermediate verb types not being strictly ordered. Malchukov, therefore, re-analyzes Tsunoda’s hierarchy by dividing it into two independent sub-hierarchies. The upper sub-hierarchy represents decreasing patient-related properties, and the lower sub- hierarchy represents decreasing agent-related properties. Another key point of departure is that Malchukov collapses Perception and Cognition (labelled ‘Knowledge’ in Tsunoda, 1985) into one category based on observing languages such as Daghestanian that do not distinguish between the two verb types. Malchukov (2005) expands the hierarchy to include other verb types like Interaction, proposing a semantic map for transitivity. Interaction includes verbs of social interaction such as ‘follow’, ‘speak’, ‘help’, and ‘obey’. They are placed in neither sub-hierarchy due to their affinity with inherent reciprocals and based on the observation that inherent reciprocals are coded as middle verbs in Kartvelian languages. Malchukov (2005) further notes that the map is incomplete in that other semantic types such as Tsunoda’s Relation verbs can be included. These verbs express states such as possession and cannot be incorporated into either of the sub-hierarchies. For this reason, they are treated like Interaction verbs and placed in between the two sub- hierarchies in this study. Being states, they are placed lower than Interaction verbs. Contact Pursuit Effective action Interaction Relation Perception Cognition Emotion Figure 1: Verb categories based on Malchukov’s semantic map (2005, p. 113)2 1.3 Studies on L2 usage of case particle wo Japanese is an SOV language that uses post-position markers called particles to show the relationship between nouns and the predicate of a clause. The particles are referred to as ‘case particles’ when they mark case relations. Case particle wo primarily 2 Effected action corresponds with Tsunoda’s Direct effect (+result), Contact with Direct effect (−result) and Cognition with Knowledge. The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 13 marks the direct object (below, object) of a transitive construction in Japanese and has limited usages beyond this function.3 As such, learners assign wo to a noun if they identify it as an object and the predicate as a transitive verb. Non-assignment of wo conversely implies that learners do not identify the predicate as a transitive verb. The acquisition pattern of wo, therefore, shows learners’ assessment of predicate transitivity. Despite being introduced at an early stage of acquisition, wo is frequently cited as difficult to master by L2 learners of Japanese irrespective of their L1 or proficiency level (see Ikuda & Kubota, 1997; Sugimoto, 1998; Imai, 2000; Sakaguchi, 2004; Ichikawa, 2010; Sugimura, 2010; Nagai, 2015; Chauhan, 2015, 2017a, 2017b). These studies provide insights into the usage and error patterns of wo. Among these, Chauhan (2015, 2017a, 2017b) attempts to systematically explain the errors related to wo by making testable predictions about its learnability. Chauhan (2017b) tested whether Hindi-speaking learners of Japanese exhibited a prototype effect when selecting particles in a grammar test. Verbs were grouped into semantic categories (Direct effect (±result) >> Perception >> Pursuit >> Knowledge >> Interaction >> Emotion >> Relationship) based on the two-place predicate hierarchy proposed by Tsunoda (1991). The overall results show that there was a gradation in the test scores with learners averaging higher scores as we move up the transitivity scale. In other words, learners selected wo significantly more frequently for categories at the upper end of the transitivity scale (Direct effect, Perception, Knowledge) than for categories at the lower end (Emotion, Relationship) indicating that learners are sensitive to verb transitivity. However, the results did not strictly reflect Tsunoda’s hierarchy as it stands as the test score for Knowledge was higher than Pursuit and Perception. Chauhan (2017b) explains this deviation by referring to Malchukov’s (2005) two-dimensional verb type hierarchy. In this hierarchy, Knowledge (labelled ‘Cognition’) and Pursuit no longer form a hierarchical relationship as they belong to separate sub- hierarchies. Perception and Knowledge belong to the same sub-hierarchy but are positioned together. However, Chauhan (2017b) conflates the prototype, Direct effect (+result), with verbs that have a low impact on the object, that is, Direct effect (−result). Direct effect (−result) includes verbs that describe “inclusion in and exclusion of objects from the personal domain”, that is, verbs that Ninio (1999, p. 647) calls basic transitivity constructions. Distinguishing between these verb types is necessary to assess whether the prototype effect observed in Chauhan (2017b) was due to the high transitivity of linguistic prototypes or verbs of contact. 3 Other usages of o are limited to location markers for motion where it marks the path (verbs like wataru (‘cross’)), a point in space that the agent passes through (tooru (‘pass through’)) or a point of departure (deru (‘ move out’/’leave’)). 14 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI The present study splits Chauhan’s (2017b) Direct effect into Effective action and Contact. This allows us to investigate whether learners acquire linguistic prototypes (Effective action verbs) first as compared to verbs belonging to Contact, which consist of verbs Nino (1999, pp. 619-620) describes as expressing “fundamental ‘object relation’ of object incorporation into, and ejection from the personal”. It also places Perception and Cognition next to each other but maintains the distinction to investigate whether the results observed in Chauhan (2017b) are specific to Hindi speakers. Interaction is placed before Pursuit because even though they belong to separate tiers, the object of Interaction verbs is often attained unlike those of Pursuit. 1.4 Overview of transitive constructions in Persian Persian4 is structurally similar to Japanese in that both use the SOV pattern for simple sentences and are Nominative-Accusative languages that mark the subject and object with postpositions. The subject of a canonically transitive structure takes the null- marked nominative case, and the object takes the accusative case which is marked by the postposition râ. However, unlike Japanese, this postposition is licensed only when certain semantic features, like specificity or animacy, are met.5 Non-specific/inanimate objects are typically null-marked and receive a kind-referring interpretation, as in (1b). (1a) را کتاب سارا داد امی به Sârâ ketâb-râ be Amir dâd-∅. Sara-∅ book-ACC to Amir give-PST-3SG ʻSara gave the book to Amirʼ (1b) امی به کتاب سارا Sârâ ketâb be Amir dâd-∅. Sara-∅ book to Amir give-PST-3SG ʻSara gave books/*the book to Amirʼ Furthermore, as pointed out in Hooshmand et al. (2015, p. 10), deviations from the canonical transitive structure are often motivated by the degrees of affectedness of 4 Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Eastern Indo-European languages. It is classified as an SOV language because the verb phrase appears at the end of the sentence in simple sentences with unmarked order (see Greenberg, 1963; Dabir-Moghaddam, 1982; Karimi 1989). 5 In Persian, râ obligatorily marks proper nouns, personal and demonstrative pronouns, reflexive pronouns, reciprocal pronouns, demonstrative nouns, superlatives, question-words ‘which’ and ‘who’, certain quantifiers such as ‘each’, ‘all’, ‘most’, ‘both’ etc., and plurals with the definite plural marker hâ (Jasbi, 2015, p. 13). The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 15 the patient. As a result, cases where Japanese uses a canonically transitive construction and Persian uses non-canonical constructions also exist. For examples (5b) and (6b) below mark the internal arguments ‘outside’ and ‘failure’ with the prepositions be (‘at’) and az (‘from’) respectively. Such deviations can be a source of errors in Persian- speaking learners of Japanese (PJL) necessitating an investigation of the surface case markings in Persian when analyzing errors concerning wo. (5a) Kodomotachi-wa soto-wo Nagame-ta children-TOP outside-ACC gaze-PST ‘The children gazed outside.’ (5b) هابچه ون به ه شدن بی خی bache-hâ be birun xire šodan child-PL-∅ at outside gaze-PST-3PL ‘The children gazed outside.’ (6a) hito-wa shippai-wo osore-ru people-TOP failure-ACC fear-PRT ‘People fear failure.’ (6b) ترسندیم شکست از مردم mardom az šhekast mi-tars-and. people-∅ from failure IMP-fear-3PL ‘People fear failure.’ 2 Aim The present study extends the approach in Chauhan (2017b) by including a wider range of verb types. It also lends psychological validity to prototypical transitivity from a novel data point by testing Persian-speaking learners of Japanese. The aim is to explore the role of verb transitivity, L2 proficiency and L1 case marking in the acquisition of L2 Japanese accusative case marking. The following research questions were investigated. 1. Does verb transitivity influence the selection of the accusative case particle wo in PJL? 16 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI 2. Are PJL more likely to identify verbs of Effective action (linguistic prototypes) as canonically transitive than verbs of Contact? 3. What roles do L2 proficiency and L1 surface case markings play? 3 Method 3.1 Survey categories A list of verbs that take the canonically transitive case frame [NP-ga NP-wo VP] and [NP-ga NP-ni NP-wo VP] was drawn from beginner to upper intermediate level vocabulary textbooks (N5 to N2 level) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)6. Verbs were not treated in isolation but as [NP-wo VP] collocations. The list constituts of 593 verbs. Each item included information about the vocabulary level (N2<> 2. Contact >> 3. Perception >> 4. Cognition >> 5. Interaction >> 6. Pursuit >> 7. Emotion >> 8. Relation) and between groups (UG >> IG >> LG). The test result is presented in figure 2. Figure 2: Particle test results (in %) 4.1 Comparison between categories: The role of verb transitivity (RQ1 & RQ2) As seen in Figure 2, a gradation can be observed between categories in that errors exhibit a downward trend along the hierarchy. However, 1. Effective action registered more errors than 2. Contact and 4. Cognition thereby deviating from the hierarchy proposed by Tsunoda (1985) and Malchukov (2005). Other deviations from Tsunoda's hierarchy were also observed. 3. Perception averaged lower than 4. Cognition and errors concerning 7. Emotion were higher than 8. Relation in IG. Kruskal Wallis tests The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 21 were conducted for each group to verify these differences and to determine whether there is an effect of verb transitivity on the accuracy of particle selection. The result for UG indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between the eight categories, H(7) = 33.185, p < .001. A pairwise comparison of categories shows that 2. Contact was significantly different from the three lowest categories of 6. Pursuit (p = .043), 7. Emotion (p = .003), and 8. Relation (p = .001). 4. Cognition too was significantly different from the two lowest categories of 7. Emotion (p = .023) and 8. Relation (p = .012). A statistically significant difference between the eight categories was also observed for IG, H(7) = 55.502, p < .001. A pairwise comparison of categories shows that 2. Contact was significantly different not only from the lowest four categories of 5. Interaction (p = 016), 6. Pursuit (p = .006), 7. Emotion (p = .00), and 8. Relation (p = .000) but also from 1. Effective action (p = .044). Furthermore, 4. Cognition was significantly different from 7. Emotion (p = .000) and 8. Relation (p = .001). Finally, 3. Perception was significantly different from 7.Emotion (p = .029). The test for LG also indicated a statistically significant difference, H(7) = 30.568, p < .001. A pairwise comparison of categories shows that 8. Relation was significantly different from the highest four categories, namely from 1. Effective action (p = .002), 2. Contact (p = .001), 3. Perception (p = .007), and 4. Cognition (p = .050). The trend within each group was different in that UG tended to distinguish 2. Contact from other categories and LG tended to distinguish 8. Relation from other categories with IG displaying a greater number of significant pairs than the other two groups. However, statistical tests for all three groups show a significant difference between categories 2. Contact and 8. Relation. We may therefore conclude that PJL's particle selection is significantly different at the two ends of the hierarchy. The results also show that learners were not particularly sensitive to the linguistic prototype as can be observed from the fact that 1. Effective action in LG was significantly different only from 8. Relation. In fact, IG was significantly more likely to select wo for 2. Contact than the prototypical 1. Effective action. To summarize, the first research question asks whether learners are sensitive to verb transitivity when selecting the object case particle. It was predicted that learners will select wo more readily for verbs higher in the transitivity hierarchy. The results show that this was indeed the case. Though the exact categories differed between groups, the aggregate score of categories at the upper end of the hierarchy (1. Effective action, 2. Contact, 3. Perception, and 4. Cognition) was significantly higher than categories at the lower end of the hierarchy (5. Interaction, 6. Pursuit, 7. Emotion, and 8. Relation); lending support to the argument that learners tend to display sensitivity to verb transitivity. 22 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI The second research question addresses whether 1. Effective action (the linguistic prototype) was treated by PJL as the most salient transitive construction. The results suggest that this was not the case. Though the prototype scored significantly higher than the lowest category in LG, not only was the score of 2. Contact significantly higher than many more categories across the groups but also the score of 2. Contact was significantly higher than even 1. Effective action in IG. 4.2 Comparison between groups: The role of proficiency and L1 (RQ3) As can be seen from Figure 2 above, UG outperformed IG, who in turn outperformed LG. This observation is corroborated by statistical analysis of the particle test which measures knowledge of Japanese particle wo and the level placement test which measures overall proficiency. The Pearson correlation coefficient was computed to assess the linear relationship between the two tests. The result shows a strong positive correlation, r (51) = .732, p <.001. In other words, learners with higher proficiency were significantly more likely to score higher on the particle test. This indicates that knowledge of Japanese case particles was closely related to overall language proficiency. Though gradation in selection accuracy was observed within categories, not all categories registered a consistent improvement. LG marginally outperformed IG in 1. Effective action and 7. Emotion, indicating a U-shaped accusation pattern. Furthermore, the pattern in 2. Contact and 4. Perception resembles a plateau where UG only narrowly outperformed IG in the former and IG performed marginally better than LG in the latter category. The three groups also differed in that only LG’s results reflect Tsunoda’s hierarchy; with the exception that 1. Effective action was marginally lower than 2. Contact. These differences reflect the evolving interlanguage of learners belonging to different proficiency levels. 4.2.1 Particle selection errors concerning L1 The test items for 2. Contact, 4. Cognition, 5. Interaction, 6. Pursuit and 8. Relation12 were created by selecting Japanese verbs whose Persian counterparts were evenly distributed between canonical constructions (verbs that allow the patient to be marked with râ) and non-canonical constructions (verbs that mark the second argument with markers other than râ). Given that verb type and vocabulary levels were controlled, a lower score for non-canonical items could be indicative of L1 influence. 12 The remaining categories lacked sufficient items in the verb list created from JLPT vocabulary textbooks. For this reason, the number of canonical and non-canonical items was not balanced making it difficult to provide systematic observations across categories (See Appendix A). The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 23 Table 3: Selection of wo (in %) by canonical, non-canonical items in Persian Category Upper group Intermediate group Lower group non- canonical canonical non- canonical canonical non- canonical canonical 2. 88.8 97.2 88.8 91.6 58.8 64.7 4. 83.3 94.4 77.7 83.3 52.9 47.1 5. 52.7 91.6 33.3 86.1 14.7 64.7 6. 75.0 61.1 50.0 58.3 41.1 35.2 8. 75.0 44.4 52.7 22.2 26.4 11.7 Table 3 shows that all three groups scored considerably low for non-canonical items in 5. Interaction. Additionally, erroneous selections often corresponded to the Persian surface marking like az for kara (‘from’) and be for ni (‘to’) which suggests that Persian surface markings may have influenced particle selection for 5. Interaction. The evidence for L1 influence was weaker in 2. Contact and 4. Cognition where scores of non-canonical test items were only marginally lower than their canonical counterparts. Furthermore, with the exception of verbs like kangaeru (‘think’), erroneous selections did not correspond to Persian markings. Furthermore, the evidence for L1 transfer seems unlikely for 8. Relation and 6. Pursuit since non- canonical test items scored higher than canonical ones and erroneous selections that may be attributed to L1 surface marking were infrequent. For categories that lacked a sufficient number of non-canonical items (1. Effective action, 3. Perception and 7. Emotion), comparisons were made between the available non-canonical item and a canonical item that belonged to the next closest vocabulary level (Table 4). Within these three categories, errors observed in 3. Perception may have been influenced by Persian as non-canonical items in IG and LG scored considerably lower than the canocial items. Furthermore, many of the errors in UG (five out of six), IG (nine out of thirteen), and LG (six out of thirteen) can be attributed to Persian surface marking. In contrast, the likelihood of L1 influence is low for 1. Effective action and 7. Emotion as erroneous selections rarely correspond to the Persian surface case. Table 4: Selection of wo (in %) by canonical, non-canonical items in Persian Category Upper group Intermediate group Lower group non- canonical canonical non- canonical canonical non- canonical canonical 1. 100 77.7 83.3 55.5 52.9 64.7 3. 66.6 66.6 27.7 83.3 23.5 64.7 7. 44.4 44.4 22.2 11.1 17.6 11.7 52.7 72.2 58.8 44.4 16.6 29.4 24 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI The above results suggest that L1 surface marking may have been a factor influencing particle selection in 3. Perception and 5. Interaction. However, this does not appear to be the case for categories at the two ends of the hierarchy. 4.2.2 Particle selection errors concerning non-language specific factors Erroneous particle selection can also provide insights into how learners perceive the semantic content of a construction. Though the selection of nominative particle ga and locative/dative ni was by far the most common error type, a pattern was observed when the categories were grouped according to Malchukov’s semantic map (Table 5). Learners tended to select ga for categories that show declining patienthood and ni for categories that show declining agenthood. Table 5: Errors (in %) in the two sub-hierarchies Affected patienthood Category Group ga ni de kara to ni tsuite no tameni ni taishite 1. UG 17.6 - - - - - - - IG 38.2 - - - 1.4 - - - LG 20.6 2.9 2.9 5.9 2.9 - - - 2. UG 2.9 1.4 1.4 1.4 - - - - IG 8.8 1.4 - - - - - - LG 14.7 4.4 5.9 5.9 - - - - 6. UG 10.3 16.2 5.9 1.4 - - - - IG 17.6 13.2 8.8 4.4 - 2.9 - - LG 16.2 19.1 10.3 5.9 5.9 1.4 2.9 - Affected agenthood Category Group ga ni de kara to ni taishite no tameni ni tsuite 3. UG 4.4 13.2 1.4 - 1.4 - - - IG 10.3 19.1 5.9 1.4 - - - - LG 10.3 19.1 5.9 1.4 2.9 1.4 0 0 4. UG 4.4 4.4 2.9 - - - - - IG 11.8 2.9 1.4 - 4.4 - - - LG 13.2 14.7 10.3 - 5.9 - - - 7. UG 23.5 17.6 - 2.9 - - - - IG 41.2 13.2 5.9 8.8 1.4 - - - LG 33.8 16.2 4.4 13.2 1.4 - - - *ga: nominative marker; ni: source, recipient, patient, location marker; de: means, cause, location marker; kara: source marker; to: quotation and comitative marker; ni tsuite: ‘about’; no tameni: ‘for’; ni taishite: ‘against/ towards’ **Highlights indicate the most frequently selected error type. The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 25 The Persian equivalent of the nominative particle ga is a null marker. However, the erroneous selection of ga in categories of the upper sub-hierarchy (1. Effective action, 2. Contact, and 6. Pursuit) is unlikely to be caused by L1 influence alone as only one out of the four test items in each category null marks the object in Persian. Even for these items, UG did not select ga in both 1. Effective action and 2. Contact; and IG and LG selected ga more frequently for the canonical items in all three categories. Despite the Persian equivalent marking of the test item being az (‘from’; kara in Japanese) both IG and LG were more likely to select ga over kara for the second item in 2. Contact. This trend was also observed in all three groups for 6. Pursuit where learners frequently selected ga over kara. This suggests that learners selected ga as the default without referring to their L1. The Persian equivalent of particle ni is the preposition be. However, explaining the erroneous selection of ni in the lower sub-hierarchy through L1 alone is problematic. While L1 influence may be at play in 3. Perception, it is unlikely in 7. Emotion as the Persian equivalent was not the preposition be but az. Kara was the most frequently selected particle by LG for the non-canonical item osoreru ‘fear’. The other two groups did not show such a preference, making L1 influence unlikely for them. The results in 4. Cognition were more mixed. UG were more likely to select ni for non-canonical than canonical items, suggesting L1 influence may be at play. However, IG were more likely to select ga and LG were equally likely to select ga as ni and selected ni just as frequently for items where L1 surface case influence could not be predicted. Another possible explanation for the frequent selection of ga and ni may be that these are intralingual errors caused by the overlapping roles played by particles in Japanese. The case particle ga not only marks the nominative subject of a sentence, but it also marks the patient of potential or desiderative constructions making the distinction between particles ga and wo difficult to master. Similarly, the polysemous particle ni marks the goal and the cause among other usages. The selection of ni instead of wo may be indicative of learners perceiving the noun as a cause affecting the agent or a goal the agent works towards instead of a patient. Particle ni also marks location which may account for its frequent selection in 6. Pursuit by LG and UG. 5 Discussion This study suggested strong evidence for the psychological reality of prototype effects of Japanese transitive constructions in Persian-speaking learners of Japanese. A partial gradation was observed in the grammar test results of all proficiency groups, with categories towards the upper end of the hierarchy exhibiting higher average scores than categories towards the lower end. Subsequent ANOVA tests reveal that the difference between 2. Contact and 8. Relation was significant for all three proficiency groups. Other instances where the result of two categories was significantly different 26 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI mostly concerned a category from the upper end of the hierarchy with one from the lower end. This indicates that learners are indeed sensitive to the degree of verbal transitivity with differences being particularly pronounced at the two ends of the hierarchy. However, the study only suggested weak evidence in support of Tsunoda’s hierarchy. Firstly, the results of LG alone reflected Tsunoda’s hierarchy in that the prototype registered the highest accuracy among the eight verb categories. Furthermore, even in LG, 4. Cognition was higher than both 3. Perception and 6. Pursuit. The evidence in support of Malchukov’s hierarchy appears stronger by comparison. Adopting Malchukov’s hierarchy resolves the deviation concerning 4. Cognition. We also find that learners make a distinction between the sub-hierarchies by selecting ga to show decreasing patienthood and ni to show decreasing agenthood. Neither hierarchy, however, can account for why a non-prototype category (= 2. Contact) scored higher than the prototype (= 1. Effective action). One possible explanation can be that the most fundamental transitive construction for language users is not the linguistic prototype. Ninio (1999) argues that the most natural or prototypical semantic characteristic of transitive construction is not an animate actor bringing about a change in state in an inanimate object through a volitional action, but the manipulation of an autonomous object that causes it to either enter, remain within or move out of the manipulator’s personal domain. This is supported by the observation that children acquire verbs that express ‘fundamental object relation’ before they begin using verbs that can be categorized as a linguistic prototype. In the current study, 1. Effective action corresponds to the linguistic prototype and included kiru (‘cut’), sodateru (‘grow’), akeru (‘make/open (a hole)’), and sakugen suru (‘reduce’). 2. Contact corresponds to verbs Ninio (1999) considers the most fundamental transitive construction and included tomeru (‘stop’), sasu (‘open/put up’), nuku (‘pull out’), atsukau (‘use’). The fact that the score of 2. Contact was higher than 1. Effective action shows that this category is easier to acquire for PJL. Therefore, it fits both the semantic profile as well as acquisitional pattern outlined in Ninio (1999). It should be noted, however, that the current study differs from Ninio (1999) in that the verbs of ‘fundamental object relation’ also include verbs of creation (make, draw), perception (see, hear), and social interaction (give, buy). In the current study, these are grouped under 1. Effective action, 3. Perception, and 5. Interaction respectively. Category 2. Contact therefore only forms a subset within Ninio’s verbs of ‘fundamental object relation’. Ninio (1999) also notes the role of frequency. She states that though high frequency in the input is not a sufficient condition for early acquisition, it is a necessary condition as none of the verbs that were acquired early were low frequency. Though the scope of the current study is limited by the lack of input data, the type frequency of 2. Contact verbs far exceed those of 1. Effective action in two data sources. The first The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 27 is the verb list composed from the Japanese Language Proficiency Test material for this study. This list consists of one hundred prototypical verbs as against two hundred and thirty 2. Contact verbs. The second is Uchida’s (2013) survey of verbs used in the beginner-level textbooks Minna no Nihongo 1 and Minna no Nihongo 2; the primary textbooks used by the participants of this study. Out of the one hundred and fifty-four transitive verbs listed in the textbooks, thirty-seven verbs correspond to 1. Effective action (thirty-four verbs involving an agent causing a change in a patient, and three verbs involving an act of creating something). On the other hand, fifty-nine verbs correspond to 2. Contact (fifty-four verbs involving an agent causing a change in location in an object, and five verbs of object manipulation). This high frequency suggests that learners are more likely to come across NOM-ACC constructions that belong to verbs of contact than the prototype. This in turn may have contributed to the high score in 2. Contact. Yet another deviation from the hierarchy can be observed in 4. Cognition. Specifically, its relative ease of acquisition cannot be explained through its position in the transitivity hierarchy. Cognition verbs involve knowledge retrieval, comprehension, analysis, and knowledge utilization (Marzano & Kendall, 2007). Being abstract activities, they lack an autonomous object which is volitionally acted upon by an agent. Tsunoda (1981, 1985) places this category below Pursuit based mainly on cross linguistic evidence of case patterns exhibited by verbs of this semantic class, but also because he distinguishes it from the categories which represent physical actions. With regards to the feature of affectedness, however, the object of cognition verbs is often attained in the abstract sense and therefore more affected than that of Pursuit verbs. Furthermore, verbs used in the current study such as kangaeru (‘think up’) or yosoku suru (‘predict’) involve knowledge generation and are arguably semantically close to verbs of Effective action such as tsukuru (‘make’). The results of this study, therefore, suggest that the high accuracy rate of 4. Cognition can be attested through the high degree of transitivity of cognition verbs and that learners are not biased toward physical activities over abstract volitional ones. It should also be noted that this result matches the result of Hindi-speaking learners as reported by Chauhan (2017b). Both Hindi and Persian-speaking learners accurately selected wo irrespective of the fact that L1 cognition verbs in both languages do not typically mark the argument with the accusative case. This can be attested by the fact that only sixty-three percent of verbs listed under 4. Cognition were transitive in Persian as compared to eighty-three percent in 3. Perception, making it difficult to argue in favor of L1 influence. Furthermore, high accuracy for even N2 and N3 level vocabulary items by LG is surprising in light of the fact that cognitive verbs first introduced to Japanese learners typically appear in constructions that mark the non- agent argument with the quotation particle to and beginner-level textbooks like Minna no Nihongo do not use cognition verbs when introducing case particle wo. The high rate of accuracy may therefore be due to language-independent factors. 28 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI 6 Conclusion The current study investigated whether Persian learners of Japanese exhibit prototype effects when selecting particles to mark direct objects of transitive verbs in Japanese. The result of the grammar test shows that learners were sensitive to verb transitivity as there was a significant difference between categories at the two ends of the hierarchy. The study also suggests evidence that learners may not consider linguistically prototypical verbs as the most salient transitive construction. Instead, verbs that involve object manipulation either towards or away from the agent may be what learners first acquire. The results also reveal that verbs of cognition are more likely to be identified as canonically transitive regardless of their relatively low position in the verb hierarchy. The third research question explored the role of proficiency and L1. Performance in the particle test reflected proficiency level, with lower groups not only producing more errors but also displaying more error types. Comparison between categories revealed that the acquisition pattern of the three proficiency groups did not always match. LG scored significantly lower in 8. Relation from categories in the upper half of the hierarchy whereas UG scored significantly higher in 2. Contact than categories in the lower half of the hierarchy. IG results were significant at both ends of the hierarchy. This indicates that acquisition pattern shifts from learners struggling to identify low transitivity verbs in 8. Relation as transitive in the early stage of acquisition to learners clearly distinguishing between high transitivity verbs in 2. Contact from other verb types in the later stage of acquisition. The study also found that LG was more likely to produce errors that may be attributed to L1. However, with the exception of 5. Interaction, error types in most categories could not be primarily attributed to the learners’ L1. Acknowledgments This work was partially supported by The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT)’s Special Interest Group - Learner Development research grant awarded to Anubhuti Chauhan. The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 29 Abbreviations ABS Absolutive ACC Accusative DAT Dative ERG Ergative IG Intermediate group INST Instrumental JLPT Japanese Language Proficiency Test LG Lower group NOM Nominative N2 Level 2 of the JLPT N3 Level 3 of the JLPT N4 Level 4 of the JLPT N5 Level 5 of the JLPT PJL Persian speaking Japanese Language learners PL Plural PRT Present PST Past SG Singular TOP Topic particle TTBJ Tsukuba Test-battery of Japanese UG Upper group References Bybee, J. (2010). Language, usage and cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chauhan, A. (2015). 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Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226700010318 Tsunoda, T. 角田太作 (1991). Sekai no gengo to nihongo 世界の言語と日本語. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers くろしお出版. Uchida H. 内田浩 (2013). Kaku joshi “wo” to “ni” no sūryō/imi bunseki – Mina no nihongo kihon dōshi wo shiryō ni 格助詞「を」と「に」の数量・意味分析―みんなの日本語基本動 詞を資料に. Studies in Japanese language and culture 日本語・日本文化研究, 19. Year, J., & Gordon P. (2009). Korean speakers’ acquisition of the English ditransitive construction: The role of verb prototype, input distribution, and frequency. The Modern Language Journal, 93(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00898.x 32 Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI Textbooks Aakuakademii アークアカデミー (2018). Hajimete no nihongonōryokushiken N5 tango 1000 はじめての日本語能力試験 N5 単語 1000. アスク出版 ASK Publishers. Ajiagakuseibunkakyōka アジア学生文化協会 (2014). TRY! Nihongonōryokushiken N4 bunpō kara nobasu nihongo [kaiteiban] TRY! 日本語能力試験 N4 文法から伸ばす日本語[改訂 版]. アスク出版 ASK Publishers. Ando, E. 安藤栄里子, Eya, Y. 惠谷容子, & Iijima, M. 飯嶋美知 (2018). Mimi kara oboeru nihongonōryokushiken goi toreeningu N3 耳から覚える日本語能力試験語彙トレーニ ング N3. アルク出版 ALC Publishers. Ando, E. 安藤栄里子, Eya, Y. 惠谷容子, & Iijima, M. 飯嶋美知 (2018). Mimi kara oboeru nihongonōryokushiken goi toreeningu N2 耳から覚える日本語能力試験語彙トレーニ ング N2. アルク出版 ALC Publishers. The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative … 33 Appendix: Particle test items by category, vocabulary level, L1 Persian marking level N5 N4 N3 N2 category canonical non- canonical canonical non- canonical canonical non- canonical canonical non- canonical 1. kiru [kēki] cut [cake] sodateru [ki] grow [tree] akeru [ana] open [hole] sakugensuru [kosuto] Cut [cost] râ=wo râ=wo ∅=ga râ=wo 2. tomeru [kuruma] stop [car] sasu [kasa] hold [umbrella] nuku [ha] pull out [tooth] atsukau [nyūsu] use [news] râ=wo ∅=ga râ=wo a=kara 3. kiku [hanashi] listen [story] mitsukeru [resutoran] find [restaurant] mikakeru [Yamada] spot [Yamada] nagameru [soto] gaze [outside] râ=wo râ=wo râ=wo be=ni 4. kangaeru [yarikata] think [method] machigaeru [kanji] mistake [kanji] Yosoku suru [kakuritsu] predict [probability] handansuru [kanōsei] assess [possibility] be=ni râ=wo râ=wo dar bâreye=ni tsuite 5. okuru [okane] send [money] hōmonsuru [betonamu] visit [Vietnam] inoru [gōkaku] pray [success] odokasu [tenin] threaten [clerk] râ=wo az=kara barâye = tame ni râ=wo 6. matsu [tegami] wait [letter] sagasu [purezento] search [present] enryōsuru [amaimono] refrain [sweets] [tsuma no ato] ou chase [behind one’s wife] ∅=ga râ=wo az=kara râ=wo 7. shinpaisuru [anzen] worry [safety] shinjiru [otogibanashi] believe [fairytale] osoreru [hi] fear [fire] konomu [wagyu] like [beef] az=kara dar bâreye=ni tsuite az=kara râ=wo 8. motsu [kyōdai] have [sibling] fukumu [bitamin] contain [vitamin] motsu [sekinin] have [duty] kakasu [chōshoku] miss [breakfast] ∅=ga ∅=ga ∅=ga ∅=ga Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 13(1), 2023. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.35-52 Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Nagisa.MoritokiSkof@ff.uni-lj.si Abstract The analysis of this study aims to investigate the effectiveness of reading skills manifested by L2 learners of Japanese. In order to analyze the reading process of L2 learners of Japanese, we analyzed the data of 24 non-kanji learners of Japanese that were obtained from the “Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese.” Using Yang’s (2006) categorization, we analyzed learners’ understanding of words in the text through two different situations, (1) when they lack the relevant language skills, and (2) when they encounter unknown words while reading a text. The results show that learners use various tools, depending on the purpose, to find appropriate meanings of individual words and to understand the meanings of whole sentences and texts. Also, the results suggest that appropriate language knowledge prevents incorrect assumptions in comprehension and supports successful comprehension of whole texts. Keywords: reading comprehension, language knowledge, reading strategies, comprehension monitoring strategies, L2 learner of Japanese, vocaburaly meanings Povzetek Namen analize te študije je raziskati učinkovitost bralnih veščin, ki jih kažejo učenci japonščine kot tujega jezika. Za analizo procesa branja v tujem jeziku smo analizirali podatke 24 učencev japonščine kot tujega jezika, katerih izvorni jezik ne uporablja pismenk. Podatke smo pridobili iz »Bralnega korpusa nematernih govorcev japonščine« (Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese). Z uporabo Yangove (2006) kategorizacije smo analizirali razumevanje besed v besedilu skozi dve različni situaciji, (1) ko učenci nimajo ustreznega jezikovnega znanja in (2) ko med branjem besedila učenci naletijo na neznane besede. Rezultati kažejo, da učenci uporabljajo različna orodja, odvisno od namena, za iskanje ustreznih pomenov posameznih besed in za razumevanje pomenov celih stavkov in besedil. Prav tako rezultati kažejo, da ustrezno jezikovno znanje preprečuje napačne predpostavke pri razumevanju in podpira uspešno razumevanje celotnih besedil. Ključne besede: bralno razumevanje, znanje jezika, bralne strategije, strategije spremljanja razumevanja, učenec japonščine kot tujega jezika, besedni pomeni 36 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF 1 Introduction Reading is an activity in which others can hardly observe what is happening inside the reader. As long as this activity is done silently, no one can see how the reader thinks, how they engage in the reading process, and how they understand the meaning of the text. Therefore, reading instruction in language classes usually focuses on content, i.e. whether learners understand what is written correctly and what the author refers to, but not on developing effective reading skills. In this paper, the actual reading protocol of L2 learners of Japanese is analyzed to clarify how good readers use the tools and decode texts to understand them correctly. In particular, the analysis focuses on L2 non-kanji learners of Japanese in Europe who are not familiar with kanji (Chinese characters) and kanji compounds, compared to learners in China. The analysis aims to reveal the skills of effective reading of J2 learners of Japanese, which would be adapted to developing reading protocols in Japanese language teaching. Three research questions are addressed below: 4. How do L2 Japanese learners sufficiently find out the meaning of words they do not understand in the text? 5. What strategies in reading protocols are found in the reading process of L2 Japanese learners? 6. What is the relationship between the reading strategies, comprehension monitoring strategies, and language knowledge of L2 Japanese learners in finding word meanings? 2 Backgrounds and previous studies Language learners encounter texts in their target language naturally and according to their interests and needs. Not only do they read textbooks in the classroom, but nowadays they also seek to read texts on the Internet. Noda et al. (2018) report that the genres L2 learners of Japanese are eager to read or need to read include “life, information, communication, hobbies and interests, and academic topics”. They also report that learners often want to read materials in Japanese at a higher level even when they themselves are at the beginner level. Therefore, it has been suggested that teachers should use materials in language classes that “stimulate learners’ interests and promote their motivation” (Noda et al., 2018, p. 255). However, it is easy to assume that learners will encounter various difficulties in reading texts if the reading materials are not adapted to their language level. Previous studies such as those by Nakajima (2020) for the beginner level, by Mukai (2020) for the intermediate level, and by Moritoki (2020) for the advanced level have shown difficulties in reading comprehension at each language level. Moritoki (in press) analyzes difficulties at all levels, from beginner to advanced, and concludes that Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 37 advanced learners are able to overcome potential difficulties through conscious and cognitive reading. Moreover, Yamanaka (1999) and Kanno (2007), who address the difficulties in understanding the meaning of noun modifiers, Moritoki (2022) and Moritoki (in print) point out the difficulties in decoding the structure of noun modifying closes in their reading process. However, these studies focused on the difficulties at each level or in the particular structure, so the reading strategies of L2 non-Kanji Japanese learners have not yet been clearly described. L2 non-Kanji learners are not as familiar with kanji as learners who use Chinese characters in their native language. In addition, learners with insufficient proficiency often encounter words, Kanji-compound words, and phrases whose meanings they do not understand from the character information in the text. Hmeljak Sangawa (2020) reports on the dynamic use of dictionaries in learners’ reading process. The study concludes that learners have three difficulties: (a) they cannot cut out a word properly to find it in the dictionary; (b) they search for a target word with an incorrect Kanji character; (c) they cannot select a suitable meaning in the text from the dictionary description. However, looking at the reading protocol, we find that learners encounter such difficulties even at a high language proficiency. The difference with poor readers is that good learners have the means to overcome such difficulties. Therefore, this study will investigate how they overcome difficulties in reading. The results are expected to indicate a way to guide L2 Japanese learners to read autonomously. Studies on reading strategies of L2 learners in English have proposed a variety of categorizations due to the different definitions, such as Baker and Brown (1984), Block (1986, 1992), Janson and Stoller (1988), or Casanave (1988). Based on these previous studies, Yang (2006) analyzes the studies on the reading process, which are summarized in Table 1. Yang’s study concludes that accumulating sufficient language knowledge helps learners to read a text successfully, learning appropriate strategies helps readers to understand the meaning of a text, and that comprehension monitoring knowledge helps learners to identify reading problems, which is the first step to overcoming the difficulties. As mentioned in the study, Reading strategies are those that help readers solve the problems in figuring out meanings of printed words while comprehension monitoring strategies are those that help readers solve the problems beyond the printed words. (Yang, 2006). 38 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF Table 1: List of two types of reading strategies (according to Yang, 2006) Reading strategies (RS) Comprehension monitoring strategies (CMS) 1. REREADING (Block, 1986; Janzen & Stoller, 1998) The reader rereads a part of the reading passage silently or aloud. 1. IGNORING AND READING ON (Collins & Smith, 1980) The reader ignores unknown words and phrases and continues reading because they think that unknown words or phrases are unimportant information, which do not hinder their comprehension. 2. SUSPENDING PROBLEMS (Yang, 2000) The reader suspends responses to words or sentences that they do not understand and expect to figure out the meanings in the context. 2. SUSPENDING JUDGMENT (Collins & Smith, 1980) The reader skips their judgment toward unknown words, phrases or senten-ces, and after they understand later sentences or paragraphs, they go back and comprehend previous unknown parts. 3. QUESTIONING (Block, 1986; Janzen & Stoller, 1998) The reader poses the questions in the reading process. 3. FORMING A TENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS (Collins & Smith, 1980) The reader forms a tentative hypothesis toward unknown words, phrases, or sentences, and as reading continues, they examine the correctness of the hypothesis. 4. GUESSING MEANING (Yang, 2000; Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001) The reader uses the process of guessing to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words or sentences in the text. 4. REREADING CURRENT SENTENCES OR LOOKING FOR A TENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS (Collins & Smith, 1980) The reader rereads current sentences for better comprehension of the texts and sometimes finds some clues within the sentences. 5. CONNECTING THE TEXT TO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE (Janzen & Stoller, 1998) The reader connects their background knowledge with the new information. 5. REREADING THE PREVIOUS CONTEXT (Collins & Smith, 1980) The reader rereads the previous context, or sometimes the following context, and uses context clues to comprehend the text. 6. USING CONTEXT CLUES (Janzen & Stoller, 1998; Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001) The reader gets clues from what they had read to find out the main points or meanings of words, sentences, or paragraphs in the reading process. 6. MONITORING ONESELF (Palincsar & Brown, 1989) The reader takes actions to evaluate their own performance to verify whether the comprehension is correct or not. 7. SELF-CORRECTING (Block, 1986) The reader changes their previously- incorrect notions and corrects them. Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 39 Regarding monitoring in L2 Japanese learning, Tateoka (2001) is one of the few studies on monitoring comprehension found for L2 Japanese learners. The observation in her study suggests that efficient readers are able to use the strategy of global self- inquiry and integrate inquiries, text information, and their prior knowledge. However, the questions on how global self-inquiry relates to language knowledge, and whether it is part of language knowledge or occurs as a cognitive activity remain unanswered. Considering L2 learning of Japanese, language knowledge is a skill, which can be acquired through the teacher’s instruction learners and support in the classroom, while cognitive activities tend to be left to learners, although teachers can introduce various strategies. Therefore, this study aims to analyze learners’ reading process in terms of language knowledge and comprehension monitoring in order to find a way to teach efficient reading skills to L2 learners of Japanese. 3 Method and data To analyze the process of reading in L2 learners of Japanese, this study uses the “Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese”. The data of this corpus with the think-aloud method show the learners’ utterances about how they read the text, how they searched for a word, what they understood, what they guessed, what they did not understand, and what they skipped or ignored in the reading protocol. Data from 24 non-kanji learners in Europe were analyzed for the study. The native language of these learners is neither Chinese, which uses a similar character system to Japanese, nor any other Asian language influenced by Chinese (Appendix 1). In the corpus, L2 readers of Japanese express what they think and what they do in their most familiar language, usually their native language. An investigator asked the learners to clearly describe their intensions during the reading process. In this survey, learners read Japanese texts according to their interests. Therefore, the level of the texts does not always match the learner’s level. Learners’ levels are indicated by the JLPT levels in Appendix 1 and show their approximate proficiency levels. However, This does not necessarily mean that the higher the JLPT level, the better the reader of Japanese texts. For the analysis, we observe the learners’ utterances in the corpus and the ways to overcome the difficulties. By revealing what Reading strategies and Comprehension monitoring strategies have already been set in the previous literature, we will determine what learners do to supplement insufficient language knowledge. This analysis will focus on vocabulary comprehension. 40 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF 4 Strategies for supplementing language knowledge 4.1 Effective dictionary searches The focus of our first observation is on how L2 readers behave when they encounter an expression in a text that they do not understand. To determine the characteristics of the features of the sufficient readers, the utterances of the insufficient readers are also analyzed. Higher-level learners have such language knowledge that if they know the meaning of a kanji word, they can assume what the word means in context even if they do not know how to pronounce it. Lower-level learners, however, do not have the language knowledge to guess the meanings. But they overcome these difficulties by using a dictionary effectively. In Example (1), a native French speaker confused the character with in the word (kōgai, suburbs) because of the similarity of their forms. By using a dictionary, the learner noticed their mistake. (1) 2014 2014-nen ni kōgai no montoruiyu shi de dekita ‘pesshu’ ga, In 2014 of the suberb in the city Montreuil was made pêche Pari tōbu sū-ku demo tsukawareru kotoni natta Eastern part of Paris in several ward is used to the thing become ‘Created in 2014 in the suburb of Montreuil, 'pêche' is now used in several eastern Paris districts.’ (R-FR0004, N4) Initially, the learner read (kōgai, suburbs) as (bungai), but when they looked up the word in the dictionary, they realized their mistake in seeing only the left side of the Kanji. This is a case where the learner discovers the error while looking up the character. In other cases, learners failed to find the correct style of the kanji because they misrecognized the character or used an incorrect stroke when looking it up in the dictionary. The development of dictionary applications on smartphones has made significant progress in recent years, and dictionary applications have become a popular tool for learning Japanese due to their low cost, handiness, and ease of use. The learner of Example (1) has noticed the errors in recognizing the kanji, while some learners were not conscious whether they were reading correctly or not when they used the scanner function of the applications or the Ad-On in the browser that displays the meaning of a word in the pull-down window. In such cases, learners reached the meaning of the Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 41 text without reading the character and thus tended to search for the same word multiple times. 4.2 Effective use of the Internet resorces In addition to dictionaries, language learners also use various Internet resources. In the following example, a native Spanish speaker did not understand the word (dōban, copper sheet). He first searched for the word in an online dictionary, and found the meaning in English, but did not understand what a copper sheet was. (2) Takoyaki-ki ni gasu o tsuke, dōban ga aruteido atatamatta Takoyaki machine gas turn on sheet copper some extent become warm jiten de gasu o kirimasu. at the time gas turn off ‘Turn on the gas in the takoyaki machine and turn it off when the copper plate has heated up to a certain degree.’ (R-SP0007, N4) So the learner looked up the word (dōban, copper sheet) in Japanese with the image search function. He saw that the results displayed in the browser had nothing to do with Takoyaki or Takoyaki machine, but a brown metal sheet. Therefore, he searched for the word (takoyaki-ki, takoyaki machine) in Japanese with the image. Learners take advantage of a picture search to understand what a thing is, especially a thing in a foreign culture. The other difficulties often lie in the learner’s inability to correctly cut out a meaningful word or group of words from a sequence of words. However, the function of dictionaries enables learners to understand the corresponding meaning even without language. The learner above first cut out a sequence of three kanji characters from two words [ ] [ ] (aru teido / atatamatta) and looked it up in the Internet dictionary. The dictionary displayed (teido) and [ ] (atatamatta) separately, so the learner realized that the item was a succession of two words. This is an example of a successful use of learning tools to supplement learners' language knowledge. 42 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF 4.3 Systematically serching for a word While it has been proven that learners’ language knowledge contributes to effective reading and even to the development of learners’ language skills, Hmeljak Sangawa (2020) pointed out that some learners often tend to achieve inadequate comprehension because they are convinced that the dictionary meaning given at the beginning must be the correct one in the context and do not pay attention to other meanings that follow. In contrast to this tendency, the sufficient learner in Example (3) searched the following part of the meaning or idioms in the dictionary for an appropriate expression and was able to successfully find the correct word using his language knowledge. (3) Shikashi keiei shiten de no taikei-teki-na However on the perspective of management systematic saiyō kenkyū wa hattentojō ni aru recruitment research in the process of development be ‘However, systematic studies of recruitment from a management perspective are still under development.’ (R-FR0009, N1) When the learner came across the word (taikei-teki-na, systematic), he was not sure if he had understood its meaning correctly in context. He knew a word (taikei, system) and (taikei-ka, systematization), but he later said that he could not connect the meaning of (taikei-teki-na, systematic) with the meaning of (taikei-ka, systematization), so he searched the word in the portable dictionary (without an Internet connection) and was able to find the word (taikei-teki-na, systematic), which is at the bottom of the descriptions. This learner had the ability to approach the language analytically, and successfully noticed that (taikei, system) is a noun and that - (-ka) is a suffix meaning ‘-zation’. Being able to recognize what he did not know, he did not stop searching the word in the dictionary for the appropriate meaning until he has not convinced that the problem was solved. This learner was evaluated having a high level of language proficiency (who has JLPT N1) and was able to analyze a word in the text. No particular reading strategies were found in the protocol. The learner carefully looked for each word with the suffixes and its translation in French. It was an example of the learner looking up the meaning in a dictionary to understand the whole meaning of the sentence. He could find the (taikei-teki-na, systematic) in the dictionary because he expected it to be described in the dictionary with his knowledge of the language. Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 43 The following example shows a poor reader who, due to lack of language knowledge, did not notice the collocating expression in the sentence and could not find the correct meaning in the dictionary. A reader could not find the correct meaning of the word (hatashite, really/ever: with interrogative expression) in the dictionary. (4) Facebook AI Feisubukku ya shōgi no shiai nado demo wadai ni natte iru AIwa Facebook and of shogi maches a hot topic become AI hatashite bunshō o kakeru no deshou ka really, ever sentences can write (interrogative particle) ‘Can AI, which has become a hot topic on Facebook and in shogi machines, really write sentences.’ (R-SL0002, N2) This learner first read as KAtashite instead of HAtashite. She copied and pasted the word into the search window of the Internet dictionary. She found the meaning ‘as was expected/just as thought’, as shown at the beginning of the entry, and did not notice the next description ‘really; actually; ever used in interrogative and hypothetical sentences’ below it. Unlike the learner in Example (3), this learner does not value precision in comprehension but is content to understand the approximate meaning of the text. Her Japanese proficiency is at an upper intermediate level, but she did not notice the interrogative final particle (ka). Had she noticed the particle, she might have found the second description in the dictionary or at least thought that it did not fit the sentence when the word has the meaning ‘as was expected’. Her linguistically careless reading led her to distort the meaning of the sentences that the author asked whether AI could write sentences as we expected. This example shows that a lack of language knowledge or carelessness about language structure can prevent an appropriate meaning from being found in the dictionary. We can also assume that the examining description in the dictionary offered enough stimulation to remind a learner of their language knowledge. 4.4 Supplimentary cognitive activities 4.4.1 Assumptions from the written information In this section, we will observe several examples where learners successfully understood the meaning of the texts through their guesses. The first example is text comprehension using assumptions based on the written text. A learner succeeded in inferring the meaning of the word (kōdo-ka, sophisticated) from the context. 44 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF (5) Sekai-teki ni bijinesu no kōdo-ka ya kōrei-ka ni yori, jinzai no Globally of business sophosticated and by aging human resources kakuho ga muzukashiku nari toriwake hai sukiruna jinzai de secure becomes difficult particuraly high-skilled human resources sono keikō ga kenchoda to yosoku sarete iru karada the trend is pronounced is predicted as ‘Globally, it is predicted that securing human resources will become more difficult due to the sophisticated of business and the aging of society, and that this trend will be particularly pronounced for highly skilled personnel.’ (R-FR0009 N1) The learner found that the word (kōdo-ka) consisted of two parts (kōdo) and a suffix - (-ka). He knew that (kōdo) has two meanings: high and somewhat developed. He chose the second meaning because, most likely, he saw the word (sekai-teki ni, globally) as something about development. In this example, the learner had a basic knowledge of the word meaning and understood the sentence enough to remember the meaning of the uncertain word and made a connection to think of it. Although the learner was unsure of the accurate meaning of the word, they were able to correctly select the meaning in context using his knowledge of the language. Following Yang (2006), this protocol includes RS 1: Rereading and RS 6: Using context clues. The reader remembered the word (sekai-teki ni) and was able to correctly determine the meaning of the word (kōdo-ka). The following example shows how a learner used the reading strategy RS 6 in vain, which was due to his lack of the cultural information about Japan. The learner knew the meaning of the word (hitori, alone), although they could not understand it in the sentence. The following example is a part of the novel in which an elderly salesperson warns the main character at a kiosk atthe train station. (6) hitori da to kon’nani nonbiri dekinai kara ne if I am alone like this be relax cannot do (discourse particle) Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 45 imanouchini chanto shigoto oboete ne to kuchi yakamashiku now properly job learn that nagging hini ni-kai wa iwareru. a day at least twice to be said ‘She nags me at least twice a day about how I can not relax as much when I am alone (in the kiosk), and that I should learn to do my job properly while she is still on the job.’ (R-SP0003, N2) Although the learner understood the word (hitori, alone) lexically, they recalled in the previous section that the main character lives with her grandmother. The learner assumed that she does not live alone in the novel, but still might feel alone because it is the grandmother who lives with her. In this sentence, she starts working in a kiosk at the train station and is told by a woman to take over the job. The sentence means that very soon the main character would be (hitori, alone) in the kiosk. The reader could not remember or did not know that there is usually only one person in a kiosk, and they could not connect the word (hitori, alone) to the coming situation that she would soon be alone when the woman quits the job. In this example, the learner understood the meaning of the vocabulary but could not connect it to the context because they did not have appropriate cultural knowledge nor could they find a context clue that only one person works in a kiosk. These errors are common among L2 readers of Japanese in Europe because they do not have sufficient knowledge of the Japanese background. 4.4.2 Assumptions about the learner’s knowledge On the contrary, the following example shows that the learner knows and is convinced about the subject, and it also seems that he has fully understood the content, but he has not read the text as printed. The learner had the experience of living in Fukushima prefecture for some time and grasped the content of the text about the region. The RS 5: Connecting the text to prior knowledge and CMS 1: Ignore and read on were found in the protocol. (7) Ken’nai wa nanboku hook ni nobiru sanmyaku the prefecture in a north-south direction to extend mountain range 46 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF sanchi ni yotte, chikei kikō kōtsū the mountain regions due to topography climate transport rekishi nado no men ni chigai ga arawarete ori history and so forth on the phase differences to be apparent 3 san chiiki ni wakerarete iru into three reasions to be devided ‘The prefecture is divided into three regions, with differences in topography, climate, traffic, history and other phases, due to the mountain ranges and mountainous regions that extend in a north-south direction.’ (R-GR0005, N2) The learner knew from his experience that Fukushima Prefecture is divided into three areas by mountainous regions, and he could understand the approximate meaning of the sentence. However, the learner did not try to understand the phrase as it was written, e.g. (nanboku hookoo ni nobiru sanmyaku sanchi ni yotte, due to the mountain ranges and mountainous regions extending in a north-south direction). The learner occasionally mentioned in the protocol that he had lived in Fukushima and that he was aware of the mountains and other geographical features in Fukushima. The learner fully utilized his prior knowledge (RS 5) about Fukushima. The other reason that the learner did not understand the text accurately is that the text contained many kanji-compound pronouns for the names of areas, mountains, and cities and the learner did not want to read such names from a series of unfamiliar kanji characters. He mentioned several times that the exact content was not important to him and therefore skipped them (CMS 1). He may have deliberately chosen not to read some parts of the text, but by doing so he also got little of the meaning of the whole sentence. He was able to somehow reconcile the content of the text with his prior knowledge, but he did not read and understand the text itself. 5 Findings and discussion In Section 4, we looked at several examples to explore two ways to supplement the lack of learners’ language knowledge in a reader’s comprehension process: the effective use of various tools and learners’ cognitive activities. Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 47 As for the tools for text comprehension of the text, learners have various tools: a portable dictionary, an online dictionary, a picture search for searching kanji words and unfamiliar things, etc., and choose the right tool for the purpose of the search. In the corpus, searching with tools enables learners to 1) recognize the lexical meaning, and also 2) recognize the word compound, as learners could not analyze two or more compound kanji words correctly, and 3) acquire the cultural background in Japan. It can be observed that L2 learners used reading strategies when they encountered unfamiliar words and could not complete their comprehension with the tools. Although the cognitive activities were then found in the reading protocol, the sufficient reader did not apply excessive strategies. Interestingly, the higher the proficiency level of a learner, the fewer reading strategies have been found. The observation concerning example (7) points out that lack of language proficiency may not lead the learner to adequate comprehension, but cause the overuse of reading strategies that bring no results. L2 learners of Japanese used several strategies when they encounted difficulties in reading, such as Reading (RS 1), Using context clues (RS 6) and Ignore and continuing to read (CMS 1). However, these strategies only worked properly when supported by adequate and analytical language knowledge. Lack of language knowledge prevented accurate cognitive reading and causes learners to misunderstand the text. Our observation supports Yang’s (2006) conclusion that “reading strategies help a reader’s comprehension when they does not have sufficient language knowledge to understand a text.” 6 Conclusion This study examined the vocabulary search protocol of L2 Japanese learners in their reading process and investigated which reading strategies, from the aspect of the relationship to language knowledge, were used. The analysis revealed that learners with sufficient language knowledge used various tools to achieve the appropriate meaning of the text and analytical consideration of language knowledge, and did not overuse reading strategies. From these results, we can conclude that language teachers need to teach both, adequate language knowledge and efficient reading strategies to achieve proper comprehension of the text. But what is proper comprehension for a learner when reading a text anyway? If a learner does not know the information about the kiosk in Japan, how can a learner judge whether they had understood the text correctly or incorrectly? What can a language teacher do to help a learner read autonomously? This study focused on word comprehension in a text to investigate what tools and strategies learners have and use. We know that the clues to comprehension of a text 48 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF are spread in the text as well as in the real world. Research on reading protocols of phrases and sentences, of both sufficient and insufficient L2 readers, is still pending, however, we should obtain some further conslusions about effective instruction on reading strategies in the near future. Acknowledgments This work was supported by “Asian languages and cultures” under Grant ARRS P6- 00243; “Aspects of contemporary Japanese language and culture” under Grant ffpu- 01-2020-3; and “Multifaceted elucidation of communication among L2 Japanese learners: a reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese.” We also thank the learners and researchers who created the “Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese” for their cooperation. Abbreviations JLPT Japanese Language Proficiency Test RS Reading strategies CMS Comprehension monitoring strategies Reading corpus Noda, H. et al. (2017-) Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese. Retrieved from http://www.nodahisashi.org/jsl-rikai/dokkai/ References Baker, L., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Metacognitive skills and reading. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp.353–394). New York: Longman. Block, E. (1986). The comprehension strategies of second language readers. TESOL quarterly, 20(3), 463-494. Block, E. 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Reading Psychology, 27(4), 313-343. https://doi-org/10.1080/02702710600846852 50 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF Appendix The list of L2 Japanese learners and their reading materials Data ID Media Genre Author and title Learner’s L1 evel (JLPT1) R-EN0009 academic paper Information studies (2017) SF [A society where “artificial intelligence” and “humans” coexist – “general-purpose artificial intelligence” as “autonomous knowledge” depicted in SF manga-] 27 Ueda Yasutaka and Kimura Masumi (2017) “ ‘Jinkō chinō’ to ‘ningen’ ga kyōzon suru shakai ~ SF manga de egaka reru ‘jiritsu chi’ to shite no ‘han’yō jinkō chinō’~’ Edogawadaigaku kiyō, 27 English N1 R-FR0009 academic paper Commerce studies (2016) : [Research on recruitment systems: towards the evolution of recruitment] [ ] Nakamura Amae (2016) “Jinzai saiyō shisutemu no kenkyū: Saiyō no shinka ni mukete”, Hitotsubashi University, Doctoral thesis French N1 R-EN0002 website Literature Kanō Sakujirō, “Shōnen to umi [The boy and the sea]” Aozorabunko English N2 R-EN0004 website Literature [Hakata doll] Takehisa Yumeji, “Hakata Ningyō”, Aozorabunko English N2 R-GR0005 website General ‘Fukushimaken’ no ‘gaiyō [‘Overview’ of ‘Fukushima Prefecture’]’, “Furī hakkajiten uikipedia nihongohan” German N2 R-SL0002 website General AI “AI wa nihongo de bunshō o kakeru no ka? Raitā- gyō no yukusue ni tsuite [Can AI write texts in Japanese? On the future of the writing profession]” Ko buta no enpitsu Slovene N2 R-SP0003 book Literature P.48 Aoyama Nanae “Hitori biyori [Alone day]” p. 48 Spanish N2 R-SP0009 website General Gaimushō hōmupēji “Arubaito no mitsuke- kata” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs website “How to find a part-time job”) Spanish N2 1 JLPT = Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It has five levels from N1 (approximately CEFR C1 level) to N5 (CEFR A2 level). Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese 51 Data ID Media Genre Author and title Learner’s L1 evel (JLPT1) R-SP0014 website General ‘Jingū no shinwa [Jingū mith]’ “Amanoiwato shinwa [Amanoto mith]” “Tenson kōrin [Tenson kōrin]” Spanish N2 R-SP0015 academic paper Intercultural communicative studies (2010) Wakao Takuya (2010) ‘Shichōkaku hon’yaku ni okeru yūmoa no yakushi-kata kessoku-sei no kanten kara [How to translate humor in audiovisual translation: From the perspective of cohesion] Spanish N2 R-GR0002 book Literature pp.320-323 Miyabe Miyuki “Riyū [Reason]” p. 320 - 323 German Former 2/ap- prox. N2 R-FR0007 free paper General Ovni , [Finish the weekend with the Peniche] No.785 Ovni ‘Shūmatsu wa penisshu de, finisshu.’ No. 785 French N3 R-FR0008 website General ‘Toshokan [Library]’ (Kansaidaigaku hōmupēji > toshokan hakubutsukan > toshokan) French N3 R-FR0010 Pamphlets General INAX INAX gareriaseramika de no Tanaka Tomomi-ten [Tomomi Tanaka exhibition at INAX Galleria Ceramica] French N3 R-GR0007 book General “Garibā ryokō- ki [Gulliver’s Travels]” Aozorabunko German N3 R-SL0005 academic paper Sociology 2011 -- (6), 127-142, Nakagawa Hiromi (2011) ‘Shōjo manga no ‘tatakau shōjo’ ni miru jendā kihan -- “Ribon no kishi” kara “Bishōjo senshi sērāmūn” made’ “Aichi shukutoku daigaku gendai shakai kenkyū-ka kenkyū hōkoku” (6), p.127 - 142, Aichi shukutoku daigaku daigakuin gendai shakai kenkyū-ka Slovene N3 R-SP0004 book General P.49 Aoyama nanae “Hitori biyori [Alone day]” p. 49 Spanish N3 R-FR0004 free paper General Ovni No.853 Ovni “Pari mo chiiki tsūka pesshu dōnyū!” [Paris has also introduced a local currency, the ‘pêche’!] No. 853 French N4 52 Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF Data ID Media Genre Author and title Learner’s L1 evel (JLPT1) R-SP0007 website General Jidō takoyaki-ki de no takoyaki no tsukurikata [How to make takoyaki with an automatic takoyaki machine] Spanish N4 R-SP0006 website General Honkaku o uchi de kantan! Yaki-kata reshipi [Authentic at home, easy! Recipe for baking] Spanish N5 R-SP0012 website General Pasuta to rāmen wa genzairyō ga kon’nani chigau! Orībuoiru o hito mawashi. [Pasta and ramen noodles have such different ingredients! A dab of olive oil.] Spanish N5 R-SP0013 public relations magazine General 400 Vol.2 Keichō shisetsu 400 nenkinen-shi `kō’`keichōken’ōshisetsu to date masamune no yume’ Vol. 2 [The 400th Anniversary of the Keicho Envoys to Europe Commemorative Magazin “Ko”, ‘The Keicho envoys to Europe and the dream of Date Masamune’ Vol. 2 Spanish N5 Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 13(1), 2023. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.53-71 Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and Proficiency Degree of the Chinese Language Among Trainee Teachers CHEW Fong Peng* University of Malaya, Malaysia fpchew@um.edu.my Abstract This study aims to investigate the relationship between attitude, learning orientation, motivation, and mastery of the Chinese language among trainee teachers by using Gardner and Lambert’s social psychology model and Gardner’s psychological model of learning. A total of 181 trainee teachers were selected to answer a questionnaire. Data were analyzed by using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. The findings indicated extrinsic motivation was related negatively to Chinese language skills and achievement. Intrinsic motivation and integrative orientation were related positively to Chinese language skills, whereas intrinsic motivation, integrative orientation, and motivational intensity were related positively to Chinese language achievement. In addition, integrative orientation, instrumental orientation, and attitude toward learning situations were positive predictors of the motivational intensity of the trainee teachers. Therefore, this study provides a model to the Institute of Teacher Education on the factors that need to be considered to motivate trainee teachers in mastering the Chinese Language. Keywords: integrative orientation, instrumental orientation, attitude toward learning, motivation, motivational intensity, Chinese language Povzetek Namen te študije je bil raziskati povezavo med odnosom, učno usmerjenostjo, motivacijo in ravnijo znanja kitajskega jezika med učitelji pripravniki z uporabo Gardnerjevega in Lambertovega modela socialne psihologije in Gardnerjevega psihološkega modela učenja. Skupaj je bilo izbranih 181 učiteljev pripravnikov, ki so odgovorjali na vprašanja. Podatki so bili analizirani z metodo modeliranja delnih strukturnih enačb najmanjših kvadratov. Ugotovitve so pokazale, da je bila zunanja motivacija negativno povezana tako z jezikovnimi sposobnostmi kot tudi ravnijo znanjem kitajskega jezika. Notranja motivacija in povezovalna naravnanost sta bili pozitivno povezani z jezikovnimi sposobnostmi, medtem ko so bile intrinzična motivacija, povezovalna naravnanost in intenzivnost motivacije pozitivno povezane z visoko ravnijo znanja kitajskega jezika. Poleg tega so bili povezovalna naravnanost, ciljna usmerjenost in odnos do učnih situacij pozitivni napovedovalci intenzivnosti motivacije učiteljev pripravnikov. Zato ta študija daje Inštitutu za izobraževanje učiteljev model o dejavnikih, ki ki so nujni za motivacijo učiteljev pripravnikev pri usvajanju kitajskega jezika. Ključne besede: povezovalna naravnanost, ciljna usmerjenost, odnos do učenja, motivacija, intenzivnost motivacije, kitajščina * This research was conducted in cooperation with Fonny HUTAGALUNG, University of Malaya, and TAN Chor Ter, Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (C) Sungai Chua. 54 CHEW Fong Peng* 1 Introduction With rapid development, China emerges as the country with the world’s second-largest economy. The impact of China’s economic growth has created a new atmosphere for learning Chinese, which is also spurred by its efforts to cultivate its soft power by promoting the Chinese language and culture (Wang, 2019). In Malaysia, the Chinese language has progressively become more prestigious and more popular as an additional language for non-native speakers besides the Chinese in Chinese schools that provide the mother tongue education to the local Chinese. Although Chinese poses a high difficulty level for many, it is regarded as a tool for students to function as professionals in an international context (Wen & Piao, 2020). In this regard, the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) strives to improve the professionalism of teaching in collaboration with foreign universities and conducts various teacher education programs to attract outstanding Malaysian students who hold a Certificate of Education (equivalent to ‘O’ level) to choose the profession of a teacher. Since the year 2012, such outstanding students in the Study of Chinese as a Foreign Language have been sent to China universities to learn the Chinese Language for five years. After graduating, these students will be placed at the Institute of Teachers Education to pursue the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PDE) Program in three semesters and thus become teachers. They will be placed in government primary and secondary schools to teach the Chinese Language as an additional language and communicative language respectively. According to the Brief Facts of the Institute of Teacher Education, the number of outstanding students sent to universities in Beijing to learn the Chinese Language were 105, 426, 72, 164, 101, and 83 respectively in the period between 2015 and 2020. This shows the MoE has been producing Malay teachers to teach Chinese language as L2 consistently and such efforts also expanded its Chinese language education to all strata of society in Malaysia. However, Mahmud, Mohamad Nasri, Samsudin and Halim (2018) found that the contents of teacher education programs are limited. As a result, some trainee teachers could not master the contents of the subject in depth though the development of teacher education programs should be in line with current developments to ensure that trainee teachers master pedagogical, curriculum, professionalism, assessment, and language skills as well as the ability to face the challenges of education in the future (Zakaria et al., 2017). During the training process under the PDE program, the problem of Chinese language proficiency influences the motivation of the trainee teachers in the teaching and learning process. A study by Ng, Wong, Tan, Guek, and Lim (2017) showed the level of oral proficiency of the Malay trainee teachers was low, and they were not competent to be Chinese language teachers in national schools. Different from native speakers, non-native speakers face more challenges and tend to be less confident in delivering knowledge to students. This was proved by the study of Yang (2019) who indicated that Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 55 native speakers of English teachers felt confident in speaking English naturally. In contrast, non-native speakers had lower language proficiency, which limited their use of English in class. Researchers have identified, attitude, learning orientations, and motivation as three substantial factors that have great impacts on learners’ success and achievement. Many studies (e.g. Xie, 2014; Yasima et al., 2017) have proved the importance of attitudes (Huang, 2018; Christiansen, 2019; Liu et al., 2021; Patria, 2021), learning orientation (Gardner & Lambert, 1972, 1985, 2001), and motivation (Kowalczyk & Biedroń, 2017; Farshbafian et al., 2018; Tanjitanont et al., 2020; Lee et al., 2021) in language learning across various contexts in different countries. The above research has primarily focused on EFL/ESL learners. Studies on other languages, particularly Chinese Language especially on trainee teachers are still at the infant stage. The present study addresses this gap in the current literature. 2 Literature review 2.1 Attitude Attitude is a factor of self-appraisal of an object, which either gets accepted or rejected. The ability of students to master a second language is not only influenced by their mental competence or language skills, but also by the students’ attitudes and perceptions toward the target language (Gardner & Lambert, 1986). Thus, it can be concluded that students’ language learning attitude may affect their ability in learning a foreign language (Smith, 1971). If a student is interested and eager to learn, they will have a positive attitude and be more enthusiastic about learning the additional language, and vice versa. Furthermore, Gardner (1985) stated that attitudes towards language learning situations are constructed from attitudes towards language related to the educational context, namely attitudes towards teachers, courses, and language learning, while attitudes towards social refer to attitudes towards culture, and attitudes towards native speakers and communities of the target language. All of these contexts are inherent in language learning and shape students’ attitudes toward language achievement performance positively (Gardner, 2001). Most recent studies on the attitude mainly focus on non-native speakers of English, such as Huang (2018); Christiansen (2019); Liu, Zhang, and Fang (2021); Patria (2021). Only a few studies were found related to the attitude toward Chinese language learning. Wiener (2017) examined how cue-weighting of a non-native speech cue changes during early adult second language (L2) acquisition by observing and interviewing ten native English-speaking learners of a first-year Chinese course. Results were compared to ten native Mandarin speakers. Learners’ reaction time and d-prime results became more 56 CHEW Fong Peng* native-like after two months of classroom study but plateaued thereafter. Besides that, Liu and Wang (2019) included that the six participants all had experiences studying in China, and all held lifelong learning attitudes as well as demonstrated various self- regulation strategies with strong self-motivation and dedication. While they all took Chinese classes at college, only two of them studied prior to college, which is encouraging for Chinese learners who were unable to learn Chinese from an early age. In Indonesia, the study by Kurniawan and Suprajitno (2019) explained that parents strongly encourage children to learn and use the Chinese language effectively to increase the interest of Indonesian students. In addition, the school’s Chinese cultural activities are also effective in attracting students to learn the language and culture. In other words, parental encouragement and Chinese culture effectively change students’ attitudes towards the Chinese language and successfully attract them to choose the language subject. Research by Xiong and Eamoraphan (2020) investigated 124 adult learners’ attitudes toward native and non-native Chinese-speaking teachers in Thailand from three aspects: motivation, communication, teaching, and learning. Findings showed that the adult learners had no preference for either native Chinese-speaking teachers or non-native Chinese-speaking teachers, regardless they were from the beginning level, intermediate level, or advanced level. A one-way ANOVA showed that attitudes of adult learners from different learning levels towards native and non-native Chinese-speaking teachers were not significantly different. From the previous studies, it can be concluded that the attitude towards the learning situation of teacher education programs is a factor that affects Chinese language proficiency among trainee teachers. In the learning process, trainee teachers interact with the Chinese language lecturers, use the Chinese language and follow Chinese language education programs daily. Thus, in this study, attitudes towards lecturers, the Chinese language, and educational programs are the three main subscales of attitudes towards situations to measure the attitudes of trainee teachers in Chinese language learning. 2.2 Learning orientation According to Social Psychology Theory (Gardner & Lambert, 1972), learning orientation is divided into two types, namely integration and instrumental orientation. Both orientations determine a person’s motives for language learning and thus influence their motivation to achieve their objectives. According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), integration-oriented language learning goals show that trainee teachers integrate into the target language culture and consider themselves part of the native speaker community, while instrumental- oriented learning goals show that trainee teachers consider the learnt language as a tool to help them obtain employment opportunities, prizes, or approval in a program Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 57 (Gardner, 1985, 2001). This indicates that each individual has a different learning orientation with the aim of achieving learning objectives. As such, there is much research that presents differences in integration and instrumental orientation in learning. In the study by Tan, Chew, Fonny, and Zanariah (2019), t-test analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the integration and instrumental orientation in learning the Chinese language between Chinese and Malay trainee teachers in Malaysia. In addition, a comparison between the levels of integration and instrumental orientation found that Malay trainee teachers were more instrumental-oriented, especially in future educational and career development. As such, Chinese language teacher education has a high economic value and Chinese language proficiency paves many advantages to Chinese language trainee teachers. Ventivani, Muyassaroh, Putri, and Mardasari (2021) determined the learning orientation of third-year students of the Mandarin study program at the Universitas Negeri Malang by using surveys and interviews in their process of learning Mandarin. The results showed that there were four learning orientations in Mandarin, namely (1) the language is presently an important communication tool, (2)mastering the language is considered make it easier for someone to get a job, (3) the language is popular, and (4) the language can increase self-confidence. Based on these, the orientation of learning Mandarin for third-year students of the Mandarin study program at the Universitas Negeri Malang was extrinsic and instrumental. Besides, Wang (2019) notified that non-native speakers who specialized in Mandarin show strong interest in engaging in community activities and interacting with Chinese native speakers understand their culture and lifestyle. Consequently, using the Chinese language when communicating with the Chinese community effectively improves their proficiency level within a short time. Yu and Downing’s study (2012) found that students who embraced integrative orientation and motivation may master Mandarin better than students who studied with instrumental orientation and motivation. This showed that communication with native speakers improves foreign language proficiency effectively. Thus, integrative orientation is a major factor in improving target language proficiency positively (McEown et al., 2014; Liu & Li, 2018). In this study, the integration orientation indicates that a learner shows interest in modern Chinese culture, way of life, art, and literature, through which they improve and better understanding native Chinese speakers. On the other hand, the instrumental orientation indicates the trainee teachers’s purposes of learning the Chinese language, which are to get employment opportunities and opportunities for further studies after undergraduate graduation, interest in social status, side income, and others. 58 CHEW Fong Peng* 2.3 Motivation In the learning process, motivation may fluctuate over time and vary in relation to the learning experience; for example, successful language learning itself leads to improved motivation (Gardner, 1985). The study from Lee, Qin, Li, Xiong, and Lin (2021) shows that group-specific motivational components and teacher-specific components are the most critical factors affecting motivation level in language learning. Deci and Ryan (2000) posit their widely accepted differentiation of motivation as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” motivation. They revisited the classic definitions of these two kinds of motivations which are well adhered to in this study. As in the classification, intrinsic motivation (IM) is the execution of an activity for its innate gratification without the thought of any consequence, while extrinsic motivation (EM) is the execution of an activity to receive external rewards. A comparative study of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation with academic achievement by Taylor et al. (2014) indicated that intrinsic motivation is a positive factor in academic achievement and extrinsic motivation has a negative relationship with academic achievement among students from primary and secondary schools, higher education, and students from different cultures. In the context of this study, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were applied. Individuals who are intrinsically motivated will find interesting situations where they can develop themselves through what challenges the activity may give (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The extrinsic motivations of external regulation indicate that trainee teachers value the merits and importance of teacher education programs to them. The extrinsic motivation of introjection regulation indicates that vocational students consider self- achievement in the learning process while self-regulation indicates students’ awareness of self-interest in teacher education (Utvӕr & Haugan, 2016). Motivational intensity is the force of self-motivation to achieve success (Brown, 2014). Masgoret and Gardner (2003) explained that motivational intensity refers to a highly motivated individual who constantly enhances effort, completes all work diligently, has goals, passion, and inspirations, enjoys engaging in activities, and who is willing to accept reinforcement to achieve success in language learning, using strategies to achieve learning achievement. Thus, motivational intensity describes the behavior of interest, desire, and like to achieve an objective as a means of assessing the development of individual strengths in language learning. (Gardner, 1985). Some studies revealed that the motivational intensity levels in English language learning were at a moderate level among the Thai undergraduates majoring in English for International Communication (EIC) (Tanjitanont et al., 2020) and language learners at Pomeranian University in Słupsk (Kowalczyk & Biedroń, 2017). On the contrary, the study by Farshbafian et al. (2018) demonstrated the high level of motivational intensity for learning Persian among Turkish-speaking students. However, Kowalczyk and Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 59 Biedroń’s (2017) research showed the more people can imagine themselves as speaking like a native speaker, the higher the levels of general motivation and the intensity of motivation are. The motivational intensity that will be handled in the present research is related to the willingness to learn Chinese, the desire for high achievement, and the interest in the Chinese language. In the learning process, the attitude, orientation, and motivation of the different educators directly affect their academic achievement in the Chinese language. As such, learning orientations and attitudes toward the learning situation continue to influence their motivation and thus achieve success in their learning (Gardner, 1985, 2001). The study applied the social psychology model (Gardner & Lambert, 1972) and the psychological model of learning (Gardner, 1985) as the conceptual foundation of the study. Gardner’s (1985) social learning model explains that the attitudes, motivations, and nature of individual orientation have been distinguished from the beliefs and culture of the environment. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the relationship between learning orientation (integration and instrumental orientation), attitude to learning situations (Chinese attitude, Chinese language, and teacher education programs), motivational intensity, and self-determination (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) with mastery of Chinese Language (Chinese Language skills and achievement) among trainee teachers. The following research questions were formulated: 1. Are there any relationships between integration and instrumental orientation, attitude towards learning situations, motivational intensity, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with Chinese language skills among trainee teachers? 2. Are there any relationship between integration and instrumental orientation, attitude towards learning situations, motivational intensity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with Chinese language achievement among trainee teachers? 3 Are attitudes to learning situations, integrative and instrumental orientation predictors of motivational intensity among trainee teachers? 3 Methodology 3.1 Research design This study is a correlation study that aims to identify variables that have some sort of relationship to the extent that a change in one creates some change in the other. This method was used to enable data collection of integration orientation, instrumental orientation, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, attitude towards learning 60 CHEW Fong Peng* situations, and sample motivational intensity among the Chinese language trainee teachers from the PDE program in Malaysia. 3.2 Respondents A total of 181 samples were selected from 3 different locations of the Institutes of Teacher Education across the country using the cluster random sampling method. Samples in peninsular Malaysia were divided into the northern zone (Penang and Perak) and the eastern zone (Pahang). Next, the Chinese language teacher training groups of the Institute of Teacher Education were randomly selected as the sample in the study from the Diploma of Postgraduate Education (DPE) Program. The DPE trainee teachers consisted of a Malay ethnic with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mandarin as a foreign language that they had obtained from some university in China. All of them have passed the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK6), which is a proficiency examination of the Chinese Language in China. 31 male (17.12%) and 150 (82.87%) female trainee teachers are all Malay native speakers. Their age ranged from 23 to 25 years. Table 1 shows the profile of respondents in the study. Table 1: Profile of Respondents Demography DPE F % Ethnic Malay 181 100 Gender Male 31 17.12 Female 150 82.87 Age 23 years 135 74.59 24 years 39 21.55 25 years 7 3.87 Chinese Language Proficiency Test HSK 6 181 100 Mother tongue Malay Language 181 100 Total 181 100 3.3 Research instruments The research instrument consisted of a Chinese language test and a questionnaire. The Chinese language test aimed to measure the trainee teachers’ achievement in the Chinese language and consisted of 20 questions concerning Chinese language and 20 questions concerning Chinese culture. . Aspects of Chinese language knowledge included grammar, phonetics, characters, and vocabulary of the Chinese language whereas aspects of Chinese culture included the history of Chinese classical education and philosophy; the development of the Chinese language and characters, Chinese Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 61 classical literature, ancient science and technology in China as well as the development of traditional Chinese culture. The total score of this test was 100% and the total score of each respondent was categorized into five grades, namely grade A (100% -75%), grade B (74% -60%), grade C (59% -40%), grade D (39% -20%) and grade E (19% -0%). The questionnaire was divided into three sections. The first section focused on the integrative and instrumental orientation aspects (10 items) and learning motivation in the Chinese language (24 items) (Larisa, Mohd Don & Loh, 2016). The second section focused on the attitudes toward learning situations (12 items) and was modified from Ho (1998), whereas the third section focused on the modified motivational intensity component (7 items) and was derived from the study of Liu (2017). Each item used a five-point Likert scale, in which 1 means “strongly disagree” and 5 means “strongly agree”. Forth section was comprised of Chinese language skills including communication, reading, and writing skills. The language skills assessment was a self- rated item of the respondents, consisting of three modified items from the study of Shafaei and Razak (2016). Items about the Chinese language were measured with a 4- point Likert scale, namely 1 as "weak", 2 as "less skilled", 3 as "good" and 4 as "excellent". Each respondent was given a set of Chinese language tests and answered within 1 hour. A set of questionnaires was to be answered after that. The Chinese language test and questionnaire in this study have been validated by six field experts in the field. A pilot study was conducted at an Institute of Teacher Education in Perak involving 66 Chinese language trainee teachers. The alpha coefficient for the questionnaire ranged from .70 to .96 for all constructs and sub- constructs of the study. Therefore, both instruments were suitable for use in the real study. 3.4 Data analysis After data screening and preliminary tests for normality, homogeneity of variances, sphericity, and presence of outliers, it was determined that non-parametric analyses were required. The Partial Least Square Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis method was used in the study by using Smart PLS 3.0. Smart PLS 3.0 software is ideal for testing formative and reflective constructs, small sample sizes, complex latent latencies, and Hierarchical Component Models (Hair et al., 2017). Thus, the structural model which is known as the inner model was carried out to analyze the data. In this study, exogenous variables were integration orientation variables, instrumental orientation, attitudes towards learning situations, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation, whereas endogenous variables consisted of intensity motivation, Chinese language achievement, and language skills. 62 CHEW Fong Peng* 4 Findings 4.1 Structural model of the study The structural model of this study is a high-hierarchical model using latent variable values from high-level constructs to test and predict exogenous latent relationships with endogenous. The following hypothesis test shows the relationship between each latent exogenous to the latent endogenous as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Structural Model Table 2: Path Coefficient and Hypothesis Test Relationship Beta SD t- value p- value Result MTV EKST -> KMHR BC -.094 .055 1.705 .044 Significant MTV INST -> KMHR BC .135 .059 2.273 .012 Significant ORI -> KMHR BC .208 .056 3.689 .000 Significant ORT -> KMHR BC .066 .055 1.183 .118 Not Significant SKP -> KMHR BC -.030 .068 .441 .329 Not Significant MTV INT -> KMHR BC .019 .065 .292 .385 Not Significant MTV EKST -> UJIAN BC -.256 .051 4.996 .000 Significant MTV INST -> UJIAN BC .209 .045 4.673 .000 Significant ORI -> UJIAN BC .170 .054 3.173 .001 Significant ORT -> UJIAN BC .063 .056 1.132 .129 Not Significant SKP -> UJIAN BC .037 .068 .547 .292 Not Significant Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 63 Relationship Beta SD t- value p- value Result MTV INT -> UJIAN BC .106 .056 1.883 .030 Significant ORI -> MTV INT .155 .057 2.726 .003 Significant ORT -> MTV INT .150 .048 3.094 .001 Significant SKP -> MTV INT .405 .057 7.148 .000 Significant Note: EMTV - extrinsic motivation; IMTV – intrinsic motivation; MTV INT – motivational intensity; KMHR BC – Chinese language skills; UJIAN BC – Chinese language test; ORI – integration orientation; ORT – instrumental orientation; SKP – attitude towards the learning situation The results of the study in Figure 1 and the results of the coefficient test and hypothesis in Table 2 have been obtained after having performed bootstrapping calculations using 5000 repeated samples. The results of the coefficient analysis showed that there was a significant positive relationship between intrinsic motivation (β = .135, p <.05) and integrative orientation (β = .208, p <.05) with language skills, but there was a direct significant negative relationship between extrinsic motivation (β = −.094, p <.05) and language skills, whereas there was no direct relationship between instrumental orientation (β = .066, p> .05), attitude toward learning situations (β = -.030, p> .05) and intensity motivation (β = .019, p> .05) with language skills. Furthermore, coefficient analysis revealed that there were significant positive and direct relationship between intrinsic motivation (β = .209, p <.05), integrative orientation (β = -. 170, p <.05) and intensity motivation (β = .106, p <.05) with Chinese language achievement. On the other hand, there was a significant direct negative relationship between extrinsic motivation (β = −.256, p <.05) and Chinese language achievement. However, there was no significant direct relationship between instrumental orientation (β = .063, p> .05) and attitude toward learning situations (β = .037, p> .05) with Chinese achievement. Finally, the coefficient analysis showed that there was a significant direct positive relationship between integrative orientation (β = .155, p <.05), instrumental orientation (β = .150, p <.05), and attitude toward learning (β = .1). 405, p <.05) with motivation. In other words, the higher the integrative orientation, instrumental orientation, and attitude toward the learning situation, the higher the motivation for learning the Chinese Language among the trainee teachers. Overall, the findings indicated that extrinsic motivation was related negatively to Chinese language skills and achievement. Intrinsic motivation and integrative orientation were related positively to Chinese language skills, whereas intrinsic motivation, integrative orientation, and intensity motivation were related positively to Chinese language achievement. In addition, the instrumental orientation and attitude towards the learning situation did not indicate any relationship to Chinese language skills and achievement among the trainee teachers. However, integrative orientation, 64 CHEW Fong Peng* instrumental orientation, and attitude toward learning situations were positive predictors of the intensity of motivation of the trainee teachers. 5 Discussion The structural models showed that extrinsic motivation has a negative relationship with Chinese language skills and achievement. This situation illustrated that trainee teachers place great emphasis on self-satisfaction, which is to fulfill their desires to achieve well-being. This means that rewards such as job opportunities, prestigious positions, social status, praise, and appreciation do not influence the behavior of trainee teachers to improve their Chinese language skills and achievement positively. On the other hand, job opportunities are available for all trainee teachers after graduating from teacher education programs. This situation makes job opportunities not to become the main factor in motivating trainee teachers to get excellent results. Therefore, extrinsic motivation is not a major goal in the teaching and learning process of the teacher education program in Malaysia. This is in the contrary to previous studies (Samejon, 2015; Utvӕr & Haugan, 2016; Tanjitanont et al., 2020; Lee et al., 2021) which indicated extrinsic motivation as a powerful factor that increases the performance of learners in English. However, the results of this study showed a positive and significant relationship between intrinsic motivation with Chinese language achievement and language skills. In other words, the higher the intrinsic motivation, the higher the Chinese language skills and achievement. This result illustrated the learning situation in teacher education institutes is fun, there is autonomous support from lecturers and the opportunity for independent involvement has motivated trainee teachers in teacher education. The findings of this study are in line with the study by Shogren, Raley, Wehmeyer, Grandfield, Jones, and Shaw (2019) and Núñez and León (2019), which state that the classroom environment and situation with autonomous support that encourages and opportunities students’ involvement in learning and freedom of control in the classroom atmosphere will generate positive emotions, fun, willingness, and a high desire to meet internal satisfaction and well-being. According to the theory of self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 2000), each individual performs an activity or work to meet psychological needs. In addition, the findings showed that there was a significant and direct positive relationship between integrative orientation and Chinese Language skills. However, there was no direct significant relationship between instructional orientation and attitude toward learning situations with Chinese language skills and achievement. This finding indicates that integrative orientation is a predictor of Chinese language skills and achievement, which matches the results by Liu and Li (2018). The higher the level of integrative orientation, the higher the Chinese language skills and achievement Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 65 among trainee teachers. This explains that culture and language are interconnected and inseparable, which is due to the cultural understanding facilitating language proficiency. The construction of integrative orientation in the study encompassed three elements, namely Chinese culture, Chinese community social-cultural, Chinese arts and literature. This explains why the trainee teachers are interested in Chinese culture, Chinese community social culture, and Chinese arts and literature. In other words, Chinese culture, arts and literature are effective factors that stimulate the interest of trainee teachers to pursue study in Chinese language education. According to Gardner (1985, 2001), acceptance of another culture is the psychological preparation for accepting another culture as an additional culture in their lives. Pavlova and Vtorushina (2018) proved that in a student’s cognition, culture is manifested in their knowledge of the language and cultural picture of the world as well as in the student’s cognitive motivation and aspiration for constant improvement of foreign language skills. In a plural and multicultural society such as Malaysia, Chinese culture is an additional culture within Malaysian society. Malay trainee teachers who are interested in Chinese culture will accept the culture as an additional culture. In addition, non- native Chinese language trainee teachers without basic Chinese education have successfully mastered Chinese culture within five years of studying Chinese as a foreign language at China university, which also showed that learning the Chinese language and culture has provided positive pressure on the mastery of Mandarin. Therefore, non-native trainee teachers who love to engage in Chinese community-based social activities can certainly help them master the Chinese Language. This is because interaction with native speakers may improve foreign language mastery, enhance their sense of belonging in their career, and establish positive occupational values to support their career (Yu, 2018). Moreover, the findings of the study indicate that there is no relationship between attitude toward learning situations and Chinese language skills and achievement. This means that the attitude towards the learning situation is not a predictor of Chinese language skills and achievement. Attitudes toward learning situations in this study focused on perceptions towards the Chinese language, Chinese lecturers, and Chinese language education programs. The positive or negative attitude of the trainees towards the learning situation reflected the behavior of the teachers accepting or rejecting Chinese language, Chinese lecturers, and Chinese language teacher education programs. Therefore, findings show that the attitude of trainee teachers towards the learning situation does not necessarily have a significant positive relationship with Chinese language skills and achievement, as also proved by Xiong and Eamoraphan (2020). 66 CHEW Fong Peng* On the other hand, the findings of the study also show a positive relationship between motivational intensity and Chinese language achievement. This can be interpreted as the higher intensity motivation, the higher achievement of the trainee teachers. Thus, the development of intensity motivation in learning among the trainee teachers depends on integration orientation, instrumental orientation, and attitude towards learning situations to develop efforts to pursue learning interests, continue efforts and retain efforts to achieve success. This finding is in line with the findings by Dörnyei (2009) who stated that a student with high language proficiency does not necessarily succeed in language learning if they are not motivated in language learning. However, the results of this study also indicate that there is no significant relationship between intensity motivation and language skills. This finding show that trainee teachers did not have high-intensity motivation to improve their communication, reading, or writing skills. This is because trainee teachers use the Chinese Language daily, which indicates that they have a good level of communication, reading, and writing skills and therefore they do not have the desire to motivate themselves. Liu’s (2017) study also showed that foreign students learning Mandarin have a high level of language proficiency that did not show high motivational intensity. According to the social learning model (Gardner, 1985, 2001) and the social psychology model (Gardner & Lambert, 1972), motivational intensity is an important factor that leads one to achieve one’s self, but it is established by the orientation and attitude towards positive language. Therefore, the motivational intensity is not necessarily directly related to language skills (Pae, 2008). According to Gendolla, Wright, and Richter (2019), one will not put any effort in solving learning difficulties if they evaluate that knowledge is too difficult to master. This is associated with the proficiency level of Chinese language skills among trainee teachers. Trainee teachers have rated themselves to have excellent levels of language skills, and as such faced no obligations to increase their efforts and improve their language skills. 6 Recommendations The study specifically selected Malay trainee teachers in the Chinese language by using survey methods and PLS-SEM analysis. It investigated the learning orientation, attitude, and motivation of the Chinese Language among the trainee teachers. Limitation of this study is that the data were collected in three research sites only. This implies that the findings and conclusions may differ if the study is administered with different framework. Therefore, future studies are proposed to expand sampling to Malaysian institutions of a higher, tertiary education such as public universities. Furthermore, an advanced model evaluation is proposed by using observed heterogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity modeling analysis techniques with the Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and … 67 aim of making comparisons of studies from various groups such as ethnic groups or between two different countries. Moreover, it would be beneficial to employ data triangulation by including qualitative research methods in a similar topic to gain a better understanding of the matter. The results of the suggested studies will contribute to new knowledge and add to the existing sources in the development of teacher education programs in the future. 7 Conclusion In a nutshell, the present study addressed a niche in the Chinese language learning model, namely the relationship between orientation, attitude, and motivation with the mastery of the Chinese language among Malay trainee teachers from the Institutes of Teacher Education in Malaysia, thus becoming a specific guide to career prediction. As discussed, the structural model indicated that intrinsic motivation and integrative orientation have positive relationships with Chinese language achievement. This situation explained that the success of the Chinese language and Chinese culture among the trainee teachers depends on the extent to which intrinsic motivation and individual integrative orientation dictate their career planning, using existing knowledge resources, control, and individual actions in learning activities to achieve success. As a consequence, the existence of motivational models and self-determination in the study can contribute to linking the teaching and learning network of the Chinese language in the realm of the professions of future teachers. This may have far-fetched implications for Chinese language trainee teachers as it is recommended that they seek influential factors as stated above in an effort to become positively motivated teachers in their careers. 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ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.73-90 Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews Maria QUEROL-BATALLER Catholic University of Valencia, Spain maria.querol@ucv.es Abstract This paper identifies and accounts for mitigation strategies in a corpus of language that attempts to reflect the communicative style of Chinese speakers in semi-structured oral interviews. Thus, the analysis was carried out on the informal conversations of the C-ORAL- CHINA corpus. Mitigating resources were classified and grouped into seven general procedures that constitute different strategic mechanisms with which mitigation is carried out. Regarding the strategic mechanisms through which mitigation was carried out in these semi-structured oral Chinese interviews, the most common strategies were the following: the use of resources that downgrade what has been said or done, the use of resources that involve the addressee in what has been said or done, and the use of resources that limit or restrict what has been said or done. Conversely, the strategies of correcting or repairing what has been said, justifying, and defocalizing had the lowest frequency of use. Keywords: Chinese language, linguistic mitigation, linguistic resources, discursive strategies, pragmatics choice Povzetek Članek opredeljuje in pojasnjuje ublažitvene strategije v korpusu jezika, ki odraža komunikacijski slog kitajskih govorcev v polstrukturiranih ustnih intervjujih. Analiza je bila izvedena na neformalnih pogovorih korpusa C-ORAL-KITAJSKA. Sredstva za ublažitev so razvrščena in združena v sedem splošnih postopkov, ki sestavljajo različne strateške mehanizme, s katerimi se izvaja ublažitev. Najpogostejše strategije mehanizmov, prek katerih je bilo blaženje izvedeno v teh polstrukturiranih ustnih kitajskih intervjujih, so bile: uporaba virov, ki zmanjšujejo pomen povedanega ali storjenega, uporaba virov, ki vključujejo naslovnika v to, kar je bilo rečeno ali storjeno, in uporaba virov, ki omejujejo ali omejujejo izrečeno oziroma storjeno. Nasprotno pa so bile najmanj pogosto uporabljene strategije popravljanja ali popravljanja povedanega, utemeljevanja in defokalizacije. Ključne besede: kitajski jezik, jezikovne ublažitve, jezikovni viri, diskurzivne strategije, izbor rabe jezika 74 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER 1 Introduction Mitigation is a highly complex pragmatic phenomenon that has become a prioritized object of study in recent decades and has been approached from disciplines such as pragmatics and discourse analysis (Fraser, 1980; Sibsa, 2001; Caffi, 2007; Cestero, 2020). After decades of intense work, it has been possible to: define mitigation, and also discriminate and establish the limits of this phenomenon in terms of other close concepts, such as vague language (Lakoff, 1972; Fraser, 1980; Holmes, 1984; Caffi, 2007; Overstreet, 2011; Albelda & Briz, 2020), verbal courtesy (Fraser, 1980; Bravo, 2005; Thaler, 2012; Briz & Albelda, 2013; Figueras, 2020), or intensification (Sbisà, 2001; Kotwica, 2020; Albelda & Briz, 2020); and to establish operational criteria for its recognition in its context of use (Albelda et al., 2014; Villalva, 2020; Cestero & Albelda, 2020). Regarding Chinese language, the literature review shows that the study of mitigation is like that of other linguistic traditions. It starts within the framework of the study of speech acts, specifically in the category of internal modifiers, and with a methodology mainly based on the Discourse Completion Test (DCT). In recent years, however, the study of mitigation has increasingly focused on its recognition and analysis in different discourse genres, as well as on the monographic analysis of the different linguistic resources that make its realization possible (Querol-Bataller, 2022). Thus, this research aims to describe the use of mitigation strategies in semi- structured interviews in the Chinese language. In addition, for the development of future research, it would be advisable to find a theoretical and methodological framework that allows not only to outline a Chinese linguistic pattern of mitigation in this context but also its contrast with other languages or linguistic varieties. We should not forget that mitigation is a strategy subject to variation: it is a pragmatic, sociolinguistic and dialectal variable. Although it has been recognized for some time, very little research had been carried out until studies were made of linguistic mitigation taking into account its variability. (Cestero, 2020, p. 364) 2 Theoretical and methodological framework This paper applies a theoretical and methodological framework that has already been successfully used to study mitigation (Albelda & Briz, 2020; Cestero, 2020; Cestero & Albelda, 2020; Cestero & Albelda, forthcoming). According to them, mitigation is defined as follows: a rhetoric-pragmatic strategy that arises from the need to save face (own or others’), to protect, soften, and repair possible damaging effects on the proper development of communication. It is expressed through vague language mechanisms that blur propositional content, minimizing semantic quantity or Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 75 quality or directly reducing the illocutionary force of speech acts and formulating less commitment to what is said. It generates conversational implicature through indirectness in the expression of the speaker's true intention. (Albelda & Briz, 2020, p. 582. My translation) In addition, Villalva (2020) offers three criteria (absence, commutation, and solidarity) in order to identify the effective use of mitigation resources in the analysis. Based on the concept of mitigation as a pragmatic phenomenon that can be carried out using various linguistic or nonverbal resources, Cestero (2020), and Cestero and Albelda (2020) classify the mitigation resources into seven general strategies, which comprise the different strategic mechanisms through which mitigation is carried out. These strategies are as follows: 7. Resources that correct, repair or prevent what has been said or done, or will be said or done. The resources may be included in this category are explicit illocutionary force indicating devices (IFID), correcting or reformulating markers, or prosodic and paralinguistic elements. 8. Resources that limit or restrict what is said or done. The resources may be included in this category are constructions that limit an opinion to a particular person or a certain field, or concessivity and syntactic structures that restrict the range of the speech act, by means of conditional, concessive, or temporal structures. 9. Resources that downgrade what is said or done. The resources may be included in this category are verbs, verb constructions, and modal particles that express doubt or probability regarding an opinion; verbs, verb constructions, and discourse particles that feign doubt, incompetence, or ignorance; modal use of verb tenses; or requests, questions, commands, and orders indirectly expressed. 10. Resources that minimize or blur the quantity or the quality of what is said. The resources may be included in this category are internal morphological modifiers (diminutive suffixes), external modification (downgrading quantifiers, and approximators or diffusers of meaning), softer expressions in a meaningful content, or foreign words. 11. Resources that justify. The resources that may be included in this category are justifying or excusing constructions. 12. Resources that involve the addressee in what is said or done. The resources may be included in this category are ellipsis in the conclusion, structures that are suspended or cut short, discourse particles and expressions of control of the interaction, or ways of addressing the interlocutor. 76 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER 13. Resources that impersonalize and defocalize. The resources may be included in this category are impersonalizations hiding the source of the utterance, using an impersonal construction or a widely-held opinion, impersonalizations using direct speech; and objectivization using modal discourse particles. These strategies are organized as a continuum between two extremes that indicate the greater or lesser commitment of the speaker and, consequently, the greater or lesser exposure to the self-image. Figure 1 represents this continuum and shows these seven strategies, which range from correcting or repairing what has been said or done to defocalizing. Figure 1: Mitigation strategies (Cestero, 2020, p. 369) The typological characteristics of the languages constrain the linguistic resources that make mitigation possible for each. However, this fact, using the above-mentioned framework of analysis, does not prevent the comparison between different languages or linguistic varieties from being carried out, since the classification of resources is not based on the linguistic nature of these resources but on the strategic mechanism for which they are used. Thus, for example, in Spanish, verb tenses can be used pragmatically to downgrade what is said or done, and diminutive suffixes can be used to minimize or blur the quantity or quality of what is said. Such a morphological modification is not common in Chinese,1 but these mechanisms can be carried out by 1 The Chinese language is traditionally classified as an isolating language, as it is generally considered to lack an inflectional and derivational morphology. However, there are some exceptions, such as 儿 (er). “Etymologically, -er was a diminutive suffix for nouns; but it has lost its semantic content in modern Mandarin, and its distribution in Beijing dialect has been extended to other parts of speech [...] Basically, the retroflex suffix remains a nominal suffix as it once was when it served as a diminutive suffix” (Li & Thompson, 1989, pp. 39–40). Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 77 other resources, such as auxiliary verbs, the reduplication of volitive verbs, downgrading quantifiers, approximators of meaning, or softer expressions in the meaningful content. Thus, a framework used by Cestero (2020), and Cestero and Albelda (2020), and criteria set by Villalva (2020) will be used as an exploratory proposal to describe and analyze mitigation in semi-structured interviews in the Chinese language. Material from the C-ORAL-CHINA corpus2 is used as the primary source of data to be analyzed. This open-access corpus includes recordings classified into three types: media, formal, and informal. In the latter, one of the interlocutors asks the other interlocutor about topics such as leisure, customs, travel, or decoration. As Dong Yang (2011, pp. 98–99) acknowledges, these conversations are more like semi-structured interviews than spontaneous conversations. The speakers of the informal conversations in C-ORAL-CHINA are male and female, aged between 18-25 and 25-40, university students or graduates; thus, these are Generations 1 and 2 of Education Level 3.3 However, as Dong (2011, p. 92) points out, they are not equally represented because, among other reasons, the aim of the C- ORAL-CHINA corpus is not to carry out sociolinguistic studies.4 Thus, the speakers in the informal conversations analyzed in this paper are distributed, as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Informal conversations from C-ORAL-CHINA corpus Education level 3 (higher education) Men Women Generation 1 (20–34 years old) 27 % 52 % Generation 2 (35–55 years old) 8 % 13 % 3 Mitigation strategies in the informal conversations from the C-ORAL-CHINA corpus This section shows the analysis of the informal conversations from the C-ORAL-CHINA corpus, which was carried out according to the specific guidelines established by Albelda et al. (2014), Cestero (2020), Cestero and Albelda (2020), and Villalva (2020). The percentage of use of each of the mitigation strategies is presented global terms 2 Available at http://cartago.lllf.uam.es/dat/c-oral-chino?m=1 3 Three interviews (Ch10 Hospital, Ch11 Hospital2, and Ch21 Supermarket) have been excluded from this analysis, as according to their characteristics, they are more similar to spontaneous conversations than to semi-structured interviews. Some of the interlocutors, moreover, belonged to Generation 3. 4 The corpus does not specify the geographical origin of the speakers, so it is not possible to carry out sociolinguistic research on the basis of their diatopic features. 78 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER (See Figure 3), and also broken down by age and gender (See Figure 4). In addition, the linguistic resources with which the Chinese speakers implemented these strategies are exemplified. The corpus consists of 22 informal interviews from C-ORAL-CHINA, involving a recording of 218,132 minutes and a transcription of 60,339 characters. As mentioned above, these interviews involve university students or graduates who have been specifically encouraged to use Putonghua, the standard form of Chinese. The analysis revealed the use of 1,410 mitigation resources, which means an average of one mitigation resource for each of the 42.79 characters. However, some variability was observed, since while certain conversations, such as Chin 08 Postcards or Chin18 Movies are well above average, others, such as Chin12 Playing games or Chin05 Character, are far behind (See Figure 2). Figure 2: Frequency of mitigation resources in each of the informal conversations from C-ORAL-CHINA 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Chin01 Travel … Chin02 Chess Chin03 Love Chin04 Love2 Chin05 Character Chin06 Driving a car … Chin07 Cooking Chin08 Postcards Chin09 Argentine soccer … Chin12 Playing games Chin13 Rabbits … Chin14 Erhu Chin15 Erhu2 Chin16 Working … Chin17 Home decoration Chin18 Movies Chin19 Plants Chin20 Yun Nan Chin21 Character Chin22 Travel to Europe Chin23 Life in Spain Chin24 Life in Cuba Media Number of mitigation strategies C o n ve rs at io n ti tl e Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 79 Regarding the strategic mechanisms through which mitigation has been carried out, the most common strategies were the following: resources that downgrade what has been said or done, resources that involve the addressee in what has been said or done, and resources that limit or restrict what has been said or done. Conversely, the strategies of correcting or repairing what has been said, justifying, and defocalizing had the lowest frequency of use (See Figure 3). Figure 3: Mitigation strategies in informal interviews from C-ORAL-CHINA Similar results were found if the data were broken down by age and gender (See Figure 4). The results in the group of G2-Men may be striking. However, although the data have been weighted according to the percentage that each of the groups represents the total sample analyzed, the sample of the G2-Men group accounts for barely 8% (See Table 2). Therefore, it is probable that this result cannot be considered illustrative of the behavior of the G2-Men group. A larger sample would be necessary to draw definitive conclusions. 0 5 10 15 20 25 Fr eq u en cy a cc o rd in g to t h e to ta l n u m b er o f re gi st er ed s tr at eg ie s (% ) Mitigation strategies 80 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER Figure 4: Mitigation strategies in informal interviews from C-ORAL-CHINA, distributed by age and gender According to the analysis, in global terms, the strategy of downgrading what is said or done was the most used (See Figure 3), and in each of the different groups, this strategy shows a very high degree of frequency of use (See Figure 4). The strategy of downgrading what is said or done involves the use of resources such as, for example, assertions in the form of doubt or probability, as well as verbs, constructions, or particles that feign ignorance. These resources reduce the illocutionary force of the speech act, and at the same weaken the speaker’s commitment to what is said. Some examples are given below. In the conversation Chin06 Driving a car, the use of public and private means of transport to get to work in Beijing is discussed. The GLT speaker repeatedly expressed his assertions in the form of doubt or probability, not because of his lack of knowledge, but as a clear mitigation strategy to self-protect his image (1). In Example (2), the conversation Chin01 Travel, the speaker talks about her experience in the educational system. She also expressed her assertions in the form of doubt or probability as a mitigation strategy. 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 Fr eq u en cy a cc o rd in g to t o ta l n u m b er o f w o rd s ( % ) Mitigation strategies G1-Men G1-Women G2-Men G2-Woman Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 81 (1) Conversation Chin6 Driving a car.5 GLT: [/] / /// zhè ge [/] zhè ge yǒu gè zuì hǎo de hǎo chu jiù shì shuō / tā de bǎo yǎng chéng běn lā gè fāng miàn kě néng huì bǐ jiào dī /// ‘This [/] one of the best things about this is that / its maintenance costs may be lower in all aspects///’ GLT: XXX // /// yīn wéi dà jiā XXX dōu zhī dào // chū zū chē yì nián de lǐ chéng shù kě néng huì dǐng zhe sī jiā chē chà bú duō qī dào shí nián ba /// ‘Because everybody XXX knows // The mileage of a taxi in a year may be about seven to ten years compared to a private car. ///’ (2) Conversation Chin01 Travel. ZXH: // // // / /// suǒ yǐ // kě néng zài xī bān yá // wǒ men huì gǎn jué shàng kè de shí hou bǐ jiào suí yì // dàn shì zhēn zhèng jiē shōu de zhī shi / kě néng bù yī dìng yǒu guó nèi jiē shōu dé duō /// ‘So // maybe in Spain // we'll feel more casual when we're in class // but the knowledge we really receive / may not have much acceptance in our country ///’ ZXH: / //&mm / [/] /// suī rán shuō / wǒ men de jiào yù tǐ zhì bù yí yàng // &mm dàn shì wǒ xiǎng / wǒ kě néng gèng shì yìng guó nèi de jiào [/] shòu kè fāng fǎ ba / ‘even though / our education system is not the same // &mm but I think /perhaps I am more used to our teaching [/] teaching methods ///’ Some of the resources traditionally included in so-called conventionalized indirect strategies (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Zhang, 1995a) are resources to downgrade what has been said or done. In Chinese, these resources are auxiliary verbs, such as (kěyǐ, ‘may’), (néng, ‘can’), or (yīnggāi, ‘should’); interrogative sentences, such as (zěn me yàng, ‘How about ...?’); or verbs of desire, such as (qíngyuàn, ‘wish’), (xūyào, ‘need’), (xīwàng, ‘hope’), or (xiǎng, ‘wish’). In this paper, they are included and accounted for in a list of mitigation resources specifically as resources that downgrade what has been said or done. It is important to point out this phenomenon because when the study of mitigation is based on speech acts, these 5 The mitigation resources are marked in bold type. 82 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER resources, insofar as they are considered to be part of the head of the speech act, are very often not identified as mitigation resources (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Zhang, 1995a; Zhang, 1995b; Li, 2016) (Querol-Bataller, 2022). Some examples are given below. (3) Conversation Chin07 Cooking, the speaker explains how to solve some cooking problems. XUN. nà nǐ wèi shén me bù zì jǐ zuò diǎn dōng xī chī ne ‘So why don't you make yourself something to eat?’ XUN: / nǐ kě yǐ zì jǐ zài jiā lǐ / zhǔ yì diǎn er ròu chī ā ‘You could cook a little meat for yourself at home?’ (4) Conversation Chin01 Travel, the speaker talks about her hobbies during her stay in Spain. DOY: // Nà nǐ xiànzài zài xībānyá // xībānyá bù yǒu hǎoduō hǎibiān er ma ‘So you now in Spain // Doesn't Spain have a lot of beaches? DOY: /// nǐ kěyǐ chènjī qù yíxià ‘You may take advantage of it and go sometime///’ The resources that involve the addressee in what is said or done also function as a pragmatic strategy to reduce the illocutionary force of the speech act, but in this strategy, the responsibility for the statement is transferred from the speaker to the addressee. Thus, this strategy leaves space for negotiation with the addressee, and the speech act becomes negotiable and more suggestive. Furthermore, according to Cestero (2020) (See Figure 1), this is one of the mitigation strategies with the lowest degree of self-image exposure. For this function, the most commonly used resource in the corpus is the (ba) particle (Kendrick, 2018; Fang & Hengeveld, 2020) (5), but so are questions with assertive value, either in the form of question tags (Han, 1988; Hsin, 2016) (6) or in the form of rhetorical questions (Alleton, 1988; Wu & Zhou, 2020) (7). Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 83 (5) Conversation Chin01 Travel, the speaker talks about her experience in the educational system. ZXH: // // // / /// Suǒyǐ// kěnéng zài xībānyá// wǒmen huì gǎnjué shàngkè de shíhòu bǐjiào suíyì// dànshì zhēnzhèng jiēshōu de zhīshì/ kěnéng bù yīdìng yǒu guónèi jiēshōu dé duō/// ‘So // maybe in Spain // we'll feel more casual when we're in class // but the knowledge we really receive / may not have much acceptance in our country///’ ZXH: / //&mm / [/] /// Suīrán shuō/ wǒmen de jiàoyù tǐzhì bù yīyàng// &mm dànshì wǒ xiǎng/ wǒ kěnéng gèng shìyìng guónèi de jiào [/] shòukè fāngfǎ ba/// ‘even though/ our education system is not the same // &mm but I think / I may be more used to our teaching [/] teaching methods ///’ (6) Conversation Chin23 Life in Spain, the speaker talks about how to prepare Chinese dishes in Spain. ZXH: // /// Suǒyǐ rúguǒ wǒ xiǎng zuò zhōngguó cài dehuà// zhǐ néng yòng xiàn yǒu de cáiliào jiāng jiù yīxiàle/// ‘So if I want to make Chinese food // I'll just have to make do with the available ingredients ///’ ZXH: // Bǐrú wǒmen kěyǐ zài chāoshì mǎi dào suàn// duì ba? ‘For example we could buy garlic at the supermarket // right?’ (7) Conversation Chin07 Cooking, the speaker talks about how to prepare Chinese dishes in Spain. ZXH: Nǐ bù juédé zhōngguó de qiézi hé xībānyá de qiézi yǒuxiē bù yīyàng ma? ‘Don't you think the Chinese eggplant is a little bit different from the Spanish eggplant?’ In global terms, the strategies that limit or restrict what is said or done was the third most frequently used. In the informal interviews from C-ORAL-CHINA, this strategy is basically carried out through constructions that limit an opinion to a particular person or a certain field. One of the most frequently used is (wǒ 84 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER juéde, 'I think') (Lim, 2011), but others are also found, such as, for example, (wǒ xiǎng, 'I think'), (duì wǒ lái shuō, 'for me'), (zhè shì wǒ xiànzài de kànfǎ, 'this is my current point of view'), (wǒ shì zhème xiǎng de, 'I think so'), (cóng zhè yìdiǎn shàng shuō, 'from that point on'), and (wǒ gèrén rènwéi, 'I personally think'). Some examples are shown below. (8) Conversation Chin04 Love2, the speaker talks about those who, in order to keep a relationship, focus mainly on appearance. HAK: // // // // /// Ránhòu zhè shíhòu// jiùshì shuō nàgè gǎnqíng jiù huì hěn kuài chūxiàn lièhén// ránhòu zhízhì shuāngfāng dōu shīqù xìngqù// ránhòu fēnkāi// zhè shì wǒ xiànzài de kànfǎ/// ‘And then that's when // that relationship will quickly crack // and then until both parties lose interest // and separate // that's how I see it now ///’ HAK: [/] / // /// Suǒyǐ wǒ juédé zhè zhǒng [/] zhè zhǒng jiùshì zhǐ píng/ wàibiǎo lái wéichí gǎnqíng// quèshí shì bǐjiào fūqiǎn de/// ‘So I think this kind of [/] is just based on / appearance to maintain the relationship // /is indeed rather superficial //’ (9) Conversation Chin01 Travel, the speaker talks about her learning experience in Spain. ZXH: / //&mm / [/] /// Suīrán shuō/ wǒmen de jiàoyù tǐzhì bù yīyàng// &mm dànshì wǒ xiǎng/ wǒ kěnéng gèng shìyìng guónèi de jiào [/] shòukè fāngfǎ ba/// ‘Although / our education system is different // &mm but I think / perhaps I am more comfortable with the teaching [/] method in China ////’ It is interesting to consider, however, whether this high incidence is conditioned by the Chinese communicative style or by the discourse genre that makes up the corpus. The data are taken from conversations (semi-structured interviews) in which the speakers are asked for their opinions on certain topics. Semi-structured interview promotes the use of assertive speech acts, and the use of constructions that limit an opinion to a particular person or a certain field is closely related to the production of assertive speech acts. Therefore, the following question is raised: is Chinese speakers’ high use of strategies that limit or restrict what is said a feature of their own Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 85 communicative style, or on the contrary, does the discourse genre explain their high use? In terms of a discourse genre, the PRESEA corpus6 and the informal conversations from C-ORAL-CHINA are quite similar, and the PRESEA corpus also promotes the use of assertive speech acts. However, except for Mexico City, the use of that strategy is very low and, even in some varieties, it is not representative (Cestero & Albelda, 2020; Cestero & Albelda, forthcoming). Consequently, the use of the strategy of limiting or restricting what is said or done through constructions that limit an opinion to a particular person or a certain field seems to be a characteristic of the communicative style of speakers of Standard Chinese, at least among those of Generation 1 and Educational level 3. Resources that minimize or blur the quantity or quality of what is said or done have also registered a relatively high frequency of use. Among the resources that make this strategy possible, the use of external modifiers stands out, especially the so-called minimizing quantifiers, such as (yíxià, ‘a little’), (yìdiǎn, ‘a little’), or (yìxiē, ‘a little’) (Jiang 2012, Zhang 2019). On the other hand, it is also relevant to highlight the use that these Chinese speakers make of litote resources. The litote consists of an evaluative expression made through the negation of its opposite. It can be used pragmatically in the expression of negative judgments and evaluations (10), but also in the expression of positive judgments and evaluations toward the speaker, or in the expression of socially committed opinions (11).7 (10) Conversation Chin23 Life in Spain, the speaker talks about his cooking skills. ZXH: // /// QQ Érqiě nǐ zhīdào ma// wǒ de chú yì kěbù tài hǎo/// tāmen liǎng gè jīngcháng zài QQ shàng tōngguò shìpín jiào wǒ zuò fàn ne ‘And do you know what // my cooking skills are not very good/// the two of them often teach me to cook through videos on QQ’ 6 PRESEA comprises semi-structured interviews in Spanish, in a neutral register, and based on thematic modules, such as time, place of residence, family, friendship, customs, etc. Available at http://preseea.linguas.net. 7 It is striking how the use of some of these mitigation forms has become lexicalized in the language and become the unmarked option. This is the case of expressions such as 不错 (bú cuò, ‘not bad’) or 没错 (méi cuò, ‘not bad’) to evaluate a certain state of affairs. However, it should be noted that their original structure is a mitigation strategy, as the speaker blurs the content of what is said. 86 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER (11) Conversation Ch01Travel, the speaker talks about her learning experience in Spain. LXX: // //&mm // / / Ránhòu// chúle yǔyán// &mm yīxiē yǔfǎ kè yǐwài// hái yǒu yīxiē shénme yìshù kè/ diànyǐng kè/ jīngjì lèi de dōu kěyǐ xuǎnxiū ‘Then // in addition to language // &mm some grammar classes // there are some art classes / film classes / economics that can be taken as electives’ LXX: // Dànshì zǒngtǐ lái jiǎng// nàxiē kè yāoqiú bùshì tèbié gāo ‘But in general// those classes are not particularly demanding’ As mentioned above, the strategies that the analysis has revealed with the lowest use were, on the one hand, resources that justify what has been said or done and, on the other hand, resources that correct or repair what has been said or done. With regard to the latter, it should be noted that laughter8 was the most common recourse, and its use was noticed, for example, in reply to criticism, positive or negative, of the speakers themselves or of another person, in response to socially compromised utterances, or after showing disagreement with the addressee. Some examples are given below. (12) Conversation Chin01Travel, the speakers talk about shopping in Spain. SMW SOL // SOL // // /// Érqiě wǒ bǐjiào xǐhuān qù SOL nà biān er guàng// yīnwèi wǒ juédé SOL nà biān diàn duō// ránhòu hái dà// dōngxī bǐjiào quán yīdiǎn er/// ‘I prefer to go to Sol and walk there // because I think that in Sol there are many shops // and it’s also bigger // there is quite a bit of everything’ DOY // ...... Shì yīnwèi nǐ gèzi tài gāole// suǒyǐ nǐ zài zhōngguó...... ‘It's because you're too tall // so you're in China...’ SMW // hhh {%act laugh}/// Dāngrán gāo shì yīgè yuányīn// pàng háishì lìngwài yīgè yuányīn hhh {%act laugh}/// ‘Of course high is one reason // fat is another reason hhh {%act laugh}///’ 8 Cestero (1999) explains different conversational uses of laughter. Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews 87 (13) Conversation Ch23 Life in Spain, the speakers talk about birthday celebrations. ZXH: // /// Bùguò// wǒ háishì gèng xǐhuān chī biérén zuò hǎo de dàngāo/// ‘But // I still prefer to eat cakes made by others ///’ ZXH: // hhh {%act: laugh} // /// Zhèyàng yòu shěngshì er yòu fāngbiàn// hēihēi hhh {%act: laugh}// wǒ jiùshì tài lǎnle/// ‘It's so much less work and easier // hey hhh {%act: laugh} // I'm just too lazy ///’’ 4 Conclusion Communication in Chinese has traditionally been described as non-assertive and implicit, where the aim is to avoid overt conflict and, above all, to maintain harmony in any interaction (Du, 1995; Ma, 1996; Ge Gao & Ting-Toomey, 1998, pp. 61–66; Chen & Ma, 2002). Chen (2011, p. 1) and Pan (2000, p. 134) criticize these descriptions because they focus their characterizations on general principles. Thus, they are often simplifications of the reality of language without considering its use in specific situations and discourses. The study of a pragmatic category such as mitigation, which has clear implications for negotiation and conflict avoidance, as well as for the protection or repair of the image of interlocutors, may be a valuable tool for a more accurate description of Chinese speakers’ communicative style. To this end, a study has been undertaken on the use of mitigation in standard Chinese. It is based on a theoretical and methodological framing of mitigation, which has already been tested and validated by the scientific community, although its application has been limited to the Spanish language (Cestero & Albelda, 2020; Cestero 2020; Cestero & Albelda, forthcoming). The originality of this paper lies in its application to descriptions of the Chinese language. In this paper, a description of mitigation strategies and their resources has been carried out based on C-ORAL- CHINA’s informal conversations. The data presented in this study show that, at least among younger speakers of higher education, mitigation is usually carried out through strategies that affect illocutionary force. In particular, the mitigation resources used to downgrade what is said or done and to involve the addressee were, respectively, those that had the highest frequency of use. The prevalence of these strategies, which means a medium level of exposure, may be objective data with which to support the non-assertive and implicit communicative style of Chinese speakers. 88 Maria QUEROL-BATALLER Variationist language studies are one of the least developed areas of Chinese linguistics (Lin et al., 2012; Ren et al., 2013; Ren, 2015). In this sense, in future research, it would be desirable to enlarge the C-ORAL-CHINA corpus and to have equivalent and representative speech samples of different generations and education levels, genders, and even diatopic varieties. This would not only allow for a more detailed knowledge of mitigation in Chinese, as well as a more precise and concrete description of the communicative style of their speakers, but also a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of mitigation itself. Acknowledgments This research is is granted by “Pragmatic-rhetorical strategies in the conflictive interaction among intimates and acquaintances: intensification, mitigation and interactional management (ESPRINT)” (ref. PID2020-114805GB-I00) funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. References Albelda Marco, M., Briz Gómez, A., Cestero Mancera, A., Kotwica, D., & Villalba Ibánez, C. (2014). Ficha metodológica para el análisis pragmático de la atenuación en corpus discursivos del español. (ES.POR.ATENUACIÓN) (Methodological datasheet for the pragmatic analysis of mitigation in Spanish discourse corpora. (ES.POR.MITIGATION)). Oralia, 17, 7–62. https://DOI: 10.25115/oralia.v17i.7999 Albelda Marco, M., & Briz Gómez, A. (2020). 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Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ren Wei (2015). Sociopragmatic variation in Mainland and Taiwan Chinese refusals. In Researching sociopragmatic variability (72–93). London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137373953_4 Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 13(1), 2023. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.91-106 Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies to Chinese Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic michaela.frydrychova01@upol.cz Abstract The story of a young student of wizardry Harry Potter is still famous all over the world even though the first book was published more than 20 years ago. The author of this heptalogy J. K. Rowling made up a whole new world full of spells, potions, and magical creatures. When creating new words, she proved her talent for creating various puns. These expressions became a major challenge for translators of various languages, including Chinese. This study presents results of a lexicological analysis of the neologisms that occurred in Harry Potter films. The main aim of the analysis was to determine which loanword categories were used for borrowing every single neologism from English to Chinese and which category was the most productive one within various groups of neologisms and within the whole corpus. Keywords: loanwords, borrowings, Chinese, Harry Potter, lexicology, translation Povzetek Zgodba o mladem študentu čarovništva Harryju Potterju je še vedno znana po vsem svetu, čeprav je prva knjiga izšla pred več kot 20 leti. Avtorica te heptalogije J. K. Rowling je ustvarila povsem nov svet, poln urokov, napitkov in čarobnih bitij. Pri ustvarjanju novih besed je dokazala svoj talent za ustvarjanje različnih besednih iger. Ti izrazi so postali velik izziv za prevajalce različnih jezikov, vključno s kitajščino. Ta študija predstavlja rezultate leksikološke analize neologizmov, ki so se pojavili v filmih o Harryju Potterju. Glavni cilj analize je bil ugotoviti, katere kategorije izposojenk so bile uporabljene za izposojo posameznega neologizma iz angleščine v kitajščino in katera kategorija je bila najbolj produktivna znotraj različnih skupin neologizmov in znotraj celotnega korpusa. Ključne besede: prevzete besede, izposojenke, kitajščina, Harry Potter, besedoslovje, prevod 92 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ 1 Introduction Lexical borrowing is one way to enrich the vocabulary of one’s language. The word of the source language is transferred to the borrowing language. This process occurs when there is a need to express a word that does not exist in the borrowing language. This process is known as cultural borrowing. Certain words are borrowed despite the fact that a native word already exists for such a meaning in the borrowing language. This is called core borrowing and Haspelmath (2009, pp. 35, 46) points out two types of factors of such a kind of borrowing: social and attitudinal factors and grammatical factors. The presented study below deals with the borrowing of neologisms in fantastic literature writing, therefore the scope of this research is limited to cultural borrowing. Loanwords in Chinese have a long history. Shi Youwei (2021, pp. 32-105) in his book Loanwords in the Chinese Language introduces language borrowing in China in detail from the fourth century BC to these days. Yip Po-Ching (2007, pp. 329-332) divides the history of lexical borrowing in Chinese into three waves. The first one started by translating Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit during the Han (206 BC – 220 AD) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. This wave lasted until defeating China in the Opium Wars (1840-1842) when the second wave began. Chinese started borrowing words from Japanese in this period. The last wave started after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and still persists to this day. Loanwords from English, the most influential language of Chinese loanwords, began to further penetrate Chinese vocabulary in the twentieth century during the period of the May 4 Movement in 1919. Borrowing mainly took place in fields such as science and technology, culture, and thoughts (Kim, 2019, p. 4). Later in the 1980s, as China began to grow economically and opened up to the rest of the world, contact with English-speaking countries became even more frequent, not to mention the present with the possibilities of the Internet and social media. Some linguistics deal with Chinese loanwords. Miao Ruiqin (2005) in her work focuses on phonetic borrowings from English, German, and Italian and wants to analyze the phonology of Chinese loanwords, namely the substitution of consonants and syllables structures that do not exist in Chinese. Kim Tae-Eun (2019) in her book Mandarin Loanwords does similar research, focusing mainly on the phonetic way of borrowing from English and bringing up a new model of adaptation of Chinese loanwords based on a combination of the phonetic and phonological way of borrowing. The above-mentioned Shi Youwei (2021) in his book provides different types of classification of Chinese loanwords, i.e. formal types, functional types, semantic types, etc. For this study, articles by Heřmanová-Novotná (1967, 1968, 1969, 1975) are crucial. She presents a detailed categorization of Chinese loanwords borrowed from European languages together with their subcategories and characteristic features. She specifically focuses on semantically borrowed loanword categories such as calques, induced new creations, and hybrid loanwords. Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 93 The story about the young wizard Harry Potter written by J. K. Rowling is well known for its significant number of neologisms, which is typical for fantasy literature writing. Original and unique neologisms are created to emphasize the difference between the imaginary world and its creations and our world (Čačija & Marković, 2018, p. 200). Translation of these words can be challenging. Newmark (1988, p. 149) claims that all neologisms in the literary text should be recreated based on the neologism of the source language. Kolev (2016, p. 7) argues that “if the translator neglects to translate the full meaning potential of the word, readers may fail to experience the entire range of meanings, or at least some of the meanings that were intended by the author of the source text”. The main aim of this study is to map the borrowing process of neologisms that occurred in Harry Potter films from English to Chinese. We have decided to analyze neologisms occurring only in films because of two reasons. The first one is that the books contain a huge number of neologisms, and it would take a much longer time to collect and analyze those neologisms. There was an option to focus only on one book, but the author wanted to cover the whole story. The second reason is that in these times film can reach a wider audience. There are three partial aims: a) to detect all the loanword categories used for borrowing neologisms; b) to find out the distribution of loanword categories within the individual groups of words; c) to determine the distribution of loanword categories within the entire corpus of neologisms. Slaměníková and Uher (2021) carried out similar research. In their paper, they present an analysis of conversion methods of animal names from the Star Wars saga to Chinese. They also worked with Heřmanová-Novotná’s categorization. 2 Creating the corpus, identifying and categorization of loanwords It is important to highlight that the corpus is created of neologisms of Harry Potter films, not books. There are eight films.1 The first one Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone came out in 2001. The last film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was released in 2011. While watching these films, all the neologisms were written down. Their equivalents in Chinese characters and pinyin transcription were then added to them. 340 neologisms were detected in all. After their collection, all the neologisms were sorted into eight groups. The first four groups are proper nouns: Anthroponyms, Toponyms, Zoonyms, and Chrematonyms. There is also a group called Spells, Curses, and Potions. The last three groups are common nouns: Animals, Creatures and Plants, Artefacts, and a group called Characters’ Designation. Four neologisms could not be sorted into any group and were therefore excluded from the analysis. 1 The book series has seven parts, but there are eight films: the last book was divided into two films. 94 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ First, phonetically transferred neologisms were identified and marked with the letters PL (phonetic loanword). The rest of the neologisms were transferred by semantic way of borrowing. To determine which types of loanwords were used, every neologism was written down including the words it is made up of and information about the source language. The words mostly originated from English and Latin. There were several neologisms in which the origin was difficult to determine. In these cases, information about the etymology of the words on the Harry Potter Wiki2 website helped decode the source language. Based on the relationship between the meaning of words in both the source and borrowing language, the type of loanword was determined. Six types of loanwords were identified in all. There were two problematic words. The first one was difficult to sort into any loanword category, while the second one’s origin in the source language could not be identified. This is the reason why these two words were also excluded from the analysis. Finally, 6 problematic words out of 340 detected neologisms were excluded, and therefore 334 neologisms were analyzed. As mentioned above, six types of loanwords were used for borrowing neologisms. The definitions in Zdenka Heřmanová-Novotná’s articles were used for loanword categorization. These are the detected loanword categories: • phonetic loanwords (PL): transfer of the phonetic form of a word in the source language to the borrowing language; • calques (C): direct translation, morphemes of the source language are replaced by morphemes of the borrowing language with the same meaning, (C+): direct translation extended by added lexical morpheme; • hybrid loanwords (HL): these loanwords contain a phonetic component of the source language and a semantic component of the borrowing language; • semantic loanwords (SL): using an already existing word of the borrowing language; • induced new creations (INC): morphemes of the source language are synonymous with morphemes of the borrowing language. Words whose morphemes are in hyponym-hypernym relationship to morphemes in the word of the source language were also sorted into this category. Words whose morphemes are not clearly synonymous with morphemes of the source language, but where the relationship between them is distinguishable, are also sorted into this category. It is important to point out that this category also contains cases, where at least one morpheme of the borrowing language was in one of the relationships described above with the morpheme of the source language. 2 https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 95 • nonrelated loanwords (NRL): this category was created by the author of this article. Nonrelated loanwords are defined as words, in which morphemes of the source language are not in any relationship with morphemes of the source language, or the relationship between them is so vague it is not considered relevant for this study. 3 Results of analysis of individual word groups A detailed description of the results of the analysis is provided below. Information about the realized types of loanwords is provided together with data and examples for every word group. 3.1 Anthroponyms Anthroponyms are those proper nouns that denote a person or group of persons (Lotko, 2003, p. 16). It is the largest word group within the whole corpus, containing all 120 items. There are full names in this group such as Albus Dumbledore, nicknames like Mooney, only first names like Marge, or only last names like Yaxley. • PL: Harry Potter – the name of the main character was borrowed into Chinese as Hālì Bōtè 哈利 ·波特 . Phonetic loans are, with 101 items, the most productive loanword category in the group of anthroponyms. • HL: Nearly Headless Nick – a nickname for the ghost of Gryffindor house, whose head is almost detached from the body, can be found as Chàdiǎnméitóu de Níkè 差点没头的尼克. The words nearly and headless were replaced by the Chinese words “almost, nearly” chàdiǎn 差点, “not have” méi 没 and “head” tóu 头. The name Nick was transferred phonetically as Níkè 尼克. Ten hybrid loans were detected in the group of anthroponyms in all. • C: Wormtail – a nickname for Peter Pettigrew was borrowed into Chinese as Chóngwěiba 虫尾巴. The English words worm and tail were substituted with words with the same meaning: “insect, worm” chóng 虫 and “tail” wěiba 尾 巴. Four anthroponyms were borrowed through the calque category, with two of them marked as C+. • INC: Dark Lord – one of Voldemort’s nicknames can be found as Hēimówáng 黑魔王. For the Chinese version of this name the words “black” hēi 黑 and “Prince of the Devils, erlking” mówáng 魔王 were used. As calques, the category of newly induced creations was used for borrowing four anthroponyms. • NRL: You-know-who – another one of Voldemort’s nicknames, used to not reveal his real name, was borrowed as Shénmìrén 神秘人. This loanword is 96 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ made up of the words “mysterious” shénmì 神秘 and “human being” rén 人. Only one item of all the anthroponyms was created by this loanword category. 3.2 Toponyms Another word group is toponyms. These are geographical proper nouns – local and geographical names (Lotko, 2003, p. 118). This group contains 28 items including street names, city names, etc. The names of shops and institutions like Azkaban prison or Gringotts Wizarding Bank were sorted to this group as well. • C: Honeydukes – the name of a famous candy shop was borrowed into Chinese as Fēngmì gōngjué 蜂蜜公爵. For the words honey and duke, Chinese words with the same meaning were used: “honey” fēngmì 蜂蜜 and “duke” gōngjué 公爵. Calques were the most productive loanword category among toponyms. The direct translation was used for 9 out of 28 items, with two of them classified as C+. • PL: Budleigh Babberton – the name of the village, where Horace Slughorn was hiding, was phonetically transferred to Chinese as Bādélái Bābódùn 巴德莱巴 伯顿. Eight phonetic loanwords were detected in the group of toponyms in all. • HL: Zonko’s Joke Shop – the name of one of the Hogsmeade shops can be found in Chinese as Zuǒkē xiàohuadiàn 佐科笑话店. The name Zonko was phonetically transferred as zuǒkē 佐科, and the words joke and shop were borrowed through the word “joke” xiàohua 笑话 and morpheme “shop, store” diàn 店. Five toponyms were classified as hybrid loans. • INC: Room of Requirement – the name of a secret room, which revealed itself only when somebody needed something, was borrowed into Chinese as Yǒuqiúbìyìng wū 有求必应屋 . The words room and requirement were substituted by the Chinese idiom “respond to every plea, grant whatever is requested” yǒuqiúbìyìng 有求必应 and the morpheme “house, room” wū 屋. In the group of toponyms, four items were classified as induced new creations. • SL: Chamber of Secrets – the name of the chamber secretly created by Salazar Slytherin can be found as Mìshì 密室. This is already an existing word in Chinese with the meaning “a room used for secret purposes”. Only one neologism was classified as a semantic loanword in the group of toponyms. • NRL: Flourish and Blotts – the name of the book store in Diagon Alley was borrowed as Lìhén shūdiàn 丽痕书店. The English words flourish and blotts (created from the word blotch/blot) were substituted with the morphemes “beautiful” lì 丽, “mark, trace” hén 痕 and with the word “book store” shūdiàn 书店. Some kind of relationship between the words of both languages can be spotted, but it is so vague that it is not considered relevant. Only one case of nonrelated loanwords was detected in the group of toponyms. Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 97 3.3 Zoonyms Zoonym is defined as the name of an animal. They can be divided into so-called true zoonyms and false zoonyms. True zoonyms are actual animal names, while false zoonyms are names of fictional animals (Karlík et al., 2002, p. 204). This group of words contains 19 zoonyms both true and false. There are names of dogs like Ripper, names of owls like Hedwig and names of house-elves such as Kreacher. • PL: Aragog – the name of Hagrid’s large spider was phonetically transferred to Chinese as Ālāgēkè 阿拉戈克 . Phonetic loanwords were the most productive loanword category among zoonyms, with 14 items detected as phonetic loanwords in all. • SL: Grim – the name of the omen that takes the form of a large dog can be found as Bùxiáng 不祥. This is an already existing word in Chinese with the meaning “ominous, inauspicious”. Two items were borrowed through the semantic loanword category. • INC: Fang – the name of Hagrid’s dog was borrowed into Chinese as Yáyá 牙 牙. The English word fang was substituted with the duplicated morpheme “tooth” yá 牙. Only one case of induced new-creations was detected in the group of zoonyms. • HL: Mrs. Norris – the name of the janitor Filch’s cat can be found in Chinese as Luòlìsī fūren 洛丽丝夫人. The name Norris was phonetically transferred as Luòlìsī 洛丽丝 and the English abbreviation Mrs. was borrowed from the Chinese word “Mrs., madame, lady, wife” fūren 夫人. Hybrid loanwords were detected in only one case in a group of zoonyms. • NRL: Scabbers – the name of Ron’s rat was borrowed into Chinese as Bānbān 斑斑. Rowling created this name from the English word scab. In Chinese, translators duplicated the morpheme “spot, speck” bān 斑 . As with the induced new-creations and hybrid loanwords, nonrelated loanwords were detected only in one case in the group of zoonyms. 3.4 Chrematonyms Chrematonyms are those proper nouns, which denote human creations nonrelated to nature, e.g., social phenomena, institutions, products, etc (Lotko, 2003, p. 47). Thirty neologisms were classified as chrematonyms in all. Most of them are product names. • C: Daily Prophet – the name of this magical newspaper was borrowed into Chinese as Yùyánjiā rìbào 预言家日报. The English words daily and prophet were substituted with words with the same meaning: “prophet” yùyánjiā 预 言家 and “daily paper, daily” rìbào 日报. The calque category was used for borrowing 11 chrematonyms, two of which were marked as C+. 98 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ • INC: Goblet of Fire – the name of the tool for choosing students, who will take part in the Triwizard Tournament, can be found in Chinese as Huǒyànbēi 火 焰杯. The English words goblet and fire were substituted with the Chinese word “flame” huǒyàn 火焰 and the morpheme “cup, trophy” bēi 杯. New induced creations helped to transfer 11 chrematonyms, which were, together with calques, the most productive loanword categories among this group of words. • PL: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin – the names of the four Hogwarts houses were phonetically transferred to Chinese as Gélánfēnduō 格 兰芬多, Hèqípàqí 赫奇怕奇, Lāwénkèláo 拉文克劳 and Sīláitèlín 斯莱特林 (in the same order as above). These four cases are the only phonetic loanwords realized in the group of chrematonyms. • HL: Bettie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans – the name of the candy was borrowed into Chinese as Bǐbǐ duōwèidòu 比比多味豆 . The name Bettie Bott was phonetically transferred as Bǐbǐ 比比. For the English words every, flavor, and bean, the Chinese morphemes “many, much, more” duō 多, “taste, flavor” wèi 味 and “pod-bearing plant or its seeds” dòu 豆 were assigned. There were only three cases of hybrid loanwords in the group of chrematonyms. • NRL: The Quibbler – the name of a magazine can be found in Chinese as Chàngchàngfǎndiào 唱唱反调 . When creating this name, Rowling was inspired by the English word quibble. In Chinese, the name for this magazine is created by the duplication of the morpheme “sing” chàng 唱 and the word “different tune, the opposite point of view” fǎndiào 反调. Only one case of a nonrelated loanword was detected in the group of chrematonyms. 3.5 Spells, Curses and Potions This group of neologisms contains the names of spells like Bubble-Head Charm, curses that lead to their realization like Obliviate!, or the names of potions like Elixir of Life. Ninety-one neologisms were assigned to this group in all, which makes Spells, Curses, and Potions the second largest group of words in the analyzed corpus. • INC: Oculus Reparo! – the exclamation of a spell, which is used for repairing broken glasses, can be found in Chinese as Yǎnjing huīfù rúchū 眼睛恢复如 初. Rowling made up this exclamation by putting together two Latin words, “eye” oculus and “to renew, to revive” reparo. The Chinese version consists of the words “eye” yǎnjing 眼睛, “resume, renew” huīfù 恢复 and “as before, as of old” rúchū 如初. The induced new creations are the most productive loanword category among the group of spells, curses, and potions. Altogether 40 items were borrowed through this category. Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 99 • NRL: Imperio! – the exclamation of one of the most dangerous curses, which places its victim completely under the control of the caster, was borrowed into Chinese as Húnpò chūqiào 魂魄出窍. This exclamation is deduced from the Latin word "command, rule" imperium. The Chinese version consists of the words "soul" húnpò 魂魄, “issue, put out, produce” chū 出 and “hole, a key to something” qiào 窍 . 18 neologisms of this group of words were classified as nonrelated loanwords. • C: Unforgivable Curses – a designation of the three most dangerous and sinister curses (Imperius Curse, Cruciatus Curse, and Killing Curse) can be found in Chinese as Bùkěráoshù zhòu 不可饶恕咒 . The English words unforgivable and curse were substituted with Chinese words with the same meaning: “cannot, should not, must not” bùkě 不可, “forgive, pardon” ráoshù 饶恕 and “incantation” zhòu 咒 . Calques participated in borrowing 14 neologisms of this group, with 5 of them marked as C+. • PL: Wingardium Leviosa! – the exclamation of a spell, that makes an object fly or levitate, was phonetically transferred to Chinese as Yǔjiādímǔ lèwéi’àosà 羽加迪姆勒维奥萨 . Eleven neologisms of this group were borrowed through the phonetic loanword category. • SL: Fianto Duri! – the exclamation of a spell, which is usually used for strengthening protective spells, can be found in Chinese as Gùruòjīntāng 固 若金汤. Rowling created this spell of Latin words “to be made, to become” fio and “to become hard, stern, to last, to remain” duro. In Chinese, an already existing idiom “strongly fortified, impregnable” gùruòjīntāng 固若金汤 was used for borrowing this neologism. Semantic loanwords helped to borrow five neologisms in this group of words. • HL: Vipera Evanesca! – the exclamation of a spell, which makes snakes disappear, was borrowed to Chinese as Shéshé, āiwéinísīkǎ 蛇蛇，哎唯尼斯 卡. Rowling once again used the Latin words "viper, snake" vipera, and "to vanish, to disappear" evanesco to create this spell. In Chinese, the word vipera was semantically borrowed through duplication of the morpheme “snake” shé 蛇, and the word evanesco was transferred phonetically as āiwéinísīkǎ 哎唯 尼斯卡. Only three items in this group of words were borrowed through the hybrid loanwords category. 3.6 Animals, Creatures and Plants Common names of animals such as Acromantula, creatures like Boggart, or plants like Gillyweed can be found here. This group contains 21 neologisms. • C: Venomous Tentacula – the designation of a plant with movable sprouts full of poison can be found in Chinese as Dúchùshǒu 毒触手. The English words 100 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ venomous and tentacle were substituted by the Chinese morpheme “poison, toxin” dú 毒 and the word “tentacle” chùshǒu 触手. The literal translation was used for borrowing 11 neologisms of this group, 5 of them were classified as C+. • INC: Sopophorous Bean – the name of these beans, which were used for making the Draught of Living Death and other potions, was borrowed into Chinese as Kēshuìdòu 瞌睡豆. The Latin word “deep sleep” sopor and the English word bean were substituted by the Chinese word “sleepy, drowsy” kēshuì 瞌睡 and the morpheme “pod-bearing plant or its seeds” dòu 豆. Four neologisms in this group of words were borrowed through the category of induced new creations. • PL: Grindylow – the designation of the dark water creature was transferred phonetically to Chinese as Gélíndíluò 格林迪洛. The phonetic transfer was used for borrowing three neologisms in this group of words. • NRL: Wrackspurt – the designation of an invisible creature that flies into people’s ears and confuses them was borrowed to Chinese as Sāorǎoméng 骚 扰虻. The English words wrack and spurt were substituted with the Chinese word “harass, molest” sāorǎo 骚扰 and the morpheme “horsefly, gadfly” méng 虻 . Nonrelated loanwords were realized only in three cases of neologisms in this group of words. 3.7 Artifacts Common names of various artifacts such as Trace, Portkey, or Quick-Quotes Quill can be found in this group of words, which contains 16 neologisms. • INC: Time-Turner – the designation of this device, whose main purpose is time traveling, was borrowed into Chinese as Shíjiān zhuǎnhuànqì 时间转换器. • C: Remembrall – the name of the glass ball with smoke in it, which turns red every time its possessor forgets about something, can be found in Chinese as Jìyìqiú 记忆球. The English words remember and ball, used for creating this word, were directly translated by the Chinese word “remember, recall” jìyì 记 忆 and the morpheme “ball” qiú 球. Five neologisms of this group of words were borrowed through the calque category in all, with 2 of them marked as C+. • NRL: Bludger – the designation of one of the balls used for playing Quidditch was borrowed to Chinese as Yóuzǒuqiú 游走球 . English version of the neologism was created from the word bludgeon. In Chinese, translators put together the word “wander about” yóuzǒu 游走 and the morpheme “ball” qiú Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 101 球 . Two neologisms of this group of words were borrowed into Chinese through the nonrelated loanword category. • PL: Galleon – the name of one of the coins of the wizarding currency was transferred phonetically to Chinese as Jiālóng 加隆. Only one neologism in this group of words was borrowed into Chinese through the phonetic loanword category. • HL: Quaffle – another designation for one of the Quidditch balls can be found in Chinese as Guǐfēiqiú 鬼飞球 . The original name was in all probability created from the English word quaff. The Chinese version consists of the phonetic loanword guǐfēi 鬼飞 and the morpheme “ball” qiú 球. The hybrid loanword category was used for borrowing only one neologism of this group of words. • SL: Foe-Glass – the name of the artifact that looks like a mirror, but instead of a reflection shows its possessor's enemies, was borrowed into Chinese as Zhàoyāojìng 照妖镜. The English neologism, consisting of the words foe and glass, was substituted by the already existing Chinese word zhàoyāojìng 照妖 镜 with the meaning “monster-revealing mirror; demondetector”. As in the previous two loanword categories, semantic loanwords helped to borrow only one neologism in this group of words. 3.8 Characters’ designation Last, common nouns in the group of words called Characters’ Designation were analyzed. Designations such as Auror, Beater, or Death Eater can be found in this group. Only 9 items belong here in all, which makes the Characters’ Designation the least represented group of words in the analyzed corpus. • INC: Mudblood – the abusive designation of a muggle wizard (born in a non- magic family) can be found in Chinese as Níbāzhǒng 泥巴种. The English version consists of the words mud and blood. In Chinese, these words were substituted by the word “mud” níbā 泥巴 and the morpheme “species; race” zhǒng 种. Three neologisms of this group of words were borrowed through the induced new creations category. • PL: Animagus – this neologism designates a wizard who can turn himself into an animal. It was phonetically transferred to Chinese as Ānímǎgésī 阿尼马格 斯. The phonetic loanword category helped to borrow two neologisms from this group of words. • HL: Muggle – the designation of non-magic people was borrowed into Chinese as Máguā 麻瓜. The English neologism is created on basis of the word mug. In Chinese, the character má 麻 was chosen because of its phonetic feature, and the morpheme guā 瓜 most likely refers to the Chinese word 102 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ “fool; blockhead; simpleton” shǎguā 傻瓜. Only one item of this group of words was borrowed through the hybrid loanword category. • C: Death Eater – the designation of the wizard who follows Lord Voldemort, practices dark magic, and acknowledges only pure-blooded wizards can be found in Chinese as Shísǐtú 食死徒. The English version consists of the words death and eater and these words were borrowed into Chinese through the morphemes “eat; meal; food” shí 食, “die, be dead” sǐ 死 and “pupil; follower; believer” tú 徒. One neologism of this group of words was borrowed through the calque category (in this case it was marked as C+). • NRL: Seeker – the designation of a Quidditch player whose main task is to catch the Golden Snitch was borrowed to Chinese as Qiúshǒu 球手. The already existing English word seeker was substituted with the Chinese morphemes “ball” qiú 球 and “hand” shǒu 手. The morpheme shǒu 手 also works as a sorting component in the designation of some professions. Only one neologism of this group of words was borrowed through nonrelated loanwords. • SL: Squib – this word in the Harry Potter world designates a wizard who is unable to practice sorcery and was borrowed to Chinese as yǎpào 哑炮. The English word squib was substituted with an already existing Chinese word yǎpào 哑炮 with the meaning “dud”. As for the previous three loanword categories, the semantic loanword category was used for borrowing only one neologism in this group of words. 3.9 Other types of motivation in the borrowing process It became clear, during the analysis, that some of the neologisms were borrowed into Chinese based on the description of their specific features. For some of them, their appearance, function, or attribute was considered during the borrowing process. These neologisms were mostly classified as nonrelated loanwords, and some of them belong to the induced new creations category. Three examples of such cases are listed below. • Marauder’s Map – this is a map of Hogwarts together with all of its classrooms, corridors, and secret rooms. The map can also identify everyone who is in Hogwarts at the moment. People on the map are portrayed by using a label with their names. Their position and the direction of their movement in the school are displayed by the moving symbols of human feet. English version of the neologism refers to a group of schoolmates who created the map. In Chinese, Marauder’s Map can be found as Huódiǎn dìtú 活点地图. This neologism is made of the morphemes “alive, living” huó 活, “spot; dot” diǎn 点 and of the word “map” dìtú 地图. Chinese designation refers to moving symbols of human footsteps on the map. Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 103 • Periculum! – a spell used in dangerous situations when a wizard needs help. During its exclamation, a red sparkle comes out of the wand and flies high in the air. There it splits into more sparkles, and it makes this spell look like a firework. Using this spell, a wizard calls for help in case of danger. This neologism was derived from the Latin word “danger, peril” periculum and was borrowed to Chinese as Hóngsè huǒhuā 红色火花. The Chinese exclamation of this spell contains the words “red” hóngsè 红色 and “spark” huǒhuā 火花 and refers to the visual realization of the spell. • The Quibbler – the name denotes a tabloid publishing strange articles together with conspiracy theories. Many wizards think of this magazine as trash. Its name was derived from the English word quibble and can be found in Chinese as Chàngchàngfǎndiào 唱唱反调 . The Chinese version of the neologism consists of the duplicated morpheme “sing” chàng 唱 and the word “different tune; opposite point of view” fǎndiào 反调. The Chinese loanword points to the fact that this magazine publishes articles contradicting those in serious magical journals. 4 Conclusion This study’s main purpose was to map the process of borrowing neologisms occurring in films about the young wizard Harry Potter. A corpus containing 334 items was compiled. Neologisms were sorted into eight groups based on their common characteristics and then analyzed. Six types of loanwords were detected in all: phonetic loanwords, calques, hybrid loanwords, semantic loanwords, induced new creations, and nonrelated loanwords. Representations of loanword categories in individual groups of words were described above. The most productive category of all was the calque category. Calques dominated in three groups of words and in one group dominated in the borrowing of the same number of neologisms as induced new creations. The second most productive category was induced new reations and the third was phonetic loanwords. The least productive category was semantic loanwords. As mentioned above, 334 neologisms were analyzed. Focused on the representation of loanword categories in the entire corpus, the most productive loanword category was phonetic loanwords. 144 (43.1 %) items were phonetically transferred in all. Most of them belong to the group of anthroponyms, the largest group of neologisms in this corpus. The second most productive category was induced new creations, which helped to borrow 73 neologisms (21.9 %). The next in order is the calque category with 55 (16.5 %) literally translated items. Nonrelated loanwords were classified in 28 cases (8.4 %). The category of hybrid loanwords is represented by 24 borrowed items (7.2 %). The least productive loanword category in the entire corpus 104 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ was the category of semantic loanwords with 10 (3 %) borrowed neologisms. To summarize these results better, a table with data about the representation of loanword categories in individual groups of words was created. This table is followed by a graph indicating the representation of loanword categories in the entire corpus. Table 1: Numeral representation of loanword categories in individual groups of words PL C HL SL INC NRL Anthroponyms 101 4 10 X 4 1 Toponyms 8 9 5 1 4 1 Zoonyms 14 X 1 2 1 1 Chrematonyms 4 11 3 X 11 1 Spells, Curses and Potions 11 14 3 5 40 18 Animals, Creatures, and Plants 3 11 X X 4 3 Artifacts 1 5 1 1 6 2 Characters’ Designation 2 1 1 1 3 1 Figure 1: Percentage image of represenatation of loanword categories in the analyzed corpus Results of the analysis indicate that within individual groups of words and also within the entire corpus the most productive loanword categories are phonetic loanwords, calques, and induced new creations. There are two possible reasons why 43,1% 16,5% 7,2% 3,0% 21,9% 8,4% Loanwords categories in the analyzed corpus PL C HL SL INC NRL Strategies Used for Borrowing Neologisms from Harry Potter Movies … 105 the phonetic loanword category was the most productive. The first one is that neologisms in fantastic literature are not supposed to become part of common vocabulary and therefore the translators did not put all that much effort into the semantic way of borrowing these words. The second reason is that most of the phonetic transferred neologisms were proper nouns, specifically anthroponyms. Unlike Chinese, English anthroponyms mostly do not bear meaning. Based on this premise, the translators in all probability did not use the semantic way of borrowing to transfer personal names, despite the fact that proper nouns in fantastic literature always carry meaning. The film adaptations cannot cover all the neologisms from the books. Therefore, the author of this article decided to continue with such research using neologisms from the books. Attention will be focused this time only on proper nouns. The corpus will also be extended by two additional fantastic works of literature: The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. The author hopes to find general tendencies and motivations in borrowing proper nouns from fantastic literature writings into Chinese. References Čačija, R., & Marković, M. (2018). Translating Neologisms and Proper Nouns in Fantasy Fiction for Young Adults. Strani jezici, 47. Harry Potter Wiki (n.d.). Retrieved 30 October 2022 from https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page Haspelmath, M. (2009). Lexical Borrowing: Concepts and Issues. In Haspelmath, M. & Tadmor, U., Loanwords in the World’s Languages: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 35-54). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Heřmanová-Novotná, Z. (1975). Morphemic Reproductions of Foreign Lexical Models in Modern Chinese. Archiv oriantální, 43. Karlík, P., Nekula, M., & Pleskalová, J. (Eds.). (2002). Encyklopedický slovník češtiny (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Czech). Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny. Kim, T. (2019). Mandarin Loanwords. New York: Routledge. Kolev, M. (2017). Strategy and Procedures for Translating Proper Nouns and Neologisms in Terry Pratchett’s Fantasy Novel Small Gods into Afrikaans (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Pretoria, Pretoria. Lotko, E. (2003). Slovník lingvistických termínů pro filology (Dictionary of Linguistic Terms for Philologists). Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého. Miao, R. (2005). Loanword Adaptation in Mandarin Chinese: Perceptual, Phonological and Sociolinguist Factors (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Stony Brook University, New York. Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. Hoboken: Prentice Hall. Novotná, Z. (1967). Contribution to the Study of Loan-words and Hybrid Words in Modern Chinese. Archiv orientální, 35. 106 Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ Novotná, Z. (1968). Contribution to the Study of Loan-words and Hybrid Words in Modern Chinese. Archiv orientální, 36. Novotná, Z. (1969). Contribution to the Study of Loan-words and Hybrid Words in Modern Chinese. Archiv orientální, 37. Shi, Y. (2021). Loanwords in the Chinese Language. New York: Routledge. Slaměníková, T., & Uher, D. (2021). Conversion Methods for Star Wars Animal Names into Chinese. Studia Orientalia Slovaca, 20. Yip, P. (2000). The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey. New York: Routledge. BOOK REVIEWS Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 13(1), 2023. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.109-117 Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (=Comprehensive Japanese-German Dictionary) Band 3 O — Z (2510 pp.). München: IUDICIUM Verlag. Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Chikako.ShigemoriBucar@ff.uni-lj.si Book review 1 Introduction This is a review of a new great publication by the Munich publisher IUDICIUM, and particularly addresses the readers in Slovenia and neighboring countries. The new concise bilingual dictionary does not only offer word searches, but it may also be used as an excellent reference for researchers and students of Japanese Studies and East Asian Studies. In the first part, I explain the structure and content of the dictionary. The second part is a brief introduction of the role of the German language in Slovenia in recent history. In the third part, I describe the current situation with the Japanese Studies in Slovenia and their actual research activities concerning Japan. After that, I bring up several random entries of the volume and discuss them with regard to the specific situation in Slovenia. In conclusion, I point out the benefits of this new publication in the course of our future research and educational activities. 2 The dictionary The three-volume dictionary “Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch 和独大辞典” (hereafter GJDW) was an extremely large and long-term project organized by an excellent group of specialists in the field of Japanese studies and other related 110 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR disciplines in Germany and Japan 1 . The last, third volume of this dictionary was published in the spring of 2022, and thus this great project was completed 2 . On December 10th, 2022, the Goethe Institute in Tokyo organized a symposium celebrating the publication3, which was accessible to a wider public through the Zoom platform. The symposium first presented valuable details of the project’s conceptualization, organization, and management. The following three short lectures discussed the dictionary compilation and dictionary use with actual examples and episodes from various standpoints. This dictionary is the largest among all currently available bilingual dictionaries of the Japanese language4 and comprises more than 130,000 entries on 7,523 pages: we can look up words and expressions which are currently in daily use in the Japanese newspapers, journals and other publications, as well as words used in literary works and everyday conversations, terminology in the fields of biology, biochemistry, computer science, zoology and botany, linguistics, mathematics, medicine, art and music, physics, law, sports, economics and finance, etc. 5 Many of the entries also contain idioms and/or neologisms with concise explanations. There are approx. 70,000 sample sentences in context, taken from newspapers, magazines, advertisements, scientific writings, and literature, all with exactly specified sources. The most notable characteristic of this dictionary is the fact that it also contains the vocabulary used in the last decades of the 19th century, namely the words which were closely connected with the rapid modernization of Japan (Stalph, 2009, p. 11). The entries in alphabetical order are shown in the Hepburn transcription system in boldface, followed by Japanese orthography (usual kanji and kana writing), the word class and other grammatical information, and related compounds and frequent idioms and/or collocations. The important characteristic of this dictionary, also explained by the chief editor in his Foreword, is the fact that special attention is directed to show “how each word lives 1 Four main editors (Jürgen Stalph, Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Wofgang E. Schlecht, and Kōji Ueda), three editorial staff members, 21 contributors (writers), 9 proofreaders, and one collaborator (Stalph et al. 2022, 5-7). 2 The first volume (A – I) was published in 2009, and the second (J – N) in 2015. 3 The symposium West-Östliche Sprachbrücke – Fertigstellung des Grossen japanisch-deutschen Wörterbuchs , held at OAG Haus (German Culture Centre) in Tokyo. 4 The fifth edition of Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, published in 2003, is a volume with 2,848 pages. It contains about 130,000 entries. Retrieved from Last accessed 24. 12. 2022. 5 According to the list of fields (FACHGEBIETE ) on page 9 of Volume 3, the dictionary covers 97 separate fields, from AERO (aeronautical engineering) to ZOOL (zoology). Among them are also specifically Japanese historical and traditional fields such as IKEBANA, KABUKI, NŌ, SUMO, or religious fields such as BUDDH (Buddhism), SCHINTO (Shintoism) and ZEN (Zen Buddhism). Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch … 111 in the language”. In order to prove that each word or expression has a range of meanings and that one-to-one translation correspondence is not what we expect, the authors/contributors made use of a great variety of texts from all fields. It was intended to offer good and proper Japanese ways of expression, and on the other hand also good and proper German expressions that are usually accepted in their own language use. There is a list of sources of all example sentences and quotations at the end of Volume 3, pp. 2483-2510, from Abe Kōbō’s Moetsukita Chizu (1967) of which the German translation appeared in German in 1994, to Yū Miri’s Gōrudorasshu (1998) and Ziegenrücker’s ABC Music: Allgemeine Musiklehre (2000). Included in the list are not only works originally written in Japanese with their translations in German, but also general source materials in German and Japanese, and Japanese translations of German literature (Goethe, Kafka, Brecht, Hesse, Thomas Mann, Michael Ende, Erich Kästner, Süskind, Nossack, Enzensberger, and the Märchens of brothers Grimm), and even works in a third language which have been translated into both Japanese and German, i. e. Dickens, Poe, Nabokov, Joyce, J. Rowling, Borges, Gogol’, and Saint- Exupéry. The editor himself mentions in the Foreword that such a decision to include example sentences from translations into both languages from a third language is exceptional for this kind of dictionary editing, but the editors and contributors agreed to spotlight the “how” in language use, namely, how each word or expression lives in its own language. In fact, for researchers and students of Japanese studies and translators of Japanese literature, this dictionary is expected to become one of the important references to keep close at hand in order to search for and discover various facets of the Japanese as well as the German language, and the works of literature, and the modern histories of the East and West. 3 German language in Slovenia The Slovene people were under the rule of other nations for a long time in history. Most of the territory where the Slovenes lived was under the House of Habsburg for centuries.6 The administration in the feudal system was conducted using the German language, but the use of the Slovene language was not strictly prohibited, so the inhabitants in the region, peasants mainly, used their own language for everyday life. The first books in the Slovene language7 were published in 1550 by Primož Trubar, a protestant reformer, and the first grammar of the language8 by Adam Bohorič in 1715. After centuries of Austrian rule and thus the strong influence of the German language, the Slovenes finally freed themselves from the situation when the Kingdom of 6 In the coastal region, there were also Italian and French political, social and linguistic influences, but we only consider the German influences here. 7 Catechismus (=Catechism) and Abecedarium (=Abecedarij). 8 Arcticae horulae succisivae, written in Latin. 112 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR Yugoslavia was formed together with the Croats and Serbs in 1918. People gained their freedom for the right to use their own language in society and in schools. The language of education in primary and secondary schools in the territory of the Slovene people became Slovene (Kosevski Puljić & Retelj, 2019, p. 176). However, under the German occupation during the Second World War, the language of education in certain areas, and with it also the language of administration, became German again. When Italy surrendered, the German-language area expanded. There were areas where the partisans organized schools in the Slovene language, but at the same time, in areas occupied by Germans, the language in schools was strictly German. It is after the liberation in 1945 that the Germanization of Slovenia finally ended (Kosevski Puljić & Retelj, 2019, pp. 176-177). Putting aside political and sociological discussions, we may say that the German language was the most influential foreign language throughout the history of Slovenia, at least up to the first half of the 20th century. In the earliest publications in the Slovene language, we can recognize the authors’ struggle with German borrowings. The Slovene elites in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the founders of the first university in Ljubljana, mostly received their higher education at Austrian, German, and Czech universities. The German influences in the present-day Slovene language may be recognized in the lexicon, semantics, syntax, as well as phraseology. Today, the German language is a compulsory subject in many non-language study programs at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, e.g. Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, History, Comparative Literature, Art History, and Musicology (Kosevski Puljić & Retelj, 2019, p. 178). Without knowing German and not being able to read documents in German, it is impossible to learn about the Slovene nation or conduct research, particularly in relation to its history. For example, the German-Slovene Dictionary for History (Hudelja, 2016) includes words and expressions from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The main part of the historical terminology is about the feudal relationships, artisans, and related administrative systems (Hudelja, 2021). Some archaic words, which are considered extinct today, may be found in this German- Slovene dictionary since they appear often in the older documents studied and analyzed by the students and researchers in Slovenia. 4 Japanese Studies in Slovenia In contrast to the long-established relationship between Slovenia and the German- speaking nations, the Japanese studies in Slovenia is a relatively young discipline. It was formally recognized through the establishment of the Department of Asian Studies at the Faculty of Arts in 1995, in which the Japanese Studies coexists with the Chinese and the Korean Studies. The students of the Japanese Studies, when assessed in the framework of CEFR levels, reach the level of B2 at the end of the 1st cycle, and the level Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch … 113 of C1 or a little below it at the end of the 2nd cycle (Shigemori Bučar et al. 2014, pp. 462-464). At present, our students learn the Japanese language with the online Japanese- Slovene Learners’ Dictionary “jaSlo” which presently contains 9,891 entries.9 For words and expressions not found in jaSlo, students rely on bilingual dictionaries with English or some other language they know. When the students proceed to more advanced levels, they are expected to consult Japanese monolingual dictionaries and other references, case by case, according to the field of individual student’s interest. Enthusiastic students, who grew up in the age of the Internet and various electronic resources, are hungry for more expert information. Most of them have a good command of English, and some of them even of German. And since we are rather weak in offering a Japanese-Slovene dictionary, the GJDW dictionary is a very welcome source of information. If we turn to research activities, there is an ongoing project at the Department of Asian Studies which aims to locate, analyze and describe in context the objects and ideas brought to the Slovene region from the East Asian nations.10 Therefore, our researchers encounter rather older expressions in Japanese from the 18th, 19th, and beginning of the 20th century. The year 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Meiji era. The time of modernization and industrialization in the history of Japan is much in focus lately, and it is true also in Slovenia where several exhibitions and lecture series have been held. 5 Evaluation In Slovenia11, the GJDW dictionary is expected to be used primarily by students and researchers in the field of Japanese studies, and translators of Japanese texts, particularly the Japanese literature. Though not native speakers of German, we can say that such users are culturally and linguistically quite close to the German-speaking region in Europe. If equipped with some knowledge of German, this dictionary may be even more suitable to use than for example the Kenkyusha’s Japanese-English Dictionary, due to its scale and content. As mentioned earlier, highly regarded is the incorporation of the so-called “modern Japanese language” (Stalph, 2009, p. 11), the language used in Japan from the beginning of the Meiji period onwards. Compared to contemporary Japanese, the language of the Meiji period is quite classical, however, considering the fact that the 9 Principal researcher of the jaSlo dictionary compilation is Kristina Hmeljak-Sangawa, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of Ljubljana Accessed January 8, 2023. 10 See https://vazcollections.si/ for some project results. 11 And other countries of the former Yugoslavia, i. e. Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, etc. 114 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR movement for the unification of the written and spoken language in Japan12 started in 1866, and that the Meiji period is the beginning of the modern era attracting much attention of the Japanologists and scholars concerned with the history of East Asia, the dictionary GJDW including the usages in the Meiji period is of considerable merit. An example of the careful treatment of the Meiji period is found on page 401 of Volume 3. The entries of a common noun rikken (constitutionalism) and an adjective rikkenteki (constitutional) are followed by the following four independent entries: rikken-dōshikai , rikken-kaishintō , rikken-minseitō and rikken-seiyūkai . These proper nouns usually appear in encyclopedias and monolingual Japanese dictionaries13 but not in bilingual dictionaries. However, in this particular dictionary (GJDW), these important political parties of the late 19th and early 20th century are explained with German translations and years of their existence and marked with a specialized field label HIST (history), as shown below. rikken-kaishintō n. (HIST) die Konstitutionelle Fortshrittspartei (1882–1896). (Stalph et al. 2022, p. 401) Another example that proves the careful selection of entries for the users, who are primarily non-native speakers of Japanese, may be seen on page 1746 with the entry tennō (=emperor). Besides the usual compounds like tennō-heika (=His Majesty the Emperor), tennō-ki (=the Imperial standard), tennō-sei (=the Emperor system of Japan), the explanation for the compound tennō-tanjōbi (=the Emperor’s Birthday) is further provided with the date of the national holiday in each period (Shōwa, Heisei and Reiwa) and for whom. The name of each emperor is perhaps particularly important for his identification in the West. After a few more compounds (kinjō-tennō =the present Emperor, shōchō-tennō =the Emperor as symbol of the state, shodai-tennō =the first Emperor, shōwa-tennō =the Emperor Shōwa) and some phrases, there are three longer excerpts including the word tennō or its compound that were taken from the Constitution of the Empire of Japan from 1890, one literary work (Ikezawa, 1993, translated into German in 2002), and a history of Japan (Inoue K., 1963-1966, translated into German in 1993). At the end of this entry, there is a note for users, NB (nota bene), that the entry sumera-gi (archaic for tennō) should also be referred to. If we turn to page 1453, there are four entries around this word, its variations and compounds, such 12 Genbun-itchi undō by Maejima Hisoka in 1866. 13 For analysis I have, besides the Kenkyūsha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, consulted the following dictionaries in the JapanKnowledge Lib collection: Encyclopedia Nipponica, Shogakukan Unabridged Dictionary of the Japanese Language (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten), Dai-ji-sen, Shogakukan Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary (4th edition), Shogakukan Grand German-Japanese Dictionary (2nd Edition). Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch … 115 as sumera-, sumera-gi, sumera-ki, sumera-mikoto, sumero-ki. The dictionary is quite concise with the archaic variations of the word as well. It seems that the dictionary tries to include all important cultural elements throughout the history of Japan. Randomly referred entries carried labels of specialized fields such as BUDDH (Buddhism) and TEE (tea ceremony), for example, tendai , tendai-shū , tendai-zasu on page 1734 for the former, and tenmoku , tenmoku-jawan , on page 1745 for the latter. For the Tendai sect of Buddhism, the translation in German is followed by four lines of explanation for the historical background. Also for the tea bowl tenmoku, there are four and a half lines of its historical explanation. These explanations are set in a lighter font and put in parentheses. Another entry rikka on page 401 also calls for attention. This entry consists altogether of eight lines in two parts, for the “tatebana style” of ikebana, and with the on’yomi (Sino-Japanese reading) rikka which seems to be of historical naming from the end of the Muromachi period. This entry does not carry any label (expected would be IKEBANA) and there is no entry of tatebana in the same dictionary. The dictionary is encyclopedic also with entries labeled SUMO: oshitaoshi, yorikiri, tsuridashi, etc. The Japanese terms seem to be already included in the German lexicon. For each of these entries, there is the originally Japanese Germanized word with the article for neuter, followed by an explanation that it is the naming for a winning technique (=kimarite ) and how the technique is performed, for example: tsuridashi n. (SUMO) das Tsuridashi (entscheidende Technik; Herausheben des Gegners aus dem Ring). Idioms and proverbs are also abundantly included (marked with a small black star in GJDW). The entry ōgi (=a folding fan) was chosen for comparison with the same entry in the Kenkyūsha’s Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th edition. Collocations such as ōgi wo hiraku (=open one’s fan) and ōgi wo tsukau (=use a fan) are included in both, while ōgi wo kazasu (=shade one’s eyes with a fan) and ōgi wo tojiru (=shut one’s fan) can only be found in Kenkyūsha, and ōgi wo tatamu (=put together/close one’s fan) only in GJDW. There is one phrase in GJDW marked as an idiom (with a black star), ōgi wo narasu , which can not be found in any bilingual dictionary I consulted. This phrase is listed in monolingual Japanese dictionaries such as Daijisen and Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (in the collection of JapanKnowledge Lib), in which examples are cited from Genji Monogatari (1001–1014) and Taketori Monogatari (end of 9th to the beginning of 10th century). Here, and in other entries of similar context, we can feel the contributors who are themselves experienced translators of classic Japanese literature, or well-versed scholars in the field. 116 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR In relation to the classics, the GJDW marks all season words kigo for Japanese poetry directly after the first German translation, e. g.: ōgi n. der (Falt-)Fächer (Jahreszeitenwort f. Sommer)… (p. 45) tsuki n. ① der Mond (Jahreszeitenwort f. Herbst). (p. 1979) This is also one of the reasons why the dictionary may be called a good reference, in this case for researchers in the field of literature. The dictionary is made friendly to non-native users. It marks grammatical categories with labels for word classes. Therefore, on page 20 in Volume 1, there is a list of word-class labels used in the dictionary where we can notice some categories not always present in usual dictionaries, such as attr. =attributive, na-no-adj. nari-adj., shiku-adj., tari-adj. The latter three labels are specially set up probably due to many adjectives in the written language bungo of the Meiji period. Verbs are labeled intransitive (v.i.) or transitive (v.t.). In the end, I would also mention some newer words and examples. In today’s rapidly changing world, pawahara (=power harassment, p. 262) and sekuhara (=sexual harassment, p. 777) are included in neologisms, the latter word with an example from the newspaper Asahi Shinbun published in 2006. I was also interested in the translation examples in both languages from a third language. For the entry tōjō (=entrance on the stage) and its sub-entry tōjō-suru (=come on the stage; appear, show up) on pages 1827-1828, there are plenty of examples in context for both meanings (entry, to come on the stage; advent, to arrive or make an appearance) from literary works of Abe Kōbō, Brecht, Kawabata, Inoue Yasushi, Ikezawa, Hesse, Kita Morio, and Murakami, also from Japanese journals Aera 2001 and Josei Sebun 1999. There are also translation examples in context from third- language publications, such as those by Nabokov, Borges, and Hawking: Nabokov lebensvolle Figuren Borges …treten wieder auf Hawking seit es sehr genaue Navigationssysteme gibt, … All the above examples were chosen to support the corresponding semantic solutions of the Japanese word in various genres and contexts in German. The word tōjō is surely used quite frequently, and its numerous examples – as well as the examples from other entries – in the GJDW dictionary will definitely help learners and translators ponder over the word and its possible expressions in translation. Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch … 117 6 Conclusion As Shibata (2011, p. 209) states, the GJDW dictionary is an exciting and provocative piece of work because it “attempts to go beyond mere linguistic dictionaries to illustrate not only the foundations of a single culture but also its dynamics from both sides, Japanese and German”. As such, this publication is certainly a great achievement and its users will yet decide its true value. I am truly grateful for the work and look forward to many more discoveries with the help of this dictionary. References Department of Asian Studies, University of Ljubljana & Department of Knowledge Technologies, Jožef Stefan Institute. Japanese-Slovene Learners’ Dictionary (jaSlo). Retrieved from . Last accessed 25. 12. 2022. Hudelja, N. (2016) Nemško-slovenski zgodovinski slovar. Ljubljana; ZZFF. Hudelja, N. (2021) Vloga slovarja pri preučevanju preteklosti. Jezikovna Slovenija, portal za obveščanje o jezikovni politiki Republike Slovenije. Retrieved from . Last accessed 25. 12. 2022. Kosevski Puljić, B., & Retelj, A. (2019). ‘Poti in stranpoti nemščine na Slovenskem’. In T. Balažic Bulc, J. Kenda, M. Lah & V. Požgaj Hadži (Eds.), Poti in stranpoti poučevanja tujih jezikov v Sloveniji (pp. 175–186). Ljubljana; ZZFF. Japan Knowledge Lib (JKLib). Retrieved from . Last accessed 25. 12. 2022. Masuda, K. (1998). Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th Edition, Tokyo: Kenkyusha. Shibata, S. (2011). GROSSES JAPANISCH-DEUTSCHES WÖRTERBUCH Neue Beiträge zur Germanistik, Vol. 142, pp. 203-209. Tokyo: Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik . Shigemori Bučar, Ch., Ryu, H., Moritoki Škof, N., & Hmeljak Sangawa, K. (2014). The CEFR and Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language. In M. Lah (Ed.), Skupni evropski jezikovni okvir - navzkrižni pogledi = Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues - regards croisés, Linguistica, 54, (pp. 455-469). Ljubljana: ZZFF. Stalph, J. (2009). GJDW 1st volume, p.11. Retrieved from . Last accessed 25. 12. 2022. Stalph J. et al. (2022). Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (=Comprehensive Japanese- German Dictionary) Band 3 O — Z. München: IUDICIUM Verlag. Symposium West-Östliche Sprachbrücke – Fertigstellung des Grossen japanisch-deutschen Wörterbuchs. Retrieved from . Last accessed 18. 12. 2022. Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 13(1), 2023. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.13.1.119-122 “Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínsky jazyk”: Book review Mateja PETROVČIČ University of Ljubljana, Slovenia mateja.petrovcic@ff.uni-lj.si Povzetek Knjiga Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínština (Praktično korpusno jezikoslovje – kitajščina) Ľuboša Gajdoša ponuja vpogled v uporabo kitajskih korpusov, pri čemer avtor k tematiki pristopi z vidika uporabnika. Monografija je tako neprecenljiv vir za vse, ki želijo bolje razumeti kitajski jezik. Delo najprej predstavi ključne izraze in kategorije v kitajski slovnici ter korpusnem jezikoslovju, pri čemer bralca sistematično popelje od osnovne do naprednejše rabe korpusov pri učenju jezika in nadaljnjem raziskovanju njegovih značilnosti. Kot sistematični vodnik, ki korak za korakom vodi od enostavnih do kompleksnejših vsebin, je ta knjiga zelo priporočljivo gradivo za bralce, ki že imajo določeno predznanje kitajskega jezika, vendar so na področju korpusnega jezikoslovja popolni začetniki ali srednje izkušeni uporabniki. Summary The book Praktická korpusová lingvistika - čínština (Practical Corpus Linguistics - Chinese) by Ľuboš Gajdoš provides insight into the use of Chinese corpora from a user-oriented viewpoint and is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the Chinese language. It introduces the key concepts and categories of Chinese grammar and corpus linguistics, and systematically guides the user from the basics to the intermediate use of corpora in both language learning and research. As a systematic step-by-step guide, it is highly recommended for readers with prior knowledge of Chinese, as well as for beginners and intermediate users in the field of corpus linguistics. Author: Ľuboš Gajdoš Title: Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínština Title in Chinese: 实用语料库语言学 Publisher: Univerzita Komenského Bratislava Year: 2022 ISBN 978-80-223-5363-2 Language: Slovak Pages: 164 Cover: Paperback Size: 170 x 240 x 10 mm Weight: 288 g 120 Mateja PETROVČIČ Review The book opens with a brief description of parts of speech in Chinese, especially from the perspective of morphological annotation and its features. Establishing a common understanding of word classes in Chinese is important and closely related to the issue of tagsets and tagging in corpora. From this point of view, Chapter 1 provides a bridge between the purely linguistic perspective and the corpus linguistic approach to a language. In the subchapters, the author briefly outlines the eleven categories of Chinese, points out selected details and relates them to the Slovak language where necessary. The eleven parts of speech are outlined quite briefly, which is fine for a beginner, but more demanding users might wish that more details were presented here. The author assumes that a reader who picks up this book will already have some prior knowledge of Chinese language and grammar. Therefore, Chapter 2 covers the constituents of a sentence clause and the grammatical relationships between them. Following the previous chapter, the content is presented from the Chinese perspective, which is also used in Chinese didactics. This section concludes with a schematic representation of typical word order in Chinese. Chapter 3 proceeds to the key concepts of corpus linguistics and thus provides essential information on the basic concepts such as token, tag, concordance, collocation, and regular expression, explaining each of these concepts with some examples from Chinese. The following chapters are devoted to the description of the Chinese corpora, their access details, and the corresponding user interfaces. The parameters for each corpus are presented in the form of a table to provide easy insight into the characteristics of the selected corpora. To be more specific, Chapter 4 discusses the CCL corpus, Chapter 5 focuses on the CNC corpus, Chapter 6 explores the BCC corpus, Chapter 7 moves on to the Sihanku corpus, and Chapter 8 concentrates on the Hanku corpus. Subsections that examine the characteristics of each corpus and their advantages and disadvantages are an important part of chapters 4-8. Here Gajdoš’s book shows a wide range of possible applications. The author encourages a reader to include corpora in language teaching and consider them as tools for the in-depth study of language use. Since the Hanku corpus uses the NoSketch Engine management system, i.e., a free version of its powerful commercial counterpart, Sketch Engine, the second part of Chapter 8 focuses on query options and available functions in the side menu. A reader who is not very familiar with corpora annotation might find Table 11 particularly useful, as it provides information about the Hanku tagset, the corresponding terms in Chinese and Slovak, and a lexical example in Chinese for each item. “Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínsky jazyk”: Book review 121 Chapter 9 forms the core of the book and is therefore the longest section at nearly forty pages. Its focus is placed on the corpus query language (CQL), which offers a variety of search options. The author asserts that although the notation may seem complicated and abstract at first glance, it is very logical and easy to learn, even for those who do not work with corpora daily. The reader who is learning the basics of CQL will find Table 12 as one of the spots where to add a bookmark for the future. Namely, this is the place where all metacharacters are explained and briefly illustrated with examples from Chinese. These characters have a special meaning and use within the Sketch Engine management system. To be able to take advantage of CQL, one must first learn what the different types of parentheses, special characters, and letters mean. After clarifying what the word, lemma, and tag attributes mean, Table 13 shows examples of the use of wildcard characters in CQL queries. If a desired expression can be formulated in more than one way, all possibilities are listed there for consideration. At this point, the author presents some exercises, gives the solutions to the tasks set, and discusses the results of a query. Throughout the book, 34 tasks are presented, ranging from simple to more complex ones. This chapter also explains how to search the left and right context, which is possible only with the operators meet, union, containing, and within. More complex and advanced examples are additionally provided with graphical representations to ensure that a reader understands the 'technical mindset" required to formulate such query strings. At this stage, for example, the user should be able to explore complex postverbal structures or verb complements known in Chinese as buyu , questions related to prepositional phrases, ba-constructions (baziju ), bei-constructions (beiziju ), and others. Exact explanations of the operators meet and union can already be found in the Sketch Engine documentation, but since the examples are given for English language, it might be challenging to apply them in Chinese. This is one of the places where the book Praktická korpusová lingvistika - čínština (Practical Corpus Linguistics - Chinese) by Ľuboš Gajdoš comes to the rescue. The last section of Chapter 9 introduces token comparison in a query, whereby global conditions are set for the individual tokens. Chapter 10 brings queries to the next level, where the author shows how to take advantage of advanced search options that combine multiple conditions into a complex query string. Chapter 11 is aimed at a reader who already has some understanding of Chinese grammar and would like to deepen their knowledge of grammatical relationships between the constituents of a clause. This chapter explores the possibilities and limitations of regular expressions in unveiling the syntactic features of Chinese. The author demonstrates how to define and extract a sentence object (binyu ), adverbial adjuncts (zhuangyu ), six kinds of verbal complements (buyu ), a 122 Mateja PETROVČIČ subject (zhuyu ), and attributives (dingyu ). This is the background knowledge of what we call word sketches in the commercial version of Sketch Engine, a one-page summary of the grammatical and collocational behavior of a word. It is very convenient and easy to get an overview of the grammatical relationships of a desired word with a few clicks, however, getting there from scratch is another thing. The book closes with a glossary of selected terms in Chinese corpus linguistics, references, an excerpt from the Slovak-Chinese parallel corpus Sihanku, an ordered list of the 34 tasks, and an index. The author’s concluding remarks indicate that “Part 2” may be compiled in the future: Although in this publication I have focused mainly on didactics and linguistic research of the Chinese language, I believe that the acquired knowledge about the use of language corpora can also be used for translation purposes from and into Chinese (Gajdoš, 2022, p. 135). Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínština (Practical Corpus Linguistics – Chinese) by Ľuboš Gajdoš is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to improve their understanding of Chinese through the corpus-linguistic perspective. It provides an illustrative step-by-step explanation of how Chinese corpora are used and applied. Although this book is written in Slovak, it is easy to understand for speakers of other languages as well. The book contains chapters on topics such as Chinese grammar from a Chinese perspective, Chinese language corpora, basics of corpus linguistics, and researching the language using a corpus query language. Each chapter provides brief but comprehensive information and examples that illustrate the value of these corpora in actual use. After reading in depth and testing the queries on one's own, this book offers a reader the opportunity to explore the nuances of the Chinese language and its usage based on real language data. The trump card of this publication is the rich collection of examples that encourage users to formulate queries according to their own preferences and interests. Overall, this book is a must-have for anyone studying or researching the Chinese language and striving to test the information on large language corpora. The book is also an excellent reference for teachers of Chinese to prepare representative language examples. References Gajdoš, L. (2022). Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínsky jazyk. Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského Bratislava. CQL – meet & union | Sketch Engine. (2017, February 9). https://www.sketchengine.eu/documentation/cql-meet-union/