The Perception and Acquisition of Chinese Polysemy

Acknowledgements

The completion of this book would not have been possible without the generous support from my colleagues and friends and the unreserved love of my family.

I would like to foremost extend my gratitude and appreciation to my colleagues and friends who have inspired me, providing patient guidance and encouragement. I am deeply indebted to Wenying Jiang, Michael Harrington, Kari Sullivan, Greg Hainge, Mike Levy and Nathan Woolley for their insightful input. I am also grateful to Norman Segalowitz of Concordia University and Cliff Goddard of Griffith University for their enlightening comments on my project. All were generous in offering their invaluable insights.

I am also indebted to the School of Languages and Cultures of the University of Queensland for granting me funding for the preparation of this manuscript. It is owing to this grant that I have enjoyed such a wonderful experience.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their unreserved love, constant encouragement and wholehearted support. I thank my parents, Liang Jinqing and Zheng Xiuzhen, for their love, tolerance, understanding and faith in me. They have been the fertile soil as well as the solid rock upon which my life has been built. My brother Liang Bin and my sister Haitong have provided constant care, love and encouragement; to have such wonderful siblings to share a life-long journey has been a blessing. Very special thanks go to Emilio for kindling sparks in me and endeavouring to ensure their growth. I am also very grateful to my son Binglin. His love and understanding, as well as his innocence and wisdom, have given me constant strength and warmth. He is the miracle of my life.

I dedicate this book to two extraordinary women who have profoundly impacted my life, my grandma and my mother. Their legacy of resilience and sacrifice will forever inspire me.

Tables

Table 1:Frequencies of shàng in different Chinese corpora

Table 2:Demographics of Chinese L1 participants in the production task (n = 92)

Table 3:Frequency of shàng constructions produced by L1 participants (n = 92)

Table 4:Demographics of L1 participants in the teaching sequence ranking task (n = 95)

Table 5:An example of values for L1 ranking data on teaching sequence

Table 6:Rankings of shàng constructions in the teaching sequence task and the production frequency by L1 speakers

Table 7:Demographics of L1 participants in the rating tasks on concreteness (n = 52), imageability (n = 68) and literalness (n = 56) of shàng

Table 8:Means of L1 ratings on concreteness, imageability and literalness

Table 9:Descriptive statistics for L1 ratings on concreteness, imageability and literalness: Means and standard deviations

Table 10:Correlation (r_s) across L1 ratings on concreteness, imageability and literalness

Table 11:Correlations (r_s) across the L1 prototypicality patterns and the concreteness pattern

Table 12:Sizes, types and publishers of Chinese language corpora for objective frequency

Table 13:Comparing frequencies of the test items in two Chinese corpora

Table 14:Demographics of L1 participants in the rating task on subjective frequency (n = 95)

Table 15:Correlations (r_s) across L1 subjective and objective frequency

Table 16:Rankings of L1 of subjective and objective frequency

Table 17:Correlations across L1 prototypicality patterns and rating patterns

Table 18:Items in the 1st places of L1 subjective frequency, objective frequency and prototypicality patterns

Table 19:Demographics of L2 participants in the acquisition test (N = 96)

Table 20:Descriptive statistics for L2 participants in different proficiency groups: Proficiency total score ranges, means and standard deviations (N = 96)

Table 21:Rankings of acquisition scores by L2 participants with 5 as a perfect score

Table 22:Number of errors for L2 translation test items

Table 23:Coefficients of reproducibility for each test item by L2 learners

Table 24:Correlations (r_s) across L2 acquisition and L1 prototypicality patterns and concreteness pattern

Table 25:Rankings of L2 acquisition sequence and L1 teaching sequence pattern and production pattern

Table 26:Correlations (r_s) across L2 acquisition and L1 frequency data

Table 27:Rankings of L2 acquisition and L1 frequency data

Table 28:Demographics of L1 participants in the card sorting task (n = 43)

Table 29:Correlations (r) across participant groups in card sorting tasks