Journal Review 2

1. Title : The Issue of Register-Style in Language Teaching: Analyzing Register-Style Errors of Learners of Cantonese as a Second Language

2. Author: 1. Siu-lun Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
              2. Kin Wing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
              3. Kevin Chan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

3. Journal: Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 2015, 5, 319-326

4. Publication: Published Online August 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojml
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2015.54028

5. Abstract:
   
    This paper analyzes the register-style errors of learners of Cantonese as a second language. It is a pilot study of building up learners’ corpus containing learners’ speeches and storytelling samples of about 5000 minutes. All data are collected from spontaneous speeches delivered and storytelling by 44 Cantonese L2 learners during different learning stages. The data shows examples con-taining utterances and samples with register-style errors produced by Cantonese L2 learners. Examples show violation of rules in register-style grammar by using inappropriate register-styleor mingling different levels of formality in particular language context. The research is a preliminary analysis of register-style grammar in Cantonese and discusses some implications and suggestions for teaching Cantonese as a Second Language as well as in teaching Chinese as a Second Language.

6. Goals:

    To analyze the register-style errors of learners of Cantonese as a second language.

7. Problem:

     This paper follows the sociolinguistic views in CSL to research on the issue of register-style in teaching and learning Cantonese as a second language. Cantonese is a language variety widely used in Hong Kong, Macau, Southern part of China, and with some overseas Chinese (Matthews & Yip, 1994). It has been a number of learners from different parts of the world learning Cantonese as a second language in Hong Kong (Lee, 2005). A learners’ corpus had been built to collect features of learners of Cantonese as a second language. This paper focuses particularly on the features or errors when register-style rules are ignored. Another problem when we look at language teaching, no matter second language teaching or foreign language teaching are concerned, the various sub-fields of lingusitics havedifferent pedagogical implications which affect curriculum design, textbook preparation, teaching methodology as well as the development of educational technologies nowadays. Language teaching employing structural linguists’ views focuses on the phonetics, morphophonological and syntactic rules of the target language. Language teaching adopting psycholinguistic models pays their attention to aspects related to biological aspect of language acquisition, neuroscience, cognitive science. Language teaching using sociolinguistic frameworks put the efforts in language as a tool to communicate with other interlocutors and to establish or maintain social relationships with other target language users.

8. Theories:
 
    a. Language

        Firth (1957) argued that, in order to convey meaning with a language, there are several major components namely, the phonetic function, the lexical & morphological system, the syntactic structure and the awareness of the “context of situation”. Apart from phonological, morphological and syntactic rules, Firth (1957) identified that “the function of a complete locution in the (typical) context of situation” is another important element for a language to convey meaning.
      
      b. Register-Style in Sociolinguistics

          Register and style are not new topics in linguistic studies. Halliday & Hasan (1976) pointed out that registers are “linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features—with particular values of the field, mode and tenor…” (p. 22). According to Halliday & Hasan (1976), “field” is “the total event, in which the text is functioning, together with the purposive activity of the speaker or writer” (p. 22). “Mode” is “the function of the text in the event, including both the channel taken by language—spoken or written, extempore or prepared” (p. 22). “Tenor” is “the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations, permanent and temporary, among the participants involved” (p. 22). These three values—field, mode and tenor—are the determining factors for the linguistic features of the text. Crystal (1985) points out that Halliday & Hasan’s “tenor” is a roughly equivalent term for “style”, which is a more specific alternative used by linguists to avoid ambiguity (p. 292).

9. Methods:

     All the subjects were invited to denote a conversational play or an oral presentation every week or every 2 weeks. Topics and settings of the conversational plays or presentations. All the plays and presentations were recorded and transcribed. The main reason for analyzing the conversational plays or oral presentation was that Cantonese is a spoken language and analyzing recorded oral materials was more appropriate for the research purpose. The topics and social settings of the plays and presentations were set according to different physical and social contexts. All the subjects were given 1 week to prepare the plays or presentations so that the features or errors were not ad hoc mistakes or slip of the tongue, but are systematic features recorded while they were learning the target language.The transcribed data were put into the corpus. 20 native speakers were invited to act as raters to evaluate theplays or presentation in terms of acceptability. The 20 native speakers were asked to rate the utterances in a 5-point Likert scale by judging whether the utterances were “grammatical”, “acceptable” and “appropriate”. Interviews were conducted with the native speaker raters to elicit a detailed account concerning their rating and perceptions towards the utterances. Similar research methodology was adopted by Corder (1967) to study language acquisition of L2 learners. The 20 native speakers raters were educated adults who were university students and were randomly selected from the university population in Hong Kong.

10. Finding:
      
       In the learners’ corpus, two types of errors had been identified. The first type of errors was “discourse-context mismatch”. Context here meant the physical and social contexts (Thomas, 1995). In our data, it is discovered that learners sometimes cannot use their language or do not have the awareness to the pragmatic use of the target language according to the formality of the physical and social contexts. Examples of using consistently informal or causal expressions in formal settings or using overly formal expressions in casual settings are regarded as odd and inappropriate by native speakers. This kind of errors exist because of the lack of ability or awareness to use the target language appropriately according to different physical and social contexts. For the second type of errors, we would call it “mingling”. This type of error occurred when a learner employed both formal and informal expressions within the same sentence, in the same utterance or in the same connected discourse. Native speakers regarded this type of errors unacceptable, no matter it appeared understand whatever physical and social contexts. The second type of errors has some theoretical implications.In example (1) below, the conversation setting was “talking to your friends in a casual dinner. The learner used informal elements like 你哋都識架 “you all know (him)”, 佢係邊個 “who he is”, 師奶 “housewife (casual)” etc. together with a formal lexicon 猜測 “to speculate” instead of informal synonyms like 估. Native speaker raters commented that the utterance was inappropriate and unacceptable and they pointed out that. 猜測“to speculate” did not match with other components within the same sentence.
Then the research data in our study indicates that learners lack the ability or the awareness of appropriateness and language use in different physical and social contexts. The lacking of such awarenes may result in difficulties for learners to use the language effectively in real world situations. In order to train learners with such ability or awareness, suitable teaching methodology, curriuclum design and teaching materials should be developed. In the field of teaching Cantonse as a second language, traditional teaching materials are based on developing grammatical competence (Chao, 1968; Huang & Kok, 1973; Lau, 1975). There is also a lack of theoretical framework concerning register-style grammar in Cantonese. Although the issue of formality in Cantonese has been addressed in some previous studies on Cantonese grammar (Matthews & Yip, 1994), detailed theoretical analysis on the issue of register-style issue is lacking. One important aims of our attempts to analyze the register-style errors appeared in L2 Cantonese learners’ utterances is to draw the attention of scholars that register-style is important not only in the teaching of Cantonese as a second language, but also worth to study from a theoretical perspective. Our study ponits out that there are relationship between prosodic features and level of formality in Cantonese.

11. Conclusion :

       Foreign language teaching is not satisfied merely in grammatical competence, but put a lot of emphasis on the pragmatic use of the target language.There are still room for further research on teaching materials, teaching methodology and curriculum design in the field.  The choice of lexical items is another factor that affects the level of formality of utterances in Cantonese. There may be other linguistic factors, such as word order, etc that could affect level of formality. We would like to do follow-up research to explore the issue further in the near future.