Speaker’s Referential Choice with Elementary Chinese Learners and Native Chinese Speakers
International College of Chinese Studies, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200240, China
| Abstract: | Speaker’s referential choice with elementary Chinese learners and native Chinese speakers is investigated by comparing participants’ descriptions of the “frog story” picture book. The description data are elicited from 22 speakers with elementary Chinese learners and 24 speakers with native Chinese speakers. Firstly, a multivariate analysis of variance is used to test there is a significant group difference between the speakers with elementary Chinese learners and native Chinese speakers. Then, two mixed-effect logistic regression models are used to examine the effect of listener’s language proficiency on redundancy in speakers’ referential choice. The analysis shows the effect of pronoun that speakers with high language proficiency use more pronouns and decrease redundancy. The findings support the ideas that speakers increasing redundancy when talking to less proficient language learners is the requirement of communicative efficiency, other than discourse adaptation. |
| Keywords: | Referential Choice; Redundancy; Communicative Efficiency Hypothesis |
| DOI: | 10.57237/j.cll.2023.04.001 |
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Received: 8 August 2023
Accepted: 25 September 2023
Published Online: 9 October 2023
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