Matching Items (22)
Description
Many researchers have pointed out that sentence complexity plays an important role in language maturity. Using cohesive devices is a critical method to composing complicated sentences. Several grammatical researchers give cohesive devices different definitions and categories in the perspective of pure linguistics, yet little is known about the Chinese learners' acquisition situations of cohesive devices in the field of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL). Combined with these definitions and pedagogical theories, the acquisition situations of four grammatical features of cohesive devices and eleven logical relations are discussed in this thesis. This thesis expects that through discovering different features of cohesive devices among different student levels, educators of Chinese will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the acquisition orders and features of conjunctive devices. In this study, I examine the teaching orders of cohesive devices in selected textbooks from first-year Chinese through fourth-year Chinese. Three groups of students were required to complete two essays based on the same topics and prompts. Twenty-eight valid writing samples are examined in total, including ten writing samples from fourth-year students, another ten from third-year students, and eight from second-year students. The results show that there are no obvious differences among the three levels of students in their use of certain grammatical features and logical relations of cohesive devices. Students in these three levels have difficulty understanding how to connect paragraphs together fluently and accurately in their compositions. Pedagogical implications include some suggestions about designing instructional writing assignments in order to give more clearly pedagogical instructions for teaching cohesive devices. In addition, comprehensible directions that explain which logical relations should be taught every academic year are proposed.
ContributorsHan, Jining (Author) / Spring, Madeline K (Thesis advisor) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Japanese literature of the Heian Era (794-1185) abounds with references to musical instruments and episodes of performance. This thesis provides some insight into that music by translating sections of the "Wakana II" (Spring Shoots II) chapter of the early 11th-century novel Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). It explains the musical references and shows how, in the context of the novel, musical performance, musical teaching, and interpersonal relationships were inextricably intertwined. Detailed appendices provide background on traditional Japanese musical instruments, musical theory, and related subjects.
ContributorsBotway, Lloyd (Author) / Creamer, John (Thesis advisor) / Chambers, Anthony (Committee member) / Solis, Theodore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Stories concerning Minamoto no Yoshitsune, one of Japan's best known and most tragic heroes, are numerous and varied. From his birth to his death, nearly every episode of Yoshitsune's life has been retold in war tales, histories, and plays. One of the major and most influential retellings of the Yoshitsune legend is found in Gikeiki, a text from the fifteenth century. This study looks at the early period of the legend and specifically focuses on the Kibune episode, when Yoshitsune lived and trained at Kurama Temple. It provides a new translation of the episode as told in Gikeiki and discusses the different portrayals of Yoshitsune within the Gikeiki textual lineage and in previous and subsequent works of literature. The thesis also takes a brief look at the development of Gikeiki texts; it shows the malleability of the Yoshitsune legend and the Gikeiki text and discusses the implications that this malleability has on our understanding of the place of Gikeiki and the legend of Yoshitsune within the medieval Japanese cultural consciousness.
ContributorsMerrill, Edward (Author) / Creamer, John (Thesis advisor) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / Zuo, Yu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This paper explores the development of newspapers and serialized novels in Meiji era Japan (1868 - 1912). A theoretical discussion of the role of newspapers in the evolution of culture and society provides background for an analysis of the history and development of the newspaper in Japan. The primary focus is on the rapid development of newspapers and their contribution to the extensive changes in society during the Meiji period. Newspapers both contributed to and were influenced by the development of Japanese society. Finally, the paper applies the theoretical understanding and historical perspective to the analysis of two Meiji serialized novels, one from the beginning of Meiji and one from the end of the era. These novels reveal that Meiji Japan was concerned with creating a general public and establishing an image of a "Japanese nation" that had not previously existed. Takahashi Oden yasha monogatari (1878-1879), by Kanagaki Robun (1829 - 1894), shows how society excluded groups in order to strengthen the majority of people's identification with Japanese society's norms at the beginning of Meiji. Kokoro (1914), by Natsume Souseki (1867 - 1916), uses the shared experience of the death of Emperor Meiji to pull all Japanese into an inclusive social group, and solidify the image of what it meant to be part of Japan in the modern era.
ContributorsArnold, Keith (Author) / Creamer, John (Thesis advisor) / Chambers, Anthony H (Committee member) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT Much of teacher feedback research is conducted in the L1 and L2 contexts. There is a paucity of research about feedback in the Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) context. Particularly, little is known about teachers' feedback practices and student views of teacher feedback. The present study was undertaken to fill the research gap by focusing on teachers'written feedback. Student data from surveying 38 students was interpreted with teacher data gained from interviewing three teachers. The findings indicate that teacher written feedback, which occurred in a multiple-draft writing cycle, generally accorded with recommended feedback principles. Students responded favorably to teacher written feedback. The results also reveal discrepancies between teachers' feedback practices and student perceptions of and preferences regarding teacher feedback. The results show that students wanted more written comments from teachers, though most teachers didn't prioritize written comments. Despite teachers' practices and their inclination toward offering coded indirect error correction, students in the study expressed their preferences for direct error correction. Most students are interested in receiving teacher feedback that addresses all aspects of writing rather than primarily focusing on language accuracy. The reasons that may account for the disjuncture are also discussed in the study. The study concludes that it is important for teachers to be aware of student attitudes and expectations regarding teacher feedback. Teachers should be flexible enough to provide individualized feedback. Pedagogical implications are included in the paper in the hope of shedding light on the development of effective and helpful teacher feedback.
ContributorsChen, Jinglin (Author) / Spring, Madeline (Thesis advisor) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This case study explores similarities and differences between the instructors' beliefs about oral corrective feedback and their actual practices in a summer Chinese program. This kind of feedback is beneficial for beginning college-level learners of Chinese to improve their speaking accuracy. The researcher conducted face-to-face interviews with two teachers of Chinese, focusing on their beliefs about oral corrective feedback in their language classrooms. In addition, the researcher recorded teacher-student interactions through class observation in order to analyze the teachers' actual practices of oral corrective feedback. The main findings show that the teachers hold similar beliefs on oral corrective feedback and its beneficial role in helping improve learners speaking accuracy. The fact is that they frequently provide oral corrective feedback in classroom, mostly using recasts. Implications are discussed in view of the necessity of using explicit feedback and recasts appropriately. In addition, this study demonstrates the need for specific professional development and teacher training about how to provide efficient corrective feedback.
ContributorsDong, Zhixin (Author) / Spring, Madeline K. (Thesis advisor) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
My study centers on the novel Katakiuchi Kidan Jiraiya Monogatari (1806-1807) by Kanwatei Onitake (1760-1818). Jiraiya Monogatari was the first literary reading book to be adapted for the kabuki stage. It was also the prototype on which Mizugaki Egao, Kawatake Mokuami, Makino Shouzou; and others based their bound picture books, kabuki, and films. The tale is composed of two revenge incidents, both of which have the same structural framework and are didactic in tone. In my study, I analyze the two revenge incidents by examining their narrative structures. Each incident has the same three-act structure: setup, confrontation, and resolution. The setup of each revenge incident introduces the main characters and their relationships and establishes the dramatic vehicle, which is an unexpected incident that sets the revenge in motion. The confrontation contains myriad non-linear inserts, plot twists, and reversals of fortune, all of which have the effect of a narrative delay. This prolongation of the outcome of a simple revenge plot allows readers the necessary space in which they can form their own judgments regarding good and evil and consider karmic cause and effect. The resolution, including the climax as well as the ending of the revenge, demonstrates the didactic notion of punishing evil and karmic effect. The two revenge incidents embody two rules, kanzen chouaku and inga, which together highlight the didacticism of Jiraiya monogatari.
ContributorsZhang, Jin (Author) / Creamer, John (Thesis advisor) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Chambers, Anthony (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation focuses on the corpus of Zang Maoxun’s literary creations in The Collection from the Fubao Hall and investigates his involvement in the cultural activities of the Jinling Poetry Society. Unearthing how Zang and this Society, as self and community, played an instrumental role in creating and sustaining a network of dramatists and drama critics in the Jiangnan region, a careful review of his poems and prose shows the extent to which text preparation, commentary, and printing were at the center of his communications with his social circle. Moreover, this dissertation unpacks Zang’s contribution to the promotion of dramatic texts through a thorough examination of his ardent editorial work in revising Tang Xianzu’s The Four Dream Plays from the Jade Tea Hall, the epitome of the southern musical drama. By using Zang’s 1618 Diaochong guan edition of his adaptations as a focal point, this dissertation compares it with three late Ming editions of Tang’s plays printed in the dual colors of red-and-black ink. In light of their innovative editorial designs, and the varying evaluations formed in their pages about Zang’s editorial work, this dissertation reveals the importance of Zang’s adaptations in the history of The Four Dream Plays’ textual transmission, as well as the interplay between the tradition of drama criticism and the new technology of multicolor printing and consequent innovation in editorial principles.
ContributorsZhang, Rachel Junlei (Author) / West, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Religions, following Max Müller, have often been seen by scholars in religious studies as uniform collections of beliefs and practices encoded in stable “sacred books” that direct the conduct of religious actors. These texts were the chief focus of academic students of religion through much of the 20th century, and this approach remains strong in the 21st. However, a growing chorus of dissidents has begun to focus on the lived experience of practitioners and the material objects that structure that experience, and some textual scholars have begun extending this materialist framework to the study of texts. This dissertation is a contribution in that vein from the field of Daoist studies. Now split between two separate texts, the Most High Scripture of the Rectifying Methods of the Three Heavens began as a 4th-century collection of apocalyptic predictions and apotropaic devices designed to deliver a select group of Chinese literati to the heavens of Highest Clarity. Later editors during the early medieval period (ca. 220-589 CE) took one of two paths: for their own reasons, they altered the Rectifying Methods to emphasize either the world’s end or its continuation. Detailed study of these alterations and their contexts shows how individuals and groups used and modified the Rectifying Methods in in ways that challenge the conventional relationship between religious text and religious actor.
ContributorsSwanger, Timothy Charles (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen R (Thesis advisor) / Campany, Robert (Committee member) / Chen, Huaiyu (Committee member) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This thesis examines the use of language and social capital in Internet communities, specifically those communities on the Deep and Dark Web that use both Chinese and English to interact. Using both individual messages and group interactions, I have compared Chinese language patterns with those of English, as well as situations in which the two languages form a compromise, in this paper dubber "hacker creole". Examples were taken from two marketplaces, one English and one Chinese, two blogs, both Chinese, and eight forums, all of which included both Chinese and English language users. One screenshot came from an English-only forum on the Tor network, for the purpose of comparison. The analysis of language included an exploration of the development of reputations on the anonymous Internet, and how building a reputation, necessary to extended interaction in the Deep Web, leaves true anonymity out of the question for users. In addition, the system by which users build or destroy their own reputations is defined under the term social credit, instead of social capital, according to Professor David Garson's definition of social capital and foundational differences in the structure of the rules of reputation online. In addition, a comparison with modern Internet language and that of classical Chinese fiction author Shi Nai'an set a foundation for the historical precedent for underdog criminals as a society, instead of an offshoot or counterculture to society. The conclusion is one that many dystopian fantasies of the modern world deem almost inevitable. Modern economies are easily on the road to systems based on social credit, currencies that no longer take physical form. This is not necessarily a communist or capitalist situation, by necessity it does not fit into the polarized definitions now used to describe political and economic situations. People leverage their way into privileges and liberties with their reputation, and the compromise of language provides the lever.
ContributorsWalcott, Khyra Amanda (Author) / Oh, Young (Thesis director) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05