This paper discussed the relationship between language, ecology, and culture, and claimed that the study of linguistic communication as pragmatics should not be confined to the traditional context, but should focus on a broader ecological environment. It analyzed the context of practical communication from the perspective of language ecology…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammar (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue and touches on other second language acquisition research. Topics discussed include the concept of second language (L2) optionality, a hypothesis regarding the acquisition of the…

The Language and Literature Division (LLD) is the largest of the six divisions of the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong (HKU). It is currently home to 34 academic staff, who specialize either in the fields of Chinese Language, English Language and/or Literature Education, and to 60 full-time and 28 part-time doctoral students, who are…

This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy,…

Discusses the kind of rhetorical questions that convey opposite assertive meanings, as in "who cares?" which imparts the meaning of nobody cares. For Chinese learning, rhetorical questions usually carry extra attitudinal meanings that their equivalent declaratives may not have. (Contains 13 references.) (JP)

This note introduces readers to the development of English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching and research in China and, more specifically, aviation English curriculum development in the Chinese context, so that ESP professionals can be acquainted with the recent development of ESP theory and practice in a non-English speaking country like…

GPARS is a generalized transition network system designed for language study by both students and researchers. It generalizes the Augmented Transition Network formalism by allowing top-down, bottom-up, depth-first, breadth-first, determininistic, and nondeterministic parsing strategies to be freely intermixed. (26 references) (Author/LB)

The study of minority languages in the People's Republic of China, in the form of organized governmental research since the 1950s, has resulted in the recent publication of more than 50 descriptive grammars. Although some practical purposes of the study were achieved, such as the identification of ethnicity and orthographic design and reform,…

Almost all research and development work in China in computer-assisted language instruction is done on micro- and minicomputers because they are more feasible financially. Describes some English as a foreign language and Chinese language courseware and courseware needs. (Author/LMO)

Trends and developments in computer applications in Chinese language research are described, focusing on these areas: input of Chinese characters and Chinese corpus; automatic segmentation of Chinese written text in corpus; development of a grammar knowledge base for Chinese words to be used as a resource for text segmentation and corpus…

Based on an Australian study creating sociolinguistic profiles of nine languages other than English (LOTE) commonly used in Australia, the report examines implications for public language policy and planning. The languages are: Arabic; Chinese; French; German; Modern Greek; Indonesian/Malay; Italian; Japanese; and Spanish. The report begins by…