A Study Of Japanese And Korean Overseas Students' Acquisition Of Chinese Modal Particles

Modal particles are one of the difficulties in Chinese teaching, because of their intangible meaning. The study on the acquisition of modal particles is an important one for teaching Chinese as a second language. By summing up previous studies and researching on An Outline Ranking Chinese Vocabularies and Characters(《汉语水平与汉字等级大纲》),this thesis focuses on 12 modal particles:A(啊),Ba(吧),La(啦),Ma(嘛),Ma(吗),Na(哪),Ne(呢),Ya(呀),Wa(哇),Lou(喽),Yo(哟),and Bei(呗).Through investigation, this study will analyze Japanese and Korean overseas students'acquisition process of Chinese modal particles.In this study, Japanese and Korean students are separated into two stages:a primary-middle stage and a middle-advanced stage. Three kinds of methods are carried out to study the acquisition situation of modal particles, including a questionnaire survey, a recording experiment and an inter-language material study. This separation into two stages is helpful for two inspective steps. Firstly, to analyze the students'usage of modal particles separately through three aspects:proper usage, errors, and preferences. Secondly, to compare the acquisition situation of these two stages, research the longitudinal acquisition course and the developmental trace.Moreover, based on data statistics and analysis, this thesis shows the rules of Japanese and Korean students'acquisition of modal particles in both primary-middle stage and middle-advanced stage, through separate analysis and integrated comparison. This thesis inspects the acquisition rules from three aspect including sequences, difficulties, and preferences. The sequences include not only the acquisition orders of the 12 words, but also the different meanings of each word. The summary of these difficulties, based on the previous error analysis, lies in the complicated meanings of each modal particle. Similarly, students have preferences for both words and meanings.Finally, this study analyzes the influencing factor of acquisition through three aspects:linguistic factors, learner's factors, and the influence of the studying environment. Based on previous study, reflection on current Chinese classes and teaching materials, the writer will put forward some suggestions on ways to teach modal particles and write teaching material to better enable students to grasp this complex aspect of the Chinese language.