EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 2 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 27 To accomplish this objective, we have chosen several television series about Chinese families to show how kinship terms are used in various contexts. We have also conducted a survey in Beijing to understand both the use of these terms in Chinese society today and the implied social and cultural meanings. Such analyses from sociolinguistic and pragmatic perspectives enable us to better identify the subtle differences in the usage of kinship terms, and to establish usage rules, by comparing the French language with the Chinese language in a didactical way. And to measure the precise difficulties usually encountered by French students, we have interviewed French students and had them answer questionnaires. The results have allowed us to offer didactic recom- mendations according to different levels of learning. Based on the frequency of occurrence of kinship terms, we will implement these recommendations in didactic sequences. Guder Andreas (Freie Universität Berlin) How to Define an“A2 Level Reader”? On Impacts of the ChineseWriting System on Designing TCFL Competence Descriptors for the “European Benchmarks for the Chinese Language” (EBCL) Project Key words: TCFL, Chinese as a Foreign Language, EBCL, CEFR, Framework, Language compe- tence, A2 level The “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR 2001)” is a tool that is widely used as an instructional basis for any foreign language education all over Europe. From 2010 to 2012, the European Commission funded the project “European benchmarks for Learning Chinese (EBCL)” in order to develop benchmarks and competence descriptors for Chinese as a Foreign Language on the basis of the CEFR. After a short introduction of the project that mainly dealt with competence descriptors and task examples for the basic levels A1 and A2 (freely accessible on the web and published as book in 2015), I will discuss several aspects and biases that occurred during the adaptation of CEFR competence descriptors for EBCL reading competence in Chinese on different levels, like a) Proper names, b) Hanyu Pinyin, Zhengti and Fanti as Writing systems, c) shumianyu vs. koutouyu as well as d) text-typological problems, and give some examples in the context of CFL teaching. Additionally, the entirely new designed EBCL descriptors for “Graphemic and Orthographic Control” for Chinese Reading and Writing competence and “Hanyu Pinyin Competence” for CFL learning will be introduced in detail. He Lucy (Huron College, Western University) Chinese Phonetic Acquisition of Multilingual Students in Canada Key words: multilingual, second language acquisition, Chinese phonetics, language transfer, learn- ing strategies Generally, second language (L2) acquisition refers to the acquisition of a foreign language that is not the mother tongue. However, there could be multiple languages besides the mother tongue. “Second Language” is not necessarily the second language an individual learns. Based on the order of acquisition, it could refer to the third, or even the fourth language. Canadian students studying Chinese may have already learned another foreign language, such as French, Spanish, etc. In fact, most of the time Chinese is usually the third or fourth language being learned. The L3 study which begin within the last decade or two, concentrates mostly on grammar structure and vocabulary. The study of phonetics is still a fairly new area being explored, and is limited by the small number of different languages available to be studied. What makes Canadian students studying Chinese phonetics so special? This study aims to further discuss this question, focus on two areas: language transfer (including mother tongue and previously acquired languages) and learning strategies. The Study found that learners with amultilingual background have a stronger learning foundation and learning ability than those with a unilingual background (only knowing their mother tongue). Moreover, enriched learn- ing strategies and techniques and higher level of enthusiasm are evident when compared to unilingual learners.