Language Culture and Curriculum
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: Eoghan Mac Aogain (St Patrick's College)
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Volume: 17 Number: 1 Page: 33–47
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Noun Phrases in Chinese and English: A Study of English Structural Problems Encountered by Chinese ESL Students in Hong Kong
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Alice Y.W. Chan
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This paper gives a contrastive analysis of noun phrases in English and Chinese. The syntactic features of the structures, the devices used to mark distinctions in number, case and gender, as well as the similarities and differences between English and Chinese relative clauses are discussed.
Partly due to the documented differences between these structures in the two languages, and partly due to students' incorrect mastery of the target language, Chinese ESL learners in Hong Kong encounter a lot of problems with English noun phrases, including topic-comment structures, choice
of relative pronouns in relative clauses, resumptive pronouns, and missing subjects. The paper attempts to find the sources of the problems and proposes a system of teaching priorities for the benefit of teachers and students.
Keywords: CHINESE NOUN PHRASES, ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES, CHINESE ESL LEARNERS IN, HONG KONG, SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES, PROBLEMS
© 2004 Multilingual Matters
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