Linguistic Dominance Theory: A Collective Case Study of Non-Native Chinese Speakers’ Use of Aggressive Language Learning Strategies

• Main Authors: Yi-tsung Huang, 黃弈璁
• Other Authors: Robert Johanson
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/49urr4

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 應用外語系 === 99 === This study reports on the findings of a one-year project that explored the ways in which five advanced NNC (non-native Chinese) who were employed in an international company in Taipei, Taiwan engaged in the processes of employing Mandarin Chinese in their professional lives; more specifically, it investigates these focal participants’ advanced language learning strategies, on-the-job language use, and self-reported meta-cognitive reflections as they interacted with their Chinese-speaking colleagues, clients, and “others” whom they indicated as playing a role in their aggregate language learning. Collected over the course of one academic semester, data were gathered via structured / semi-structured interviews with the focal participants, their colleagues, and, with the focal participants’ permission, “others” with whom they interacted, as well as non-participant observation, analysis of relevant e-mail documents and other focal-participant-generated electronic text, personal communication, think-aloud protocol, stimulated recall, and focus group interviews, and analyzed according to the Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) approach to data collection analysis. Results indicated that the focal participants engaged in a wide array of advanced language-learning strategies (Oxford, 1989), expressed themselves in an extremely complex code-mixed “morphed” version of Chinese and English, and most surprisingly, employed a heretofore unexplored (to the author’s knowledge) language “weapon” the researcher came to refer to as “Linguistic Dominance Theory” (LDT). In a nutshell, LDT characterizes the ways that interlocutors manipulate paralinguistic cues, topic selection, pragmatics, and initial salutation utterances in order to force the counter interlocutor to continue the linguistic episode in the linguistic code s/he determines. Following a description of the study findings and limitations, a number of suggestions are presented that might serve as valuable additions to the existing literature on the teaching and learning of foreign languages in Taiwan and beyond.