CASLAR-6 2021 Plenary Speakers
Plenary Speakers:
- Fangyuan Yuan 袁芳远, Professor, Languages and Cultures Department of the United States Naval Academy, USA 美国海军学院语言文化系终身教授 (美国)
- Wen Cao 曹文, Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), China 北京语言大学(中国)
- Hong Gang Jin 靳洪刚, Hamilton College, USA (汉明顿大学, 美国) & University of Macau (澳门大学)
- Furukawa Yutaka 古川 裕, Osaka University，Graduate School of Language and Culture, Japan 大阪大学 言语文化研究科 (日本大阪）
- Chiara Romagnoli 罗齐亚, Roma Tre University, Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures（Rome, Italy）罗马第三大学(意大利罗马)
- Arnaud Arslangul 安其然, Department of Chinese Studies at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Paris, France) 法国国立东方语言文化学院（法国巴黎）
Speaker Bios & Abstracts of Talks:
Dr. Fangyuan Yuan is Professor of Chinese at the Languages and Cultures Department of the United States Naval Academy. Her research interests include acquisition of Chinese as a second language, form-focused instruction, task-based language teaching, content-based language teaching, and teacher education. She has authored three monographs and three textbooks and published more than 30 book chapters and journal articles. She has been frequently invited to conduct teacher training workshops and present research as a conference plenary speaker. She served as the President of the Chinese Language Teachers Association – US in 2019-2020 and Chair of the Association’s Annual Conference in 2019 and 2020. Currently, she is on the College Board AP Chinese Development Committee and journal editorial boards of Chinese as a Second Language and International Chinese Education.
袁芳远教授：语言教育学博士，美国海军学院终身教授。研究方向：课堂二语习得、任务教学法、汉语二语习得等。出版主编专著三部, 其中包括2019年Routledge出版的 Classroom Research on Chinese as a Second Language及2016年商务印书馆的《以课堂为基础的二语习得研究》；教材三部, 其中北京大学出版社出版的《成功之道－商务汉语案例教程》重印数次，2021將出版第三版。发表学术论文三十余篇。曾任教于宾夕法尼亚大学、明德暑期硕士班等。相关社会职务：美国中文教师学会会长（2019）；理事、常务理事（2014-2021）；美国大学理事会AP发展委员会委员；《汉语二语教学》、《国际汉语教育》编委；香港Research Grants Council评审等。曾获多项研究经费、奖项。现合作主编“美国中文教师学会论文集（六）Pedagogical Grammar and Grammar Pedagogy in L2 Chinese。
Plenary Talk:
Classroom-based Research in Chinese as a Second Language
Abstract：Over the past two decades, research on classroom-based second language acquisition (SLA) has emerged and expanded as one of the most important sub-domains in the general field of SLA. In Chinese SLA, however, scarce attention has been devoted to this line of research. With an aim to establish a linkage among theory, research, and classroom practices in L2 Chinese, this presentation will first summarize research on classroom-based second language acquisition in general from a historical perspective and highlight the current trends in this fast-developing area. This will be followed by a review and critique of the empirical studies that have been published on classroom-based research in L2 Chinese to date, with a particular focus on form-focused instruction and task-based language teaching, which will help disentangle and understand the complicated relationships between linguistic targets, pedagogical conditions, and learner variables. The presentation will conclude with directions for future research in this area.
汉语二语课堂习得研究
过去二十几年来，课堂二语习得研究已发展成为整体二语习得研究的重要分支。相比而言，汉语相关研究还有待于进一步发展。本演讲将以整体课堂二语习得研究为框架，在回顾其历史发展及热点问题的基础上，综述分析汉语二语课堂相关研究，特别是语言形式教学及任务教学对于学习者习得影响的研究，以提高我们对目标形式、教学环境、学习者因素之间关系的认知，以及这些因素对汉语习得的影响。本演讲最后将提出今后研究方向。
曹文教授（北京大学中文系语言学及应用语言学博士，研究员，研究生导师，博士后合作导师）研究领域包括语音学；声调特征及声调感知；焦点和语调问题；普通话研究；对外汉语教学/汉语国际教育；汉语中介语语音语料库；计算机辅助汉语语音学习。曹文教授曾任北京语言大学汉语水平考试中心第三研究室主任、对外汉语研究中心语音实验室负责人。 2013至2019年任北京语言大学汉语国际教育学部汉语学院院长，现任北京语言大学语言科学院院长。
Plenary Talk:
To Where the Green Grass Is More Verdant: An Overview of the BLCU-CAPT Speech Corpus and Related Research
Created in 2011 by the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) Speech Research and Teaching Team to investigate computer-aided pronunciation learning, the BLCU-CAPT Speech Corpus contains oral reading and pronunciation samples from Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) learners from different countries. The corpus includes five sub-corpora, each of readers from a different national origin: China, South Korea, the U.S., Japan, and Vietnam.The corpus can also be divided into six content subcorpora: single-syllables, two-syllable words, three-syllable words, four-syllable words, dialogues, and short passages.The single syllable subcorpus includes samples of every syllable in Modern Standard Chinese (putonghua). In addition to the 1238 base syllables of Putonghua, 244 erhua syllables are also included. Syllables in the two-, three-, and four-syllable word sub-corpora are all selected from “The Graded Chinese Syllables, Characters and Words for the Application of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages” (GF 0015-2010). These subcorpora include 1592, 559, and 443 two-, three-, and four-syllable words respectively. The dialogue subcorpus contains 229 samples, while the short passage subcorpus contains 31 samples. Readers for the corpus were recruited by HSK level. The corpus marks mispronunciations using a combined methodology of automated and manual annotation. This plenary will overview selected findings and applications from corpus-based research using the BLCU-CAPT Speech Corpus.
向青草更青处漫溯：BLCU-CAPT语音语料库及基于该语料库的研究述介
摘要：BLCU-CAPT语音语料库是北京语言大学语音研究及语音教学团队自2011年起，面向计算机辅助正音而创建的一个不同国别汉语学习者朗读语音语料库。根据朗读者国别来分，该库目前已有中国学生、韩国学生、美国学生、日本学生和越南学生五个子库；根据语料内容来分，该库又可分为单音节、双音节、三音节、四音节、对话、短文六个子库。其中单音节库为普通话全音节库，除了1283个普通音节外，还包括了244个儿化音节；二、三、四音节全部选自《汉语国际教育用音节汉字词汇等级划分》（GF 0015-2010），二音节词语1592个，三音节词语559个，四音节词语433个，对话299组，短文31段。朗读者分汉语水平（HSK)募集。语料标注走偏误标注路线，采用机器自动标注和人工手动校对相结合的方法。基于该语料库的一些研究发现及应用成果（APP）将于报告中展现。
Jin received her master's and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary research interests include cognition and language development, first and second language acquisition, learning theories, foreign language education, and teacher development. In her over 30 years of career, she has published 7 books and textbooks on second language acquisition and teaching Chinese as a second language. She is also the author or the first author of more than 60 research articles in refereed and indexed international journals and book chapters on SLA and CFL.
Jin taught and supervised post-doctoral fellows, PhD, and MA students and developed a MOOC course on second language acquisition in English and Chinese. Many of her students' theses involve the use of new technologies, such as eye tracking and EEGs, to explore neuro-cognitive aspects of second language development. Jin has also been invited to keynote speeches and conducted numerous nation-wide workshops on CFL learning and teaching strategies and teacher development in the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China.
Jin has been actively involved in US-based national professional organizations and committees. She was on the board of directors of the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA) from 2002 to 2006 and was the president of CLTA from 2004 to 2005. In 2006, Jin was elected President of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL). From 2008 to 2014, Jin was also appointed as chair of the AP Chinese development Committee by the College Board (US).
Between 2007 and 2018, Jin received 6 major federal and private grants and 5 multi-year research grants, including the Henry Luce Foundation international studies grant, the Fulbright-Hays GPA funds from the US Department of Education (2008-2011, 2012-2016) and 5 years of STARTALK grants from the US Government to develop innovative programs in China and in the US. Her multi-year research grants at UM were awarded for her to engage in 3 major projects with collaborators from 4 different international institutions to investigate neuro-cognitive processing.
Jin was named the 1998 CASE National Outstanding Baccalaureate College Professor of the Year. She also received Hamilton’s 1963 Award of Teaching Excellence in 1996. In 2013 she was the recipient of NCOLCTL’s Walton Lifetime Achievement Award. She was selected as the recipient of the CLTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.
靳洪刚教授现为美国汉明顿大学东亚语言文学系William R. Kenan荣退教授，2014-2020曾担任澳门大学人文学院院长、应用语言学讲座教授。在两校期间均参与大校的教学、研究及管理工作。靳教授于1989年在美国伊利诺大学（香槟-俄班那校区）获得教育心理学及第二语言习得博士学位。当年被聘为美国汉明顿大学终身教授。靳教授曾任东亚语言文学系主任、William R. Kenan讲座教授及中文专业主任，美国各大学联合汉语中心(Associated Colleges in China)总部主任。
靳教授的研究领域包括第二语言习得、语言认知、学习转换、输入分析、互动分析、课程设计、师资培训等。在近30年任教期间，靳教授先后以第一作者出版了语言习得专著及汉语教材7本。在中美的专著书籍及匿名审阅学术期刊（SSCI, CSSCI）上发表论文60篇以上。
靳教授开设过各种硕士及博士课程，制作全套二语习得的慕课课程，指导多名硕士及博士生使用新技术（眼动、EEG等）撰写论文，主持召开各种国际会议，并每年多次受邀在美国、中国及世界各地做第二语言习得、汉语习得、学习理论、对外汉语课程设计及师资培训的讲座及工作坊。
靳教授曾担任全美中文教师学会(CLTA)理事（Chinese Language Teachers Association, 2002-2006），全美中文教师学会会长（2004-2005）；全美关键语种学会会长及副会长（National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, 2006-2012），美国大学理事会AP中文测试发展委员会成员及主任（2008-2014）。
从2007至今，靳教授曾获得三项美国联邦政府及私人基金会的主要基金进行项目开发及科研，其中包括三年的美国露斯基金会，连续八年的美国教育部福布莱特基金、连续五年的美国国务院星谈项目基金。
靳教授曾获得1998国家级卡内基全美优秀教授奖（1998 Professor of the Year），1996汉明顿校际最佳教授奖，2013国家关键语种学会Walton终身贡献奖，2015年全美中文教师学会终身成就奖。
Plenary Talk:
Chinese Verb Complement Constructions of Manner: A Corpus-Based Comparison between L1 and L2 Speakers
Hong Gang Jin (presenter), Jie Zhang, and Hongyin Tao (collaborators)
Usage-based approaches to language acquisition emphasize that constructions are the fundamental units of language and language acquisition. In this presentation, we report a comparative corpus study between L1 and L2 based on usage-based approaches to language acquisition. The study focuses on the acquisitional process of a unique Chinese construction: Verb Complement Constructions of Manner (VCM, 方式/情态补语) in terms of its psycholinguistic factors that drive the acquisition and use of the target linguistic construction. Using both L1 and L2 corpus data, this presentation will report three major findings: a) there are marked quantitative and qualitative differences between L1 and L2 VCM production at both construction and component levels; b) these persistent productive differences reflect the indispensable roles of psycholinguistic factors, such as frequency, prototypicality of verbs, complexity, form-meaning mapping, and co-occurrence patterns of VP and VC; and c) L2 VCM construction learning is like any other construction learning that followings a U-shape learning path that consists of unique and distinctive stages. These findings are argued to form the basis for further exploration in L2 acquisition theory and pedagogical practice.
从一语、二语语料库对比分析看二语的构式习得：以汉语情态补语为例
靳洪刚 （报告人）张洁、陶红印 （合作者）
根据语言应用习得理论(Usage-based approaches to language acquisition)，构式既是语言的基本单位，也是语言习得的基本单位。本文重点报告一项语料库研究、主要对比一语与二语汉语情态补语构式的使用模式及二语习得过程，从中了解认知心理加工因素对构式习得的影响。本文主要报告三个方面的研究结果：1、在整体构式及构式内部成分这两个层面，一语与二语的情态补语使用具有相当大的差异；2、这种持续的一、二语构式输出差异与语言使用过程中认知心理因素相关，其中包括使用频率，动词典型性、构式复杂度、形义匹配及共现规则等；3、二语不同语言水平组的情态补语构式习得如同所有构式一样，均遵循二语的发展规律：即U型发展路径，这一发展过程既可分阶段，而且每个阶段有其独特性。以上研究结果对领域进一步的二语构式习得研究及教学实践提供了语料库实证理据。
Furukawa Yutaka is a professor and PhD supervisor at Osaka University (Japan). He is also the director of Osaka University’s International Studies Library and is currently serving as the vice-president of The International Society for Chinese Language Teaching.
Professor Furukawa has researched Chinese for over 40 years. He studied Chinese at Osaka University of Foreign Studies and Tokyo University (under professor Hisao Hirayama) and was awarded a government scholarship in 1986 to continue his studies at Peking University under professor Dexi Zhu. Professor Furukawa earned his PhD in Chinese from Peking University in 2008 under the supervision of professor Jianming Lu.
Professor Furukawa began teaching Chinese at Osaka University over 30 years ago. He served as the president of the Japan Association of Chinese Language Education from 2006-2009 and is currently serving on the Association’s board. He was also the featured speaker on Japan’s NHK Chinese-learning TV program in 2008.
Professor Furukawa’s research focuses on modern Chinese cognitive grammar and the applications of research findings to Chinese language teaching. He also researches Chinese language education in Japan. Professor Furukawa has published over 50 academic articles and has collaborated with other scholars in the production of multiple Chinese-Japanese dictionaries and textbooks. His most well known works include Research on Modern Chinese Cognitive & Pedagogical Grammar (published by Commercial Press in March of 2021), and Teaching Chinese Grammar to Japanese L1 Learners (coauthored with Xiaoying Huang, published by BLCU Press in 2013).
古川裕教授现任日本大阪大学教授，博士生导师，外国学图书馆馆长；世界汉语教学学会副会长。
古川裕教授研习中文四十余年，曾就读于大阪外国语大学汉语专业、东京大学研究生院（师从平山久雄教授)，1986年曾获政府奖学金赴北京大学中文系研修（师从朱德熙先生）、2008年获得北京大学中文系博士学位（师从陆俭明教授）。古川教授自1988年于日本大阪大学教授汉语、至今三十余载。2006-2009年曾任日本中国语教育学会会长，现任该学会理事。2008年担任日本NHK电视学中文节目主讲人。
古川教授从事现代汉语认知语法及其成果在教学上的应用研究、以及日本的汉语教学研究，发表学术论文五十余篇，并参与编写多部汉日词典及汉语课本，代表性著作有《现代汉语认知语法与教学语法研究》（商务印书馆，2021年3月），《对日汉语语法教学法》（与黄晓颖合著，北京语言大学出版社，2013年6月）等。
Plenary Talk:
Antithesis in Modern Chinese Morphology and Its Pedagogical Approach
Antithetical pair (对举) constructions are a prominent form of expression in both modern and ancient Chinese. These are a kind of paired expressions that can be seen in both colloquial and formal ancient and modern Chinese.
前 and 后, for example, are a typical pair of antonyms. Both are bound morphemes, not standalone words, but when they appear in an antithesis (对举) context, their boundness disappears and they become grammatically independent units. At the word level, for example,前后 is an independent compound word, no longer restricted by the boundness that limits 前 and 后. 前 and 后 can also form formulaic phrases like 前因后果, 前街后巷, 空前绝后. They can even be used to form sentence-level constructions like 前言不搭后语; 前怕狼，后怕虎; and 前不见古人，后不见来者. 前 and 后are therefore a highly productive elements used as contrastive pairs. Quite a few other examples of a similar nature can be found in Chinese as well.
It is well established that Japanese learners of L2 Chinese have some significant advantages when it comes to knowledge about and acquisition of 汉字. However, given their limited intuition (语感) for L2 Chinese, these antithetical pairs present a significant challenge for Japanese students both in terms of comprehension and production. It is therefore necessary to clarify and explain these constructions in the classroom.
In this plenary, we will explore this interesting phenomenon from both a theoretical research and classroom practice perspective.
现代汉语的对举形式及其教学对策
“对举形式”可谓是古今汉语表述形式上最为显著的特点之一，不管是口语还是书面语，也不管是古代汉语还是现代汉语，成双成对的表述法普遍见于各种不同层面的语言形式上。
例如，“前”和“后”是很典型的一对反义字。这两个字是粘着性语素，都不能单独成词，但是一旦把这两个字放在对举的环境下，它们原有的粘着性就会消失，可变成合乎语法的自由单位：例如，在构词层面“前后”是一个可以自由活动的复合词，已经不是无法单独活动的粘着性语素了。在词组层面，这一对字同样也可以构成“前因后果”、“前街后巷”、“空前绝后”等固定说法，甚至还可以构成“前言不搭后语”、“前怕狼，后怕虎”以及“前不见古人，后不见来者”等更高一层句子层面的表述。由此可见，“前／后”是一个很有生产力的对举成分。汉语的表述系统里还有不少类似的例子。
众所周知，日本学生在汉字的知识和习得上有不少先天的优先特点，但因缺少汉语特有的语感，在这些对举性词语的理解和表述上都有问题。我们在课堂上很有必要对此类对举性表述法进行实例的梳理和理论方面的解释。
在CASLAR-6大会演讲中，我们将围绕这个有趣的话题进行理论研究和课堂实践两方面的探讨。
Dr. Chiara Romagnoli received her Ph.D. from Sapienza University of Rome in 2007 and has worked as an Associate Professor of Chinese language in the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Roma Tre University (Italy) since 2014. Her research interests include CFL vocabulary acquisition, discourse markers, lexicography, and the reception of Saussure’s linguistic thought in China. She is the author of several works, including research papers published in journals like the International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, Histoire Épistémologie Langage, Chinese as a Second Language, International Journal of Lexicography, Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, as well as a monograph on the functional words in modern Chinese (Grammatica Cinese: Le Parole Vuote del Cinese Moderno, Hoepli, 2012) and a pedagogical grammar of Chinese (Grammatica d’uso della Lingua Cinese, Hoepli, 2016, with J. Wang).
Plenary Talk:
Vocabulary in Chinese as a Foreign Language: State of the Art, New Insights, and Future Agenda
Vocabulary in second language teaching and acquisition is no longer a neglected area of study. The role played by vocabulary as a predictor of linguistic proficiency has been demonstrated in many research studies, and Chinese is no exception. Despite having a late start compared to other areas of language, a considerable body of research on Chinese vocabulary has been accumulated in the recent decades. This body of research particularly emphasizes the link between vocabulary knowledge and the skills of reading and writing.
Another issue that has been taken into account is the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and proficiency level. Romagnoli and Conti (2019), for instance, observed that written vocabulary size does not correlate with length of learning experience, especially in the interval between the pre- and post-intermediate levels. Interestingly enough, these results have been confirmed in other studies focusing on specific lexical items such as classifiers and directional complements (Romagnoli & Luzi 2012). Such a lack of improvement across different proficiency levels suggests that, once learners have built up a first substrate of base vocabulary, it might be hard for them to expand lexical knowledge in general and to master specific lexical items in particular.
In sum, research on the acquisition and teaching of Chinese vocabulary mainly focused on the written representation of language, but what do we know about learners’ spoken vocabulary, either productive or receptive? And to what extent is the vocabulary selection in teaching materials adequate to learners’ learning path, needs and goals?
These questions will be addressed in this talk by i) providing a critical review of the existing literature; ii) presenting an original corpus of data collected in one particular instructional environment; iii) proposing an integration to the wordlist traditionally adopted in teaching materials as to fill the gap between didactic requirements and learners’ communicative needs.
汉语作为第二语言词汇研究：现状，新视角及未来研究方向
第二语言词汇的教学和习得已不再是一个被忽视的研究领域。词汇作为预测语言水平所起的作用一直为研究者所重视,中文词汇也不例外。虽然汉语词汇研究起步较晚,但近几十年来这方面的研究成果也颇为可观。不少研究者已注重词汇与阅读及写作能力的关系。例如，Romagnoli和Conti（2019）对不同水平学习者的词汇量进行考察,发现词汇量与学习经验的长短无关，而这些结果也在其他针对特定词汇项目的研究中得到了证实。研究表明，一旦学习者建立了基础词汇的第一层基础，他们可能较难扩展一般的词汇知识，尤其是掌握特定的词汇项目。
关于汉语词汇习得和教学的研究主要集中在汉语的书面理解与表达（阅读与写作）方面，然而我们对学习者的口语词汇了解多少？ 教材的词汇选择到何种程度才能够符合学习者的学习方向、满足其需求并达成学习目标？Chiara Romagnoli教授在CASLAR-6大会演讲中将：i）对现有文献进行批判性回顾； ii）介绍一种在特定教学环境中收集的原始数据语料库； iii）建议对传统教材中采用的单词表进行整合，以填补教学要求和学习者交际需求之间的空白。
Arnaud Arslangul is a senior lecturer in the Department of Chinese Studies at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Paris, France) where he teaches Chinese language and linguistics. He is affiliated to the Center for East Asian Linguistic Research (CRLAO, UMR 8563). His research focuses on the acquisition of L2 Chinese, especially on the expression of motion events and on the reference to space and entities in discourse. He is a member of the French “Second Language Acquisition Network” (ReAL2). He is the author of four Chinese learning textbooks (Didier and L'Asiathèque Press) and has recently published two co-edited books about the initial stages of L2 acquisition (Inalco Press) and about L2 Chinese teaching in French-speaking countries (Beijing Language and Culture University Press).
Plenary Talk:
Information organization in descriptions and narratives: spatial anchoring in L2 Chinese
Many studies have shown that, confronted with complex verbal tasks, native speakers of different languages differ in their preferred patterns of information organization which determine what kind of information is selected for expression and how it is mapped into form (Carroll et al., 2000; Carroll & Lambert, 2003; Carroll & Stutterheim, 2002). This study examines the ways in which French-speaking learners of L2 Chinese introduce new referents in two different types of discourse: spatial descriptions and narratives. The procedure used consists of the analysis of an oral corpus collected from four groups of informants: two groups of native speakers of Chinese and French, and two groups of learners of L2 Chinese at two proficiency levels (low and intermediate). The data collected consists of the description of a poster and of the re-telling of a comic strip. The results of the description task show that linguistic devices used in Chinese and French to encode the spatial anchoring of the new referent have an impact on the presence and placement of the locative phrase in the utterance. These properties in turn influence the way in which the informational content develops across the utterances in the discourse. Even if there is a clear development of proficiency between the two L2 groups, intermediate learners still often leave the spatial anchoring of the new referent implicit (zero anaphora), and therefore are not yet able to organize information on the discourse level like native Chinese speakers. The results of the narrative task show that French speakers introduce new referents in narratives relying on the temporal anchoring, whereas Chinese speakers also consistently add a spatial anchoring in sentence initial position to ensure discourse coherence. Even at intermediate level, learners are not able to identify this pattern of information organization in their L2. These difficulties in the information organization can be explained by L1 transfer but are also influenced by the grammatical means used in Chinese to introduce new referents in discourse, namely presentative construction and localizers in locative phrases.
描述与叙述的信息组织：汉语二语中的空间定位
许多研究表明，在完成复杂的语言任务的过程当中，不同母语者倾向于选用不同信息组织模式，而这些模式会决定具体语言信息的选择和语言编码（Carroll et al., 2000; Carroll & Lambert, 2003; Carroll & Stutterheim, 2002）。本研究以口语语料为基础，对母语为法语的学习者如何在静态空间描述及故事叙述这两种语篇中引进新实体进行调查分析。被试者分为四组：分别是汉语母语者、法语母语者以及两组法语为母语的汉语学习者（初级组和中级组）。语料收集使用的测试材料分别为一张街景图片与一幅漫画。静态空间描述的结果表明，法语和汉语母语者在引进新实体的句子中，空间短语的类型与语法功能均有所不同，而这影响到空间短语的句法位置和出现频率。此差异在语篇层面上造成主位推进模式的不同。即使两组学习者之间的语言水平有明显差别，在引进新实体的句子中，中级组仍使用较多的零形回指，因此他们在语篇中的信息组织与汉语母语者截然不同。故事叙述的结果表明，法语母语者在叙述中依靠时间上的定位引入新的实体，而汉语母语者常在句首加上空间定位，以保证语篇的连贯性。即使到了中级水平，学习者仍尚未掌握L2的信息组织模式。这些信息组织上的困难来自L1跨语言的迁移，但也受到汉语在语篇中引入新实体的语法手段的影响，即存现句和空间短语中的方位词的使用。