A Contrastive Study Of Chinese And Thai Comparative Sentence Patterns For Teaching Chinese To Speakers Of Other Languages

As an ideographic category,"comparison" exists in various languages,but the way of using it is different from languages,also in Chinese and Thai.The aim of this paper is to compare and analyze the differences of comparative sentences between Chinese and Thai,and to investigate the acquisition of Chinese comparative sentences by Thai Chinese learners from the Global Chinese Interlanguage Corpus,and finally to put forward some suggestions on teaching Chinese comparative sentences to Thai.The paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter clarifies the scope and methods of the research,and summarizes the achievements of previous researches of Chinese comparative sentences on the ontology and on teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages.The second chapter compares the differences of three types of comparative sentences between Chinese and Thai.The first part compares the differences between Chinese and Thai superlative comparison sentence-type and their negative forms from the following three aspects:the word order,the result item,and the use of degree adverbs.The main differences are as follows:(1)word order;Chinese word order is:最+adjective/verb phrase,while Thai word order is:adjective/verb phrase+;(2)degree adverbs cannot be used in"最"sentences,while the sentence pattern""can.The second part compares the differences between Chinese and Thai unequal comparison sentence-type and its negative from the following five aspects:word order,comparison item,comparison marker,comparison result,and the use of degree adverbs.The main differences are as follows:(1)word order;Chinese word order is:comparative subject+比+comparison benchmark+comparison result,while Thai word order is:comparative subject+comparison result++comparison benchmark;(2)Absolute degree adverbs cannot be used in the"比"sentence,while the sentence pattern""can.The third part compares the differences between Chinese and Thai equal comparison sentence-type and its negative form from the following five aspects:word order,comparison item,comparison marker,comparison result,and the use of degree adverbs.The main differences are as follows:(1)word order.The Chinese word order is:comparative subject+跟+comparison benchmark+一样+(X),and the Thai word order is:comparative subject+(X)+/+()+comparison benchmark.(2)Chinese can add adjectives after"跟......不一样",but Thai can not.(3)There is no corresponding sentence pattern in Thai for"有"sentences which contain comparative meaning in Chinese.The third chapter investigates the acquisition of comparative sentences by Thai Chinese learners from the Global Chinese Interlanguage Corpus,and analyzes the errors in the learning process.The study finds that Thai Chinese learners have the lowest error rate in using superlative comparison sentences,which is 14.9%;the error rates in using unequal comparison sentences and equal comparison sentences are higher,which are 27.9% and 25.8%.Among them,the type of error with the highest error rate in superlative comparison sentences is omission error,the type of error with the highest error rate in unequal comparison sentences is error-adding error,and the type of error with the highest error rate in equal comparison sentences is wrong-order error.The fourth chapter investigates the arrangement of grammar items of comparative sentences in Thai Chinese textbooks,and puts forward some suggestions on it from the following two aspects: the selection and arrangement of grammars and the annotation of grammars.At the same time,the author also puts forward some suggestions on how to teach comparative sentences to TCSL teachers:(1)teachers should improve their theoretical literacy;(2)teachers should understand the errors that students tend to make;(3)teachers should use a variety of ways to explain grammars.The final chapter concludes and summarizes the whole paper,and analyzes the shortcomings of the paper.