Use linguistic theories/approaches to analyse Mandarin Chinese or make comparisons between Mandarin and another/other dialect(s) (such as Cantonese, Min, Wu, Hakka, Xiang and Gan) of Chinese on your chosen topic to explore an aspect of Chinese linguistics. You should link your adopted theories/approaches to the data/examples collected. You can select one or more field(s) of Chinese such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics or sociolinguistics to account for Chinese language data.

Here are some examples of essay subjects/topics:

The essay subjects/topics are not restricted to those listed above. You are free to develop your own essay topics. If you decide to choose your own topic, you should check its feasibility with the tutor.

The following are some examples of Linguistic Theories/Approaches to use for the essay assignment:

> Optimality Theory

> Generative Grammar

> Cognitive Linguistics/Grammar

> Construction Grammar

> (Systemic) Functional Linguistics, etc.

However, the Linguistic Theories/Approaches to be adopted for your essay are not restricted to those listed above. For example, you could use Data-based or Corpus- based Approach to collect Chinese language data or explore Chinese language corpora to analyse and abstract grammatical rules, patterns or constructions from them.

Data Collection

You  can  use  examples  and  data  collected  and  reported  in  previous  studies  from published sources: journals, magazines, books, proceedings, newspapers, etc. You can also collect text-based data by searching Chinese language corpora for your essay. You should NOT employ data and analysis from projects assessed elsewhere. You are NOT encouraged to collect data from human participants. Since collecting data from human participants may need  ethics  approval  from the University. The  ethics  application process could take time and if you cannot obtain the approval in time, it may affect your data collection.

Essay Structure

The structure for your essay depends on your subject and how you will choose to deal with it. However, a typical structure of a research report is as follows (only for your reference):

.    Introduction

.    Literature review or background

.    Method

(Subsections such as Materials, Data, Procedure, etc.)

.    Results and Discussion or Data Analysis

.    Conclusion

.    References

.    Appendix (optional)

Strong Essays

Typically have the following features:

.    Clear objectives and justifications of conducting your project

.    good  argumentation  and  relevant  linguistic  evidence/data  to  support  your argument/claim

.    full coverage of the task set

.    creative and imaginative features

.    good demonstration of knowledge and understanding appropriately grounded in theory/approach and relevant literature

.    appropriate methods to the objectives of your project

.    comprehensive and accurate analysis

.    sound conclusions

.    good structure and presentation, clear exposition

.    good grammar, spelling and punctuation

.    correct and appropriate citation and referencing

Examples

Any examples not from English must be provided with a literal gloss and a translation.

Chinese characters should also be presented with the pinyin.

Place the gloss of an example sentence or phrase on a new line below the example and

place the translation below the gloss as in (1). Translations should beenclosed in single quotation marks.

(1)  他天天学习汉语。

ta    tian-tian xuexi     hanyu.

he   day-day study     Chinese

‘He studies Chinese every day. ’

Segmentable morphemes are separated by hyphens, both in the pinyin and in the gloss. There must be exactly the same number of hyphens in the pinyin and in the gloss.

(2)  这个句子应该这么翻译。

zhe-ge          juzi            yingai       zhe-me         fanyi.

This-CL           sentence    should       this-way       translate

‘This sentence should be translated this way. ’

Type each numbered item on a separate line with the number in parentheses; indent

after the number; use lowercase letters to group sets of related items:

(3)  a.      Down the hill rolled the pram.

b.      Out of the house strolled my mother’s best friend.

In the text, refer to numbered items as (3), (3a), (3b). Place both the number and letter

in parentheses. Use hyphens only to include all examples in a series: (3a-b).

Punctuation in examples: When an example consists of a sentence, it should start with a capital and end with a period for English or the English translation of the example. When an example consists of a portion of a sentence, it should not be capitalized or

punctuated as in (4).

(4)  说了几句话

shuo      le          ji-ju              hua

say        PERF        several-CL     sentence

‘said a few sentences ’

Abbreviations

Give grammatical information in word-by-word (or morpheme-by-morpheme) glosses

in the form of abbreviations set in small capitals: (e.g. CL, PERF). Provide a complete