On Chinese Modal Particle a ― A Pragmatic and Semantic Study

For a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese like the author, modal particles are a frequent part of daily conversation; but she found teaching their pragmatic and semantic functions to students learning Mandarin as a second language to be particularly difficult, and the subject became her specialty. This book presents the results of extensive empirical research in which 20 episodes of a popular Chinese TV drama series were transcribed, documenting a total of 1,829 instances of the particle being used in meaningful communicative situations. Ying Xian Wang is affiliated with Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ying Xian Wang, a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese, obtained both her Masters in Educational Studies and PhD in Chinese Linguistics from the University of Queensland (Australia). She is currently a lecturer in Mandarin Chinese and the Mandarin Program Coordinator for degree students at the Queensland University of Technology (Australia). Her research interests are on Chinese modal particles and modal adverbs.