Xiaomin Lang

Yunnan Sanguo

Zhou Qiang

Laiyun Zhang

Xiezhi Song

Laoxian Zhidu

Xin Xu

Zhao Ming (China Forestry National Commission)

Guoying Zheng

Jianlin Huang (Cantonese Language Academy)

Daliang Wang

Lianxi Zhang, Guangzhi Song, Feng Shizhui (China Forestry National Commission)

Duyguang Sun

Hongmei Du (Qifan University), Chen Xueng (Shangdong Agricultural University).

The Chinese-English bilinguals also spoke their native languages with the use of Chinese characters after they arrived in the country. Of the 10 bilingual participants who spoke their native languages natively, only three were students. Four had studied for some years at a university without a foreign language curriculum.

The Chinese English speakers were primarily college-aged females in their 30s-40s. In the beginning they had lived in foreign towns and cities for around 10 years before returning to Beijing. The three who came to Beijing on their own had already been exposed to Chinese culture before arriving here. Three others were first- or second-generation Chinese-speakers and had never visited China before.

A comparison of the Chinese bilinguals’ native languages before and after being exposed to Chinese culture shows how different their second-language acquisition was compared to Chinese. In a first sentence, the three Chinese-English bilinguals used their mother tongue, and in their second sentence, they used Chinese characters. In both cases, the characters used were Chinese characters with the simplified form. The three Chinese-English bilinguals who used Chinese characters in their first sentence were the only two students to say English words with the simple word “you”, but no single, English word in the second sentence.

These bilinguals who had grown up with English as their mother tongue spoke about 1% and 2% of the language in their first and second sentences, respectively. This demonstrates that both their mother tongue and first language are more significant than their second language. However, the one Chinese-English bilingual said it was not possible for them to speak Chinese with the other half.

The study also shows that Chinese children’s second-language acquisition does not match their first language acquired in school in a straightforward manner for both the two children