Survey for academic purpose

[Carl Chen]

even thouth the question starts from "哪邊"， we still answer 前面and後面 rather than 前邊and後邊。

that's why 旁邊 is the best choice in that questoon.

[OneEye]

I believe you'll find there are many native speakers of Chinese who say 前邊 and 後邊. You ought to take these things into consideration if you want it to be a well-designed survey. You're not presenting this survey only to people who speak Taiwanese Mandarin, after all.

[Carl Chen]

Regardless of the phrase 要...了 in linguistic aspect,

 

as for the reason why 在 makes more sense than 要

要 = is about to do (not done yet, but is going to do)

 

a bird/butterfly/frog/dog will not tell us what he/she is going to do

 

在睡覺 is an ongoing status; 要睡覺 is an action or expectation

We won't know a bird/butterfly/dog/frog's expectation.

We only know what their current statuses are (e.g., sleeping,  eating....etc)

 

那隻海豚要游泳----- odd
那隻海豚在游泳----- understandable

 

I would say 在and 要 in this question are both grammatically correct, but 在 makes sense to me.

And I also ask my friends who are native Chinese speaker. 

And their reasons are what I mentioned above.

 

My friends all choose 在.

One of the explanations is language intuition.

Both are grammatically correct, but we know which one is the best choice.

Perhaps due to its frequency.

 

For example,

他一邊看書,一邊___筷子吃麵.

A. 用

B. 帶

C. 找

 

everyone chooses A, which is also the correct answer.

 

However, I think 找 is also ok.

他一邊看書,一邊找筷子吃麵.......why not?

 

I think we reach a consensus in this question, which we all choose 用.

But i would say 找 is also OK.

 

Why does none of us choose this one?

 

Perhaps we have certain language intuition, don't we?

[Carl Chen]

Re #22:

 

I agree with you and other's opinions.

I will put these viewpoints into my limitation of the study.

 

Thanks!

[Silent]

 

a bird/butterfly/frog/dog will not tell us what he/she is going to do

Technically that may seem correct, however many pet owners have clear opinions about what their pets wants or will do in certain situations. E.g. When a stranger rings the doorbell the dog is going to bark till the stranger is gone or let in. When the dog is eating and the cat passes too close the dog will pick a fight etc. I maintain that in a language test this kind of technical motivations should be avoided and one should arrive at the correct answer solely by linguistical reasoning. Who knows, maybe they're doing brain research and are actually able to tell what the dog/cat/bird is going to do based on brain activity. 

 

However hard it may be, in research these assumed frames of reference should be avoided. They may interfere with the research results in unexpected ways and decrease the validity of the results. Unless of course the research is meant to be about the frame of reference that people have.

[Carl Chen]

It is hard to have a perfect question when we take several situations into consideration.

 

For example, every answer is correct based on different contexts.

 

1.

媽媽: 現在幾點了?

兒子: _________

 

A. 11點

B. 康熙來了剛開始

C. 問爸爸啦

 

2.

小明: 你知道1加1等於多少嗎?

小文: _______________

 

A: 2

B: 田

C: 你很笨耶

 

3.

小明: 希望可以跟你做個朋友

小花: __________

 

A: 你不撒泡尿照照自己?

B: 好啊~ 很高興認識你

C: 喂~警察! 有變態在騷擾我

[Silent]

 

It is hard to have a perfect question when we take several situations into consideration.

Yes, doing proper research is hard. If it was easy everyone would get a phd.

[OneEye]

Perfect questions are difficult, you're correct. Good, well-designed questions, on the other hand, are not, and as a PhD student you should hold yourself to a higher standard in your research. PhD work is not the time to be 差不多先生.

[Carl Chen]

The test of compound awareness was made by me.

 

But the reading comprehension test was not.

Thus, I will try to contact the test designer to tell him/her these suggestions.

 

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Takeshi]

Using spoiler tags because I don't think people should read this before they participate.

 

"I would say 在and 要 in this question are both grammatically correct, but 在 makes sense to me."

 

Even you admit that both answers are grammatically correct. I think nobody takes issue at which one is a more obvious answer, and even if some people were to take issue at that, I am willing to believe it is because they are likely not native speakers. There is nothing wrong with the design of the experiment as long as you treat the answer "要" as what it is: a perfectly grammatically correct, but less salient response that is perhaps less likely to be immediately chosen by native speakers when confronted with the question.

 

I was surprised that you said "I think there is only one answer for each question." because me, and it seems a lot of other posters don't agree with that statement.

 

However I think it may be possible we (the posters who don't agree) have a slightly different intention when we say "only one answer" as opposed to you. Perhaps it is a western point of view that manifests itself in the interpretation of the English statement, but we are interpreting what you are saying as "only one answer is grammatically correct" which means we think you mean that only one answer corresponds to a sentence that a native Chinese speaker may say IRREGARDLESS of whether for such a sentence to be natural for use you must have an extremely convoluted and strange context that nobody would think up of off the top of their head.

 

I suppose what you mean is "there is only one answer I am looking for", and in your experiment you probably plan on coding people who select that answer you are looking for and comparing it to whether or not people pick the other "answers you are looking for" in other questions. There may be an interesting correlation between people who pick 要 versus 在 and it doesn't matter that "both are correct" because one is clearly acceptable in a more obvious context than the other. I do think it is important that you lay this out in your writing though...

 

About 邊/面, I'm not really going to take your side though. While you can take what I say with a grain of salt because I'm a non-native speaker who primarily learnt Cantonese so my Mandarin judgements may be different from the general populace. However, I can say with a fact that in /my/ Chinese, I have no problem saying 前邊 or 後邊 whatsoever, and they are actually preferred over 前面 and 後面 for me. (I may be more inclined to use 前面 and 後面 in writing though.) Now, you don't have to listen to me. It could very well be because I'm a stupid foreigner and my Chinese is bad, or because that's a Cantonese way of saying it and I'm influenced by Cantonese. If that's the case, and amongst the greater Chinese population it is true that 前面 and 後面 is preferred over 前But I still think that there are many regions where 前邊 or 後邊 are probably perfectly acceptable or even preferrable, and Chinese learners from these regions may be more likely to chose these responses for reasons that you are not expecting, and this can spoil your study's results.

 

As an interesting side note, I answered 傍邊 to that question. Not because I thought it was more correct than the others, but it was just what came up to my mind (it may be SLIGHTLY more salient/default because cats are often beside you? I don't know...). I seriously thought that you thought all the answers were correct and the purpose of the question was to test some other factor however......