Summary of Key Findings

This research has drawn upon qualitative and quantitative methodologies to examine linguistic and metalinguistic practices in a Mandarin-English two-way immersion program in the United States. The most relevant findings of the multiple analyses discussed in previous chapters are summarized below.

The speech patterns of three Chinese teachers from Taiwan and Northeastern Mainland China (the firstand second-grade primary teachers and the music teacher) were analyzed with respect of the use of standard retroflex and standard dental initials. This analysis revealed that all three teachers follow a common pattern of variation by both event type and utterance type. Specifically, teachers used more standard retroflex in teaching events than in non-teaching events, and progressively less standard retroflex in reading, instructional speech, non-instructional speech and behavior management. Teachers made relatively limited use of hypercorrection of dental initials to retroflex. The stylistic variation present in teachers' use of retroflex and dental initials reflects the social meaning of these variants, and demonstrates that teachers draw upon these social meanings to construct personae appropriate to different classroom situations. Students could make use of these patterns to target more standard pronunciations, and to acquire an understanding of the social meaning of standard and non-standard sibilant initials.

In the analysis of corrective feedback, other-directed correction was found to be widespread at Meizhang; all teachers and most students initiated corrections and corrections were directed at both students and teachers. Patterns in corrective feedback indicated that the social meanings of variants influenced how their use was challenged. Students and teachers preferred to target 'fixable' features, such as non-native tone errors, and avoided explicitly targeting features that were perceived to be beyond the speaker's control, such as non-adultlike pronunciations, or features that were privileged, such as features of Taiwanese Mandarin. Students did not model their corrective behavior exactly on their teachers' patterns, but showed teacher influence in their strategies for framing and responding to corrections.