This volume explores how linguistic research can support the teaching and learning of Chinese as a second language. It responds to a rapidly growing interest in the Chinese language all over the world, and answers the need for a strong research background for the discipline. Without that, Chinese language learning remains only a unique experience and/or a useful education challenge.
The first section explores crucial issues about the structure and use of Chinese as a Second Language such as word-order, noun-noun compounds, meaning-making in writing, pronunciation and stress and tone. The second section explores the learning of Chinese by seeking answer to questions about difficulties, expectations, beliefs, use of corpus and learning how to express necessity.
The authors coming from eight different countries demonstrate how existing knowledge has been generated, bring together different lines of research, point out tendencies in the field, demonstrate and explain what tools and methods researchers can use to address major issues in the field, and give direction to what future research should focus on.

ISTVAN KECSKES is Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York System, USA. He is the President of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA) and the CASLAR (Chinese as a Second Language Research) Association. Dr. Kecskes¿ is the founding editor of the journal Intercultural Pragmatics, a book series in Pragmatics as well as the bilingual (Chinese-English) journal CASLAR.

Introduction.- Part I Explorations into the Structure of Chinese.- Chapter 1 De-stress in Mandarin: Clitics, Cliticoids and Phonetic Chunks /Hana Trísková.- Chapter 2 From Phonological Studies to Teaching Mandarin Tones: Some Perspectives on the Revision of the Tonal Inventory /Carlotta Sparvoli.- Chapter 3 The Comparison of Hungarian and Chinese Phonological Systems: A Pedagogical Perspective/Qiuyue Ye & Huba Bartos.- Chapter 4 Analysis of Chinese as Second Language Learners' Interpretations of Noun-Noun Compounds/Shuyi Yang.- Chapter 5 Information Encoding, Chinese Word Order and CSLA: A Cognitive-Functional Account/Anna Morbiato.- Part II Explorations into Learners of Chinese.- Chapter 6 Learners' and Teachers' Beliefs about Learning Tones and Pinyin/Juan Yang  & Jane Medwell.- Chapter 7 Toward a Corpus of Chinese Classroom Teacher Language/Xia Cui.- Chapter 8 Difficulties and Expectations of First Level Chinese Second Language Learners/Gloria Gabbianelli & Agnese Formica.- Chapter 9 Expressing Necessity in Chinese: A Pilot Study/Shuyi Eagle.- Index.