20.500.12556/DKUM-96944 Chinese phrasal downgraders: a problem for L2 Learners? In this study we investigate why phrasal downgraders such as mei-guanxi 没关系 (‘does not matter’) and meishi(-meishi) 没事 (没事) (‘no problem(-no problem)’) turn out to be problematic even for advanced L2 learners of Chinese. Although both mei-guanxi and meishi(-meishi) are standardly mentioned in Chinese L2 textbooks, various of their uses are still surprisingly irritating for L2 learners. We look at the heart of such irritations by following a tripartite bottom-up analytic procedure: We first conducted semi-structured interviews with advanced L2 learners of Chinese who reported having been irritated by the phrasal downgraders under investigation. We then examined uses of these expressions in a Chinese corpus, and finally we interpreted our learners’ L2 irritations through the outcomes of our corpus analysis. We examined our data through a minimalist and finite typology of speech acts and a related interactional system. Our interviewees made altogether five observation types, which we were able to systematically explain with the aid of our approach. applied linguistics Chinese English phrasal downgraders speech acts govorna dejanja kitajščina angleščina interakcije frazelogija true false true de Gruyter Mouton Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Znanstveno delo 2026-02-05 03:11:57 2026-03-04 16:40:30 2026-03-05 03:13:29 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 str. 165-191 št. 1 Letn. 17 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2025-08-13 81'33 267324163 10.1515/applirev-2025-0036 1868-6311 RAZ_Kadar_Daniel_Z._2026.pdf RAZ_Kadar_Daniel_Z._2026.pdf 1 491558C22CF19723803FAEA7A18708AF 720df9872e5b84136c70821fbcec3cdc7e720fecf23039212d1c66439f4f8d98 ac82becb-17e0-11f1-aa76-00155d580e1a https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=204260 https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2025-0036 0 0d21f794-0238-11f1-b31a-00155d00019a https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=203052 Filozofska fakulteta 0 0 0