Acknowledgements

A number of people deserve my sincere thanks for helping me in various respects and at various stages of the book. First of all, part of the book relates to my PhD research, and therefore I would like to thank my PhD supervisors Professor Ping Chen and Dr Leong Ko for their guidance and encouragement.

A very special and warm “thank you” goes to my friend Mr Eric Willis for his constant support and encouragement, and for generously offering to proofread earlier drafts of the book.

Moreover, I would like to extend my profound gratitude to my friends Dr Laura Tolton, Dr James Laurenceson, Dr Ingrid Wang, and Ms. Patricia Willis for their valuable advice and continued support.

I am also grateful to Dr Simon Patton and Ms. Linnea Webb for discussing and proofreading my PhD thesis, which is part of the book. Thanks also go to Dr Guy Ramsay, Dr Terry Xin, and Dr Wendy Jiang for their kind support and help.

This study would not have been possible without the participation of the four groups of Australian and Chinese students. I owe my deep gratitude to them. Great thanks are also due to those colleagues who assisted in recruiting the participants, including Dr Rosemary Roberts and Dr Daphne Hsieh in Brisbane, Australia, and Professor Xuheng Zang, Associate Professor Ling Li, Associate Professor Shaobin Wang, and Ms. Jianjun Luo in Jinan, China.

I am also indebted to The University of Queensland for financially supporting this research project. Further thanks go to the Social Sciences and Humanities Library of the University for efficiently locating and ordering the books and articles that I needed for my PhD research and this book.

Furthermore, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Editor of Pragmatics & Beyond New Series and the two reviewers for their thoughtful and insightful comments and constructive suggestions.

Last but not least, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to my family. I appreciate the love and support of my husband, who was always there at the stressful moments. I would like to give a very big “thank you” to my son, who was always my source of strength. Also, I am deeply indebted to my parents for their unconditional and never-tiring love, encouragement, and care. The love from my family helped me through the process of the doctoral dissertation and the writing of this book. This book is dedicated to them.