Studies In Chinese Language

This volume features a discourse empirical orientation from diverse perspectives and various methodologies, in which narratives, interviews, surveys, and large-scale databases or self-created written and spoken corpora are employed and analyzed to gain a better understanding of new developments and changes in Chinese language and discourse. Authors employ updated approaches from a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, functional linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics, to describe the structure of Chinese language and discourse and to examine its critical issues, many focusing on globalization-induced language developments and changes. With an empirically-based discourse/socio-cultural approach, this collection makes valuable contributions to research on Chinese language and discourse and serves as a sound reference for Chinese researchers and educators in diverse fields such as Chinese language and discourse, Chinese linguistics and language education, Chinese multiculturalism, and more.

The nine essays in this volume present the most recent developments in the study of Chinese linguistic research using functional approaches. Topics discussed in the volume include Chinese typology, word order variation, word formation, semantic change, cognition, discourse analysis, interface among syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and grammaticalization. Studies of Chinese Linguistics will be a valuable and stimulating reference for graduate students and researchers interested in functional linguistics. Readers in general and applied linguistics will also appreciate the insights it offers into the interaction of Chinese form and function.

What are the linguistic constituents and structural components of Chinese characters and words? Does the spoken language provide a basis for reading different writing systems, including Chinese? How do the results of current neuroimaging and electrophysio

Teaching and Researching Chinese Second Language Listening focuses on Chinese L2 listening with theory and pedagogy at its heart. The objectives of the book are to recount the development of Chinese L2 listening pedagogy, to synthesize research on Chinese L2 listening, and to propose a Chinese L2 listening approach. This book is the first to bridge the gap between Chinese L2 and general L2 listening and develop a much-needed systematic teaching approach to Chinese listening based on research findings in L2 listening, the unique features of the Chinese language, and the distinctive characteristics of the Chinese L2 learner population. This book grounds Chinese L2 teaching in solid theories of L2 acquisition and teaching. The research-informed and evidence-based Chinese L2 teaching approach proposed in the book seeks to move beyond the traditional product-oriented approach to integrate form-, meaning-, process-, and learner-focused listening. This book also discusses Chinese L2 listening from learners’ perspectives: heritage versus non-heritage learners and motivation. These are presented together with theory and teaching practice. The book is aimed at researchers, in-service teachers and students taking upper-level undergraduate courses and postgraduate courses for programs in Chinese applied linguistics and teaching Chinese as a second language (TCSL). Chinese listening studies to date have mostly been published in the Chinese language, which severely limits their readership. This book is therefore written in English to fill the gap in current scholarship. Due to a large number of Chinese learners and the consequential booming programs in TCSL and CIE (Chinese international education), it is important to dedicate a book specifically to Chinese listening.

This Handbook approaches Chinese Studies from an interdisciplinary perspective while attempting to establish a fundamental set of core values and tenets for the subject, in relation to the further development of Chinese Studies as an academic discipline. It aims to consolidate the current findings in Chinese Studies, extract the essence from each affiliated discipline, formulate a concrete set of ideas to represent the ‘Chineseness’ of the subject, establish a clear identity for the discipline and provide clear guidelines for further research and practice. Topics included in this Handbook cover a wide spectrum of traditional and newly added concerns in Chinese Studies, ranging from the Chinese political system and domestic governance to international relations, Chinese culture, literature and history, Chinese sociology (gender, middle class, nationalism, home ownership, dating) and Chinese opposition and activism. The Handbook also looks at widening the scope of Chinese Studies (Chinese psychology, postcolonialism and China, Chinese science and climate change), and some illustrations of innovative Chinese Studies research methods. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Studies is an essential reference for researchers and scholars in Chinese Studies, as well as students in the discipline.

This new major reference work provides a comprehensive overview of linguistic phenomena in a variety of Sinitic languages in a global context, highlighting the dynamic interaction between these languages and English. This “living reference work” offers a window into the linguistic sphere in China and beyond, and showcases the latest research into diverse and evolving linguistic phenomena that have resulted from intensified interactions between the Sinophone world and other lingua-spheres. The Handbook is divided into five sections. The chapters in Section I (New Research Trends in Chinese Linguistic Research) present fast-growing research areas in Chinese linguistics, particularly those undertaken by scholars based in China. Section II (Interactions of Sinitic Languages) focuses on language-contact situations inside and outside China. The chapters in Section III (Meaning, Culture, Translation) explore the meanings of key cultural concepts, and how ideas move between Chinese and English through translation across various genres. Section IV (New Trends in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language) covers new ideas and practices relating to teaching the Chinese language and culture. The final section, Section V (Transference from Chinese to English), explores dynamic interactions between varieties of Chinese and varieties of English, as they play out in multilingual sites and settings

Bringing together contributions from a group of prominent researchers, within a cognitive-linguistic framework, this volume sheds light on linguistic structures and usages characteristic of the Chinese language, including noun-verb inclusion, the conceptual spatialization of actions, existential constructions, conceptual structures and coherence, idioms and metaphors, language acquisition of caused motion, etc. The contributions are committed to the principle of “converging evidence” that has been advocated in Cognitive Linguistics since its inception. Some studies in this volume combine introspective methods with theoretical analysis, while others rely on corpus-based, experimental and neuroscientific methods. Featuring diverse topics and multiple methods, this collection will be useful to readers who are interested in the grammatical and conceptual structure of Chinese, as well as in the state-of-the-art of Cognitive Linguistics in China.

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The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language is an invaluable resource for language learners and linguists of Chinese worldwide, those interested readers of Chinese literature and cultures, and scholars in Chinese studies. Featuring the research on the changing landscape of the Chinese language by a number of eminent academics in the field, this volume will meet the academic, linguistic and pedagogical needs of anyone interested in the Chinese language: from Sinologists to Chinese linguists, as well as teachers and learners of Chinese as a second language. The encyclopedia explores a range of topics: from research on oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, to Chinese language acquisition, to the language of the mass media. This reference offers a guide to shifts over time in thinking about the Chinese language as well as providing an overview of contemporary themes, debates and research interests. The editors and contributors are assisted by an editorial board comprised of the best and most experienced sinologists world-wide. The reference includes an introduction, written by the editor, which places the assembled texts in their historical and intellectual context. The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource.

Key Issues in Chinese as a Second Language Research presents and discusses research projects that serve as theoretical grounding for improving the teaching and learning of Chinese as a second language (CSL) in order to help researchers and practitioners better understand the acquisition, development, and use of CSL. With the exception of the first chapter, which is state-of-the-art, each chapter makes an attempt to bring together theory and practice by focusing on theory building and theory application in practice. The book is organized around areas where most future research is needed in CSL: phonology, semantics, grammar, and pragmatics. Consisting of contributions from an international group of scholars working on cutting-edge research, this is the ideal text for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the area of Chinese as a second or foreign language.

The linguistic study of Chinese, with its rich morphological, syntactic and prosodic/tonal structures, its complex writing system, and its diverse socio-historical background, is already a long-established and vast research area. With contributions from internationally renowned experts in the field, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of the central issues in Chinese linguistics. Chapters are divided into four thematic areas: writing systems and the neuro-cognitive processing of Chinese, morpho-lexical structures, phonetic and phonological characteristics, and issues in syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. By following a context-driven approach, it shows how theoretical issues in Chinese linguistics can be resolved with empirical evidence and argumentation, and provides a range of different perspectives. Its dialectical design sets a state-of-the-art benchmark for research in a wide range of interdisciplinary and cross-lingual studies involving the Chinese language. It is an essential resource for students and researchers wishing to explore the fascinating field of Chinese linguistics.

Trends in linguistics is a series of books that publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. The series considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. The book uncovers the role. The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects plays in analyzing the spectrum of linguistic differentiation in China. The author starts by sketching the development and current state of Chinese dialectology and dialectal research. She then provides an analysis of the Dictionary and of the kind of information it contains. Looking at Chinese dialectology from a Western point of view, the author aims to understand and present the Chinese perspective.

This book brings together new theoretical perspectives and bilingual education models from different sociopolitical and cultural contexts across the globe in order to address the importance of sociocultural, educational and linguistic environments that create, enhance or limit the ways in which diasporic children and young people acquire the ‘Chinese’ language. The chapters present a variety of research-based studies on Chinese heritage language education and bilingual education drawing on detailed investigations of formal and informal educational input including language socialization in families, community heritage language schools and government sponsored educational institutions. Exploring the many pathways of learning ‘Chinese’ and being ‘Chinese’, this volume also examines the complex nature of language acquisition and development, involving language attitudes and ideologies as well as linguistic practices and identity formation. Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities is intended for researchers, teacher-educators, students and practitioners in the fields of Chinese language education and bilingual education and more broadly those concerned with language policy studies and sociolinguistics.

"This volume features a discourse empirical orientation from diverse perspectives and various methodologies, in which narratives, interviews, surveys, and large-scale databases or self-created written and spoken corpora are employed and analyzed to gain a better understanding of new developments and changes in the Chinese language and discourse. Authors employ updated approaches from a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, functional linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics, to describe the structure of the Chinese language and discourse and to examine its critical issues, many focusing on globalization-induced language developments and changes. With an empirically-based discourse/socio-cultural approach, this collection makes valuable contributions to research on Chinese language and discourse and serves as a sound reference for Chinese researchers and educators in diverse fields such as Chinese language and discourse, Chinese linguistics and language education, Chinese multiculturalism, and more"--

This book takes a corpus-based approach, which integrates translation studies and contrastive analysis, to the study of translational language. It presents the world’s first balanced corpus of translational Chinese, which, in combination with a comparable native Chinese corpus, provides a reliable empirical basis for a comprehensive account of the macro-statistic, lexical, and grammatical features of translational Chinese in English-to-Chinese translation – a significant contribution to Descriptive Translation Studies. The research findings based on these two distinctly different languages have important implications for universal translation research on the European tradition.

Aspirational and expanding, this book examines contemporary Chinese language and discourse across a spectrum of linguistic layers and genres in diverse social contexts. Addressing issues ranging from the usual focus on language per se, or language use in reaction to the immediate settings, to the connections between properties of texts and social practices (ideologies, stancetaking, power relations, etc.), the updated and exemplary research projects presented in the volume demonstrates a developing trajectory of research in Chinese language and discourse. With its empirical focus and stress on the role of language and discourse in social practice, this important new book discusses various language features as well as gender, stancetaking, and identity in Chinese discourse. This is a vital discussion for anyone interested in contemporary Chinese language and discourse studies. In examination of different layers of language (i.e. from lexical items and sentence structures to discourse features and discursive practices) across different genres of texts, the research projects have drawn on a variety of linguistic approaches and methodologies, including functional linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and various approaches to discourse analysis. Researchers and students of Chinese linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse studies, translation studies, and China studies in general will find this volume an indispensable reference and an enjoyable read.

This book features the latest research on translation by a dozen leading scholars of translation studies in China. The themes discussed are diverse, and include: translation policy, literary translation, medical translation, corpus translation studies, teaching translation, translation technologies, media translation, interpreting studies and so on. The contributors are all respected experts on their respective topics. The book reflects the state-of-the-art of translation studies in China, and offers a unique window on the latest thoughts on translation there.

This book calls for a change in the way interculturality is introduced in Chinese language education, while the demand for Chinese language teaching increases around the world. The concept of culture – as in the phrase ‘Chinese culture’ – has often been one of the main emphases of Chinese language education, providing students with facts about China and ‘recipes’ on how to meet Chinese people and how to behave like them. However, Chinese culture, like all cultures, does not constitute a closed system, but is constantly evolving and exchanging with other cultures. This unique volume comprises studies from around the world that promote intercultural awareness, dialogue, and encounters in Chinese language education. Written in a clear and readable style, this book will appeal to a diverse readership, from practising and training teachers of Chinese, to researchers interested in language and intercultural education.