The Study Of Chinese Idioms For The Second Language Acquisition

The definition and scope of Chinese idioms has always been in argument. The vague or evasive zigzag on definitions for idioms and idioms range, is a major weakness of study on idioms and relevant content. Not only the research on Chinese idioms, comparative study of Chinese and foreign idioms, idioms for the content of second language teaching and research, but also idiom class textbooks, dictionaries, syllabus, reading materials preparation, etc., need a clear and precise definition and range of idioms as a basis. This paper begins from the starting point of idiom study, to seize the basic questions of Chinese idioms-the definition of idioms and the number of idioms and to conduct research. Based on the analysis of the history of researching idioms, this paper lists all kinds of famous definitions of idioms and extract various elements of each definition to conduct analysis and comparison. Ultimately the element "comes from ancient classical works or earlier source" is determined as a decisive element of the definition to idioms, and an important difference between idioms and other kinds of fixed phrases, with the limit of the time is before1919, so as to emphasize the historical inheritance of idioms is a distinctive feature. Idioms and common sayings parallel, and the both form the " Sayings", which is also a part of fixed phrases. The ancient Chinese idiom has features of ancient Chinese language, and the common sayings, including Idioms, twisters and proverbs, have the features of modern language. Among the idioms there are some "ancient-idioms-to-be ",which are created in modern time. With the accumulation over time, they may become real "ancient idioms" in the future.With a clear definition of ancient Idioms as basis, an investigation on the number of them has been practised. We first collect large dictionary of idioms extensively, and the statistics by the number of entries in each of them. During the statistics, we also pay attention on whether the principle is strictly defined idiom. Second, from a number of large idiom dictionaries we collected, only those strictly defined and carefully edited, high-impact and with high academic standards will be taken as part of our investigations. The third step, we use statistical sampling method of group entries, to extract a representative sample of the "a""no""man" beginning idioms group and so on, from the selected four large idiom dictionaries. In the many angles of by the same time by different authors, different periods of the same author etc., multiple entries multilevel group comparative study will be conducted. We will analyze the scope of variations caused by the changes of times and editors, and explore the reasons why there are great differences on numbers and contents among different dictionaries,. Then a conclusion is drawn:a plurality of entries evolutions of original ancient idioms is the root causes of the large differences among dictionaries. This paper summarizes the characteristics of the idiom evolutions, analyzes various methods of evolution to produce, and makes a prediction on the future development trend of Chinese idioms. Through the statistics and analysis above, to estimate the overall number of Chinese idioms may be more than25,000, up to32,000or so.On the basis of the clear definition of idioms and the investigation and statistics onf Chinese idioms, The definitions of commonly used idioms and of teaching idioms are given in this paper, and further analysis indicates that, the relationship among idioms, commonly used idioms and teaching idioms should be, the idioms including the commonly used idioms, a small part of teaching idioms is and beyond the scope of commonly used phrases, and even beyond idioms. In this paper,"modern Chinese common vocabulary (Draft)" is used as the comparative copy, strict idiom definition as the standard, to develop a "Modern Chinese commonly used idioms list." The list is formed through three levels of screening. First, from the56,008words in the " modern Chinese common vocabulary (Draft)", extract all the words in four words and above to get6114; Then follow the principle of lax checking, doubtful reserving", out of all the entries clearly not idioms, such as proper nouns, academic terminology, novelty, idioms, etc., to get all possible entries in4656. Then take the "Dictionary of Idioms origin" as the standard, out of all entries not included, get to meet the stringent definition of idioms3443. In order to avoid errors and omissions,1213will be removed words are put into the national language corpus of ancient Chinese Language Research Center of Peking University library and the corpus of ancient Chinese library again to screen, and31extras in which are proved as conclusive ancient provenance idiom. Otherwise, two-,three-word-phrases are all extract from the " Dictionary of Idioms origin ", to test in the "modern Chinese words table (Draft)",and get62common two-,three-word-phrases. Finally, the "Modern Chinese commonly used idioms list" comes into being. The list includes totally3536commonly used idioms in modern Chinese, which contain two, three, four or more characters. The list Includes a body portion of3474idioms of and over four characters, and another list of62idioms of two or three characters. Each idiom in this list comes with a number from the "modern Chinese words table (Draft)," as a measure its frequency in modern society. The list is arranged with frequent sequence and with sequencer. After the development of the list,, an analysis on the word frequency and features is explored through the ZiCiFreq software, and discovered that the absolute number of characters used in the idioms,which is exactly only2375, is less than the2500commonly used Chinese characters. But these2375characters are comparatively difficult,587of which is out of the range of2500most common characters,302of which is even out of3500common characters. The data above is for the reference of Chinese learners.Chinese idiom embodies the culture of the Han nationality. Whether native speakers or second language learners, they all have a demand to learn some of Chinese idioms. The "Chinese idioms recommended teaching list" is developed by "teaching applicable" for the purpose. After investigation of the hot issues in teaching idioms, we focused on the determination of the number, the specific entries as well as the classification of the recommended teaching idioms. Through a market research on the common idiom dictionaries, idioms textbooks and idioms reading books, the number of teaching idioms recommended is determined to300to400. Frequency sorting and manual intervention are combined to select such idioms in the entry, and ultimately the321commonly used Chinese idioms with the top frequency are selected (including87idioms from the new HSK syllabus to meet the stringent definition of idioms). To meet the demand of practical teaching, an extra15idioms with high awareness in Chinese culture are selected, together with another30idioms which are not so strictly regard as "ancient Chinese idioms". And all these together constitutes the "Chinese idioms recommended teaching list" of366idioms.The list is divided into three levels:level1contains145idioms, for learners to master, for preparation for HSK and everyday use; level2contains150idioms, for learners to understand, to further expand in the daily use; level3contains71idioms, for interested learners to understand, to help understand the Chinese culture, history, stories, and help read newspapers and other formal style news. By the word frequency analysis and manual intervention, only one character in level1of the list is out of the new HSK syllabus,18characters in level2is out of the new HSK syllabus,29characters in level3is out. For the facilitation of teaching," Chinese idioms recommended teaching list" and graded in two ways by sequencers and frequency sequence arranged.