A Study Of The Chinese Language Perspective And Chinese Language Communication Activities In John Francis Davis

John Francis Davis(1795-1890)was an important figure in the history of Sino-British exchanges in the 19 th century,known as the second governor of Hong Kong and as the consulate’s sinologist.Most of the existing researches have studied Davis from the perspective of history and translation,but his activities related to Chinese language have not been given due attention for a long time.His activities related to the Chinese language were at the beginning of the formation of the Chinese language education system in England,and are important for understanding the spread of the Chinese language in England in the 19 th century.The article is developed in five parts.Chapter 1: Introduction.This chapter explains the origin of this paper,literature review,research ideas,sources,and significance of the study.Chapter 2: Davis’ s Chinese learning activities.As one of the representative figures of Chinese students in the Chinese language classes of the East India Company’s Canton Factory,Davis’ s Chinese learning activities were at the early stage of the formation of the British Chinese teaching system,and to a certain extent reflected the face of the British Chinese teaching system in the first half of the 19 th century.This chapter examines Davis as a Chinese language learner and introduces his Chinese learning activities,including four aspects: learning background,learning motivation,learning materials,and learning process.Chapter 3: Davis’ s View of Chinese Language.His view of Chinese was influenced by the background of his time and his multiple identities,and had distinctive characteristics different from those of the missionaries.This chapter introduces Davis’ s view of Chinese in the order of vocabulary,Chinese characters,phonetics,and grammar based on his published works,and finally discusses the characteristics of his view of Chinese.Chapter 4: Chinese language propagation activities in Davis.The Chinese language dissemination activities of Davis had different characteristics from those of the missionaries because of the involvement of power factors.This chapter discusses Davis’ s Chinese communication activities from three aspects: the content,measures,and significance of his Chinese communication.At the same time,the role of power in the process of Chinese language dissemination is discussed in the light of Davis’ s multiple identities.Conclusion: This part is developed by two aspects: on the one hand,it summarizes the activities of learning Chinese,the view of Chinese language and the activities of Chinese language transmission in Davis;on the other hand,it reflects on the shortcomings in the process of writing the article.Based on the historical perspective of the international Chinese language education discipline,the article adopts the case study method,the interdisciplinary research method,and the comparative analysis method.Based on the compilation of Davis’ s published writings and papers and the related literature,the article conducts a case study of his Chinese language learning activities,Chinese language views,and Chinese language dissemination activities.