Zi-centered Theory And The Cognitive Method In TCFL

The Zi-centered theory is a linguistic school which was initiated by the Chinese researchers and aims at the solution of series of problems caused by "the westernized view-points" in Chinese linguistic studies. It takes "Zi" as the basic unit of Chinese language and the convergence of its phonetics, semantics, lexicology and syntax. Since its birth in the early 1990's, Xu Tongqiang, Pan Wenguo and other researchers have contributed quite a few research findings to this field, which have attracted attention from the linguistic world. However, the evaluation on it was quite controversial.Compared with the apathy of main-steam linguistics, in applied field the Zi-centered theory has cast greater influence, especially on TCFL. In fact, in the 1980's, the Zi-centered teaching method has already originated in France. With the emerging of Zi-centered theory, the teaching method has also made a stand in the domestic teaching circle. Its advocates, such as Joel Bellassen and Zhang Pengpeng, have not only put forward systematic teaching theory, but also complied specialized textbooks. Now there are a number of scholars who call for the use of Zi-centered teaching method in TCFL. It's fair to say that, at this moment, in both the theoretical and applied field the Zi-centered study has reached a stage of maturity, while yet waiting for further break-through.Therefore the purpose of our research is to combine the linguistic study of Zi-centered theory and its teaching method with some theoretical depth, and put forth a pedagogy system with better theoretical support, integrity and partially proved by teaching practice. We wish that with this method adopted, the traditional difficulties like the learning of Chinese characters, the training of reading and writing concerning western students could be overcome, and Chinese would no longer be a language which is "hard to learn" to those students.Our research has three main parts: On Language, On Psychology and On Pedagogy. The first part extracts teaching principles from the Zi-centered study of Chinese language; the second part supports those principles with conclusions of...