The Self-education Character Of Chinese Text Interpretation

Text Interpretation offers the basic guarantee to achieve the educational function of Chinese text. Text interpretation is one of the basic forms of the Chinese teaching and learning activity. The thesis finds out the self-education character of Chinese text interpretation from philosophical hermeneutics perspective through the research methods of literature analysis, comparative studies, case analysis, and theoretical interpretation and so on. The main writing route of this thesis is to analyze the basic situation of Chinese text interpretation since 1949, to generalize the three patterns of Chinese text interpretation after liberation, to find out the basic characteristics and divergence of three patterns, and then to sum up that the common educational impact is the self-distortion of the students. By the studies of theories and practices on mother language text interpretation in ancient, modern China and foreign countries, this thesis also finds out that to highlight the student-self is the common characteristics of them, thus to offer the historical and comparative evidences for the self-education character of Chinese text interpretation. And then, by the analysis of the internal mechanism, the thesis confirms the self-education character of Chinese text interpretation. In the end, the thesis dissertates how to carry on the self-education of the students in the Chinese text interpretation from three aspects of purposes, content, and methods.The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One:Introduction. It is mainly about the origin and significance of the research, literature review, the research problems and the basic assumption, the convention of concepts, research methods and research designs so as to introduce the basic situation of the paper.Chapter Two:to deviate from the self-the real-ran status of Chinese text interpretation after 1949. This chapter mainly concerns the historical studies about the Chinese text interpretation. The historical real-ran status of Chinese text interpretation after liberation is divided into three stages: political indoctrination orientation before reform and opening up; knowledge and ability orientation in the new era; humanity literacy orientation in the new century. All of which are analyzed and explained in the dimensions of aims, content, methods and impacts. The Chinese text interpretation of political indoctrination orientation before reform and opening up to carry out ideological and political education as the interpretation purpose, to explore the main idea as the central task of interpretation content, to combine the text interpreting methods of sociology, article study with lecture-based teaching method, which shapes the students as the "social persons" whose personality has been lost. The Chinese text interpretation of knowledge and ability orientation in the new era allows the students to gain knowledge and ability as the interpretation purpose, to analyze the forms of text as the central task of interpretation content, to combine the text interpretation methods of article study, semantics with teacher-directed practice, which trains the students as self-alienation "tool man". The Chinese text interpretation of humanity literacy orientation in the new century focuses on the improvement of the students'humanity literacy and personality, but it pursues the text novelty meaning as the main task of interpretation content and it chiefly adopts the text interpretation methods of reception aesthetics, deconstruction and the seminars, which actually makes the students as self mediocre "impetuous person". In short, three forms of Chinese text interpretations all deviate from the healthy comprehensive development of the student-self to some extend. Although the features of the three forms of interpretation vary, and the impacts on the students' self-development are different, but they have a common feature from the philosophical hermeneutics perspective to separate the student-self from the deep implication of the text, which is the common reason why they lead to distortion of the student-self. Chapter Three:to highlight the self-the evitable enlightenment from the mother language text interpretation in the ancient, modern China and foreign countries. This chapter is chiefly the comparative studies on the theories and practice of the mother language text interpretation in the ancient, modern China and foreign countries. Although the ancient Chinese text interpretation in China has the characteristics of respecting classics, believing teachers, inquiring for the original meaning of the text, but abundance of writing data shows that it also pays more attention to the tradition of the students'active dynamic performance. The most predominant is to emphasize on the students'"self-achievement" and "introspection" which are mainly reflected in the following reading theories and methods:Zhuang-tzu and Wang Bi's "to prefer the connotation to the external language" interpretation method; Meng-tzu's "self-achievement by hard study" and "to empathize for the initial meaning "interpretation method; Zhu Xi's "wake-up, experience, gnosis, spring-up " interpretation method. In addition, the interpretation method of "Zen style of pick-up-flower and point-to-the-moon" focus on "introspection", the tradition of "interpretation in mind" in Song Dynasty, chant reading and so on are all the better methods. The student-self stands out in "May 4" period in modern China, the related works of Hu Shi, Ye Shengtao, Meng Xiancheng, Zhu Jingnong, Wang Senran and several Chinese curriculum documents at that time all emphasize on the students' free interpretation and the dominative position of the student-self in the interpretation. And in the 1930s and 1940s, Ye Shengtao, Xu Shoushang, Fu Binran all indicate how to make the student-self participate in the text interpretation. Coincidentally, America, Japan, Britain, France, and Germany and several other more developed countries in education also highlight the student-self in the mother language text interpretation. Among them, the mother language text interpretation in America particularly emphasizes on the students'individual differences and self-development; while the mother language text interpretation in Japan stresses the self-autonomy and independence of the student-self; and the mother language text interpretation in Britain, France, and Germany mostly emphasizes the active participation and self-reflection of the student-self. Lots of theories and practice on text interpretation in ancient, modern China and foreign countries indicate that to highlight the student-self is the inherent requirement for the Chinese text interpretation to realize the function to promote the students'self-development.Chapter Four:to educate the self-the internal mechanism of Chinese text interpretation from the philosophical hermeneutics perspective. This chapter mainly discusses the principles of the Chinese text interpretation based on the philosophical hermeneutics. The Chinese text interpretation highlights the student-self, because to realize its function of educating people, it must abide by the inherent laws of the text interpretation and rely on the dependent dynamic participation of the student-self. As a set of specialized more perfect theories to study how to understand and explain the phenomenon, the philosophical hermeneutics provides theoretical basis and support for us. To examine the Chinese text interpretation activities from this theoretical perspective, we find that the authentic procedure of the Chinese text interpretation is actually a process of the self-education for the students:experience and reflection to enable students to introspect and recognize the self in the Chinese text interpretation; the fusion of horizons and hermeneutic cycle enable the students to promote and the self in the Chinese text interpretation. The application of the understanding enables the students to achieve the self-creation and self-realization in the Chinese text interpretation. So it could be said that the Chinese text interpretation from the philosophical hermeneutics has the character of the self-education.Chapter Five:Self-education-the pursued personality of the Chinese text interpretation. This chapter is mainly about the application of Chinese text interpretation. Although the Chinese text interpretation in the sense of the philosophical hermeneutics has an inherent character which enable students to carry out their self-education, but this kind of self-education in the real interpretation situation does not occur naturally because of the students'prepared knowledge, abilities and interests and other "pre-understanding" restrictions, and it requires teachers to follow the premise of the laws and give the students reasonable proper guidance, this paper concludes that the instruction on Chinese text interpretation should take the measures as following:to take the self-development of the students as the interpretation purpose; to focus on the self-construction of text meaning by the students in the interpretation content; to take the philosophical hermeneutics as the methodology and to take the form of dialogue as the basic teaching methods. In specific teaching dialogue, teachers should make the following efforts:to initiate the students'experience and introspection by designing the questions elaborately to "stimulate their curiosity"; to activate the students' "pre-seeing" to promote the occurrence of deep fusion of horizons between their understanding and the text; To guide students to look back at themselves constantly in interpretation so as to achieve the application of understanding.