A Study Of Chinese Teaching Materials Edited By Westerners During Late Qing Dynasty

The late Qing Dynasty is one of the most important periods in the history of cultural communication between China and western countries, when the protestant missionaries coming to China in large number prompted the second climax of the westerners learning Chinese language. The westerners at that time, including primarily missionaries, businessmen and diplomats, compiled a large variety of Chinese teaching materials in order to satisfy their respective language learning needs. Based on an analysis of the relatively abundant first-hand Chinese teaching materials complied by the westerners in the late Qing Dynasty, this dissertation explores the theories and approaches of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, trying to map out a course of its development, and examining the contents and patterns of Chinese-teaching by the westerners. It is of great importance for us to summarize the experience and characteristics of their teaching, thus providing valuable reference to the present curriculum of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.The first chapter introduces the general situation of westerners compiling Chinese textbooks in the late Qing Dynasty. The period of more than a century of progress witnessed four stages of development in westerners’ compilation of Chinese textbooks. The first stage is the period of primary exploration, spanning from1800to1840, when the number of the materials and the level of compilation are both limited. The main principle of compilation is based on that of translation, which indicates that they have a poor understanding as to the features of the language. The textbooks on the Chinese grammar are framed as the Indo-European grammar and a great number of learners are the missionaries. The second stage ranges from1841to1860, which was a period of boom. With the opening of the trading ports, the areas designated exclusively for the westerners living in China are accordingly enlarged. The need accordingly increased for textbooks on the dialects from the trading areas. The learners are no longer only missionaries, but include businessmen and diplomats. The period spanning from1861to1890is the third stage which witnessed the gradual maturity. After the Second Opium War, the gate of the country is opened more widely, which means foreigners are entitled to conduct business in more areas in the inner China, which area covers nearly half the country. This urges the appearance of more teaching materials on dialects and the Peking official language is increasingly highlighted, which precipitated the appearance of textbooks of the written language. The westerners consciously employed the teaching methodology of Ahn and Ollendorff to compile the textbooks, thus making the compilation and teaching of Chinese language more mature than before. The fourth stage covers the period from1891to1911, which is regarded as the full-scale flourishing period. The cultural exchanges between China and the West are unprecedentedly active: the variety and number of the Chinese teaching materials are both on the rise, although the grammar textbooks disappear.The second chapter is mainly about the Westerners’ phonetics teaching during the late Cling Dynasty. The westerners tend to make the phonetic notation according to the Roman system in order to facilitate their learning about the pronunciation of the Chinese characters. So the Roman marking system is employed, which differs from the western learners’ practice in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty. From the19th century onward, the westerners begin to employ the English spelling systems to mark the pronunciation of the Chinese words. But neither of these systems could correctly suggest the phonetics of the Chinese words. As a monosyllabic language, the real Chinese phonetics can only be acquired from the teachers. Tones and aspirated consonants do not exist in the western languages, which add difficulties to the learning. But what is surprising is that they did find out some effective methods of learning and teaching tones and aspirated consonants.The third chapter deals with the westerners’ grammar teaching. On the one hand, they make a close analysis under the framework of the Indo-European grammar system, dividing the Chinese words into eight categories and trying to seek the similar grammatical forms in Chinese; on the other hand, they focus on the characteristics of the Chinese language, trying to identify the unique features in the Chinese grammar. They at the same time introduce and diagnose the individual grammatical phenomena which are common to both the Chinese and western languages. For example, the westerners generally are able to distinguish the theoretical and practical grammars by means of translation, exemplification, functional conception and comparison. They advocate observation in grammar learning and tend to give special hints to the difficult points.The fourth chapter discusses the westerners’ teaching of Chinese vocabulary. While the western languages belong to phonographic system, the Chinese characters are ideographic, which are time-honored with many different fonts, so the Chinese characters are difficult for the westerners to master. The westerners pay a lot of attention to the learning of the radicals and the components of the characters. In addition, they set great importance on the skills of the Chinese character strokes and stroke order variation.Due to the fact that the western linguistics has a tradition of stressing the importance of grammar and phonetics, the teaching of vocabulary is overshadowed. But influenced by the western linguistics, the westerners collect and figure out the Chinese language, especially the dialects, and then compile them into the bilingual vocabulary books and dictionaries. The vocabulary teaching is becoming increasingly mature. The westerners give a special attention to the unique four-word idioms, sayings and slangs.To sum up, this dissertation studies the Chinese teaching materials compiled by the westerners in the late Qing Dynasty. The examination in terms of phonetics, grammar, characters and vocabulary is intended to give a clear and all-dimensional understanding about the westerners’ Chinese learning. From the analysis, we can see that the compilation of the Chinese teaching materials in the late Qing Dynasty attach great weight to practicability and pertinence, highlighting the teaching of difficult and important points. Gradually, the modes of compilation, usually the team work of both the Chinese and the western scholars, are becoming perfected. By using the academic achievements of the Chinese and western linguistics and considering their shortcomings of learning Chinese, the westerners develop and carry out a kind of objective-oriented teaching strategy which proves very effective. The westerners’ compilation of the Chinese teaching materials and their research on Chinese language in the late Qing Dynasty is one of the most crucial components in the language exchange between the east and the west. It exerts a far-reaching influence on many aspects of Chinese linguistics. In addition, their textbooks contain valuable and vivid contemporary Chinese language materials, thus broadening the research on the ontology of the Chinese language. These materials are invaluable cultural legacy, which deserves our further exploration, research and arrangement.