Teaching Chinese As Second Language For Outdoors Non-Commercial Signs And Slogans

China has become a strong country in the 21th century. Chinese language is being widely promoted and advocated. Consequently, two important questions have arisen—what are the purposes of teaching Chinese as a foreign language? Secondly, what are the required contents that should be included in the curriculum?Street signs and slogans are not directly related to profits and lucre, rather they are influenced by social, ethical, and cultural factors. They appear in concise and specific format, which are intended for providing information that would be easily understood by the public. The complexity and variety of street signs become a major concern in Chinese linguists. They are not only a part of social linguistic life, but also are tools for advertisement. Therefore, a question is being asked—will the signs influence the curriculum of Chinese instruction?Operation regulates structure; purposes determine solution. Knowing the purposes and objectives would help educators decide what contents should be included in our Chinese curriculum. The common belief among Chinese teachers is—the purpose of teaching Chinese is that the language is a tool; learners need to know how to use it for daily communication and for adapting the changing environment. We think having this goal is insufficient.Language is not only for intellectual exchange and communication, but also for cultural exchange, which is the fundamental element of social structure. Culture exchange means intercommunication between human beings. Therefore, the main purpose of cultural exchange is to create an environment of reciprocate learning where cultural interdependence occurs. Based on this theory, teaching Chinese has four stages:first, the comment of the language—knowing how to use the language in order to fulfill the communicative functions. Secondly, the understanding of Asian life—knowing how people live and as a result, learners would be able to obtain employments and meet the basic needs. Thirdly, understanding of the culture—knowing why the language is being used in a particular way. From understanding the culture, the learners would be able to gain a deeper appreciation of cultural differences. Fourth, interdependence between the societies—this is based on cultural understanding. Among these four stages---comment of the language, understanding of Chinese life, understanding of the culture and interdependence between the societies, the comment of the language should be served as the instrument for interdependence between the societies.From the comment of language, the signs and slogans are the most common types of linguistics expression in our society. From the perspective of understanding life, creating an environment where authentic language is being used is necessary and important. Signs and slogans are the expression of authentic language. From the perspective of knowing the culture, signs and slogans are the integration of culture, history, societal development, and life style. Therefore, studying signs and slogans should be a part of foreign language teaching.Based upon the theory of cultural communication and the relevant data of the signs and slogans in four cities:Shanghai, Fuzhou, Sanming, and some neighborhoods in New York City, the paper conducts an investigation and analysis on signs on the basis of field study in order to compare the linguistic structures and contents between English and Chinese. Additionally, a survey and questionnaire in testing high school students' comprehension and understanding in sings and slogans are being conducted. The aim of comparing signs in Chinese and English is to improve the instructional strategies in the curriculum of teaching Chinese. Moreover, some suggestions are provided in this paper in order to reevaluate the social linguistic life and improve general aspect of Chinese society.