A Study On The Phonology Of Aso 's Chinese Oral English Intensive Course

Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Spoken Language is a textbook, which intended to assist beginners in the Chinese spoken language. It is written by Joseph Edkins, a missionary of London Missionary Society, who was a famous sinologist in the 19th century. As far as known, the work has five editions. The study is mainly based on the fifth edition, while other editions give us reference. The work is divided into two parts by the Lesson 49 of the text. In this thesis, we make a study on the similarities and differences between the two parts, and analyse their phonological system.The thesis is divided into seven parts. The main content is as follows:Preface introduces the object, the previous researches, the significance and the metod of the study. Through the analysis of related work, we preliminarily concluded the phonological system of the two parts:the former reflects the reading Mandarin which is based on the Wu Fang Yuan Yin, while the latter reflects the spoken Mandarin which is based on the Peking dialect recorded in the Hsin Ching Lu.Chapter 1 introduces the phonetic transcription of the Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Spoken Language, analyses the credibility of the work, and illustrates the principle we used.Chapter 2-4 describes the the initial system, the final system, and the tone system of the Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Spoken Language. By comparing with the Medieval pronounciation, we can conclude the similarities and differences between the phonological system of the two parts.Chapter 5 investigates the tone sandhi of the Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Spoken Language. The investigation proved the phonological system of the two parts: the former reflects the reading Mandarin, while the latter reflects the spoken Mandarin which is based on the Peking dialect. Meanwhile, the tone sandhi in the first part of the work reflects that the reading Mandarin is partly influenced by the spoken Mandarin.Chapter 6 compares the work with Wu Fang Yuan Yin, Hsin Ching Lu, The Phonological System of Nanking Dialect and the phonological system of today’s Peking dialect and Nanking dialect. Through the comparison, we conclude the phonological system of the work:the former reflects the reading Mandarin which is based on the Nanking dialect, while the latter reflects the spoken Mandarin which is based on the Peking dialect. The two parts of the work present the influence and competition of the reading Mandarin and the spoken Mandarin as well as the Peking dialect and the Nanking dialect during the transition period from modern Chinese to contemporary Chinese.Furthermore, there are the syllable form, the homophone lexicon, the comparison of each edition, and the translation of the work.