The Research On Samuel Wells Williams’ Chinese Language Works And Chinese Teaching Thoughts

Samuel Wells Williams was one of the American protestant missionaries whohad been in China for forty years since1833. During this period of time, Williamshad created lots of works including four books about Chinese learning: Easy Lessonsin Chinese, An English and Chinese Vocabulary in the Court Dialect, A TonicDictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect and A Syllabic Dictionaryof the Chinese Language. He started his Chinese life from studying the language,and then devoted to compiling textbooks and dictionaries to help others theacquisition of Chinese. When finally returned home, Williams established the firstChinese Research Center and the first Eastern Library in the USA. In some way,Chinese has become an integral part of his life, and he had made a contribution tothe Chinese language and culture both in the teaching and researching and outboundmessaging. Based on the four books as mentioned above, this dissertation is main lyinvestigating Williams’ beliefs in Chinese teaching, his acquisition experience andthe learning advice in Chinese language, and his proposals on Chinese teaching andresearch. After that, we try to link his works and thoughts to current practice, in thehope of doing something good to the academic discussing in this area.This dissertation falls into five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, whichtells the significance and status quo of this thesis, and the sauce of the mainreference materials and research method. Chapter Two explores Williams’ beliefs inChinese teaching, including words and phrases take precedence over grammar,listening and reading drills are top priorities, devoting his mind to one thing only atonce. Chapter Three focuses on his acquisition experience and the learning advice inChinese language through three aspects: speech sounds, characters and measurewords. Chapter Four investigates his proposals on Chinese teaching, that is theimportance of reading teaching and contrastive study between Chinese and foreignlanguages. Chapter Five discusses Williams proposals on Chinese textbooks anddictionaries compiling and reflections to modern Chinese language teaching andresearching.