A Comparative Study Of Joseph Edkins’ Spoken Chinese Grammar Textbooks

The British missionary Joseph Edkins wrote his first oral grammar textbook in 1853--A Grammar of Colloquial Chinese--As Exhibited in the Shanghai Dialect.Four years later,he wrote another oral grammar textbook--A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language.This article focuses on the phonetics,vocabulary,and syntax of the two oral grammar textbooks,analyzes the content and characteristics of the two oral grammar textbooks,and then compares and explores the two oral grammar textbooks to find out the differences between them.The differences between the two textbooks reflect the changes in Joseph Edkins’ understanding of the Chinese language,and his concepts of language research and textbook compilation.Most of these changes have progressive significance and are of great value to the compilation of contemporary Chinese language textbooks.From the perspective of teaching Chinese as a foreign language,this article also explores the enlightenment of the two oral grammar textbooks for international Chinese teaching.