Title: On the properties and pedagogy of written Chinese
Abstract: This paper argues for a distinction between formal and informal Chinese based on the study of the Collection of Formal Expressions in Chinese. It proposes that there are at least five important syntactic and stylistic properties in written Chinese: 1) the development of the formal system; 2) the correlation between style and word length; 3) monosyllabic words used in a disyllabic template; 4) disyllabic words used as a couplet; and 5) formal patterns taken from ancient Chinese. It is further argued that the formal and informal styles in Chinese are also determined by prosody. Finally, some essential principles and teaching methods are proposed for teaching Chinese as a second language.
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 3
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