Literature And Grammar Research Of "Language Ziyuan Ji"

The present study focuses on the editions status and grammar contents of Yti-yen Tzu-erh Chi, A progressive course designed to assist the student of colloquial Chinese, as spoken in the Capital and the Metropolitan department(1867/1886/1903), which is the Beijing Mandarin text-book published in the late 19th century. As a cross-program, this study contains Multidisciplinary research productions and theoretical methods, such as Historical Chinese Grammar Research, East-West Languages Contact, the History of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, Study of Later Qing Dynasty and soon.The problem in nowadays research is the starting point of this paper. There are three key problems:the insufficient investigation of the editions status, the absence of grammar study and the confusion of evaluation system. In this situation, the study pays attention to historical data and textual materials, and obtains achievements in these aspects:A new discovery of information for a Chinese assistant; An initiative comparison among the three editions of Tzu-erh Chi; A more accurate definition of the authors’ concept of grammar and language materials; A more detailed process of the book’s accomplishment and currency; And an attempt for comprehensive evaluation system of Tzu-erh Chi.This paper contains four parts:preface, respective arguments of three chapters, conclusion and appendix. Each part is interrelated, so the whole paper can be both systematic and self-sufficient. The followings are the main contents of these parts:The preface reviews the historical environment and academic thoughts in Yu-yen Tzu-erh Chi’s age, and reflects on the research achievements and problems on this topic.There are two sections in this chapter. The aim of the first section is locating Yu-yen Tzu-erh Chi in the background of the Chinese grammar research by western scholars in 16th to 19th century, by the factors, such as the character of the literature, the background of the author, the mode of publishment and so on. The second section is designed to summarize the research productions on this topic, find out the possibility and feasibility for further study, and briefly introduce the perspectives and lines of investigation in this paper.Chapter II is mainly about the book and the authors, aiming to make clear of the background and preparation process of the book.The first section of this chapter focuses on those authors, who formed an East-west cooperation team. Not only clearing the information and tasks division of every staff in this team, but also having a deep investigation of Wade’s experience with Beijing Mandarin and YING LUNG-T’IEN’s contribution to Tzu-erh Chi. The second section focuses on the book, and traces the background and preparation process of the book’s each version and parts by describing the outline of the three editions and varieties forms survived. The result of this section is pivotal for defining the language features of different contents in Tzu-erh Chi.The breakthrough points of Chapter III are the mid-19th century language background and the characteristic of Tzu-erh Chi’s content.Analysis of the first section of this chapter shows that the target language of Tzu-erh Chi is elegant and courtesy Spoken Beijing Mandarin in mid-19th century, which is a significant contemporary data for Qing Dynasty language study. The second section reveals Wade’s concept of grammar by comparative analysis with Tzu-erh Chi’s teaching style and west grammar and syntax cognitive system. With the theoretical method of Meta-Language, the third section clears the contradiction and unity between the unique concepts of Chinese grammar in Wade’s mind and the Western traditional grammar and syntax cognitive system, and summarizes the dominant and recessive interpretative forms of Tzu-erh Chi.Chapter IV concentrates on the grammar contents of Tzu-erh Chi, and finds out "the equivalents of English parts of speech in Chinese" and "how Chinese produces most of the results affected in English by inflexion", which is in order to reveal the authors’essential understanding about Chinese and the authors’Chinese cognitive system under the text.The system includes many elements, such as how to distinguish, how to describe the nature and extent and how to express the Tense, Moods, Gender, Number and Case in Chinese and so on. The followings are the key points in this Chapter:●Comprehensive collection of information, especially the recessive forms and the differences among the versions.●Careful and detailed analysis, including the whole grammatical function framework and the individual cases.●Contemporary argumentation, using the material from the inner part, Tzu-erh Chi, and outer part, other spoken-language fictions in Later Qing Dynasty. ●Comparative analysis, making a comparison between the production of Chinese grammar from the early western scholars and the research on Chinese grammar from Modern linguists, and revealing Tzu-erh Chi’s innovative and forward-looking.Based on the arguments above, the conclusion summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of Tzu-erh Chi’s Chinese grammar content, and evaluates the research methods in this case. By contacting the overall and individual, experiences of how to analyze and exploit those the early western scholars’productions of Chinese grammar, are drew from the case study of Tzu-erh Chi.As a helpful supplement to the main content, the three appendixes collect and present the chiefly facsims, original data of Tzu-erh Chi, and a part of the corrections for the Chinese translation (2002), all of which will provide a clue for future research in this field.