A Study On The Illustrations Of Ancient Chinese Textbooks For Foreign Students

In recent years, as more and more studies have been taken in the textbooks of Chinese language, the textbook illustrations are attracted attentions increasingly.Apparently the illustrations have become an important and irreplaceable part of Chinese textbooks. At present, the development of ancient Chinese textbooks which are used by the students abroad is not mature. No representative materials can be found in the market and the existing textbook illustrations still have a lot of deficiencies. Therefore, this paper analyses these problems specifically on the base of the study of four ancient Chinese teaching materials which are published recently.This paper are consist of three chapters except of the introduction and conclusion:The first chapter is mainly foucus on the amount and distributing of the illustrations in ancient Chinese textbooks. According to the statistics and analysis, a conclusion can be drawed that the amount of the illustrations in the ancient Chinese textbooks are much less than primary Chinese textbooks which are also used for teaching students abroad. And for the distributing, the parts of the text have the most illustrations. Apparently the distributing is asymmetry.The second chapter mainly discusses the form and function of the ancient Chinese textbook illustrations. The forms of the illustrations are relatively single. Most of them are character scene graphs and a few of them are physical photos and maps and so on. The illustrations in some teaching material are all rubbings. The main function of ancient Chinese textbooks illustrations is to explain and strengthen the interestingness. Some of them also have the functions of ornamental and beautification. The specific function of explanation is to explain the plot or key words somewhere in the text. Each set of textbooks address differently.On the basis of the first two chapters,the third chapter is about specific analysis of the problems which existed in the ancient Chinese illustrations and put forward some suggestions:1. Make the quantity of the illustrations reasonable and use the single figure, photos and figure group properly.2. Try to make the distribution of the illustrations symmetrical. Cut or add the illustrations according to the necessity of the text.3. Mind the layouts and enrich the forms of the illustrations.4. Improve the quality of illustrations and make it more useful.