Comparative Research On The Passage Selection And Annotations Of Ancient Chinese Prose In Chinese Textbooks Of Junior Middle Schools

With the promulgation of Chinese Course Criterion of Full-time CompulsoryEducation in2001and the gradual perfection of the system of compilation andexamination separation, dozens of sets of teaching materials appear in China, among whichthe most representative ones include People’s Education Press (PEP) edition, JiangsuEducation Press edition, Beijing Normal University edition and Language and LiteraturePress edition. Compiled according to Chinese Course Criterion of Full-time CompulsoryEducation, they are actually different from each other in the aspect of passage selection,way of compilation and the proportion of classical Chinese and modern Chinese. Differenteditions have their respective advantages and disadvantages. Studying the passageselection and annotations of ancient Chinese prose is a demand of double excellence andmutual interpretation and also a demand of modern education and students’ understanding.Therefore, this paper focuses on studying the similarities and differences of the four sets ofteaching materials in the aspect of passage selection and annotations from a macroscopicperspective so as to provide reference and experience for textbook compilers and users.This paper adopts the methods of qualitative research, quantitative research anddocument research to compare and evaluate the passage selection and annotations ofancient Chinese prose in four sets of teaching materials. In the aspect of the passageselection of ancient Chinese prose, this paper finds that four sets of teaching materialsadopt theme-based units as the way of compilation and shuffle the texts of different stylesaccording to unit themes. Except for Language and Literature Press edition, other three setsof teaching materials adopt the shuffling of ancient Chinese prose and modern texts. Theproportion of classical Chinese and modern Chinese in four sets of teaching materialsgenerally presents a rising trend in various grades and witnesses an obvious change inGrade8and9. Among four sets of teaching materials, the proportion of classical Chineseand modern Chinese in Beijing Normal University edition is relatively low while theproportion of classical Chinese and modern Chinese in Language and Literature Pressedition is the highest. However, their respective proportions of classical Chinese andmodern Chinese do not exceed50%of their whole set of teaching material. In addition, thephenomenon of exclusive authors exists in the passage selection of ancient Chinese prose in four sets of teaching materials. Beijing Normal University edition owns the largestnumber of exclusive authors while Language and Literature Press edition has the minimumnumber of exclusive authors. Four sets of teaching materials show different proportions ofdynasties in texts. The proportions of Pre-Qin and Han dynasties in texts present the largestdifference, followed by Yuan dynasty and Qing dynasty. Language and Literature Pressedition usually selects texts from the same source and author repeatedly. When comparingannotations, this paper finds that four sets of teaching materials misuse two words “通”and “同” and have problems in the annotations of ancient Chinese prose includingambiguity, annotation mistakes, annotation clutter and the omittance of annotations.Language and Literature Press edition covers many and jumbled annotations and usuallytakes ancient Chinese prose as modern texts. Beijing Normal University edition isequipped with the most unified standard for annotations. Most of annotations start from theperspective of students and are easy for students to understand. PEP edition demonstratesobvious advantages and disadvantages in annotation with a solid foundation of annotations,but still needs to make up for deficiencies. Jiangsu Education Press edition has straight andnarrow annotations, overemphasizes the annotation of words, neglects the translation ofsentences and is poor in the integrality of translated texts.Through research, this paper comes to a conclusion that four sets of teaching materialsare different in standard for selecting texts and proportion and poor in the way ofcompilation and the state needs to raise a relatively detailed standard for selecting texts,deeply probe into the way of compilation for classical Chinese and modern Chinese andcarefully study the arrangement for the position of ancient Chinese prose. Four sets ofteaching materials need to carefully proofread, make up for deficiencies, eliminateundesirable words and lay emphasis on the accuracy and standardization of annotations inthe aspect of the annotations of ancient Chinese prose. Finally, this paper determines therelevant principles of selecting texts and annotations for various teaching materials.