The Study Of Chalmers John's An Account Of The Structure Of Chinese Characters

An account of the structure of Chinese characters is one of the representative works of Chalmers John,a British missionary who came to China in the 19 th century.On the basis of collecting relevant materials,the author takes An account of the structure of Chinese characters as the research object,makes a detailed arrangement and analysis of the preface,300 primary forms and the characteristics of analyzing the structure of Chinese characters,summarizes Chalmers John's overall understanding of the Chinese character system,his return to Shuowen and his correction of Kangxi dictionary,and evaluates its value and shortcomings,hoping to give a new inspiration to the theory and practice of teaching of Chinese characters as a foreign language..This paper consists of four chapters:The introduction part introduces the research reason and value,research history and current situation,and research methods.The research object of this paper is “An Account of the Structure of Chinese Characters”written by Chalmers John.It is to investigate Chalmers John's sunderstanding of Chinese character system,so as to provide reference for today's foreign Chinese character teaching.The current research situation mainly includes two aspects: one is the academic research on the western Chinese characters;the other is the academic research on Chalmers John.Chapter one: Chalmers John and An account of the structure of Chinese characters.This chapter introduces the research object in detail,including the author's life and works,the background of the book,the circulation of the edition,the arrangement of the style and the main content of the book.Chapter two: the concept of Chinese characters reflected in An account of the structure of Chinese characters.This chapter discusses Chalmers John's understanding of the Chinese character system in detail by combing the preface of the book;through quantitative analysis of 300 primary forms,summarizes the characteristics of the basic characters;compares the interpretation of the characters in the book with Shuowen and other classic philological works,summarizes the mode of Chalmers John's interpretation of Chinese characters,the return of Shuowen and the correction of Kangxi dictionary.Chapter three: the reference function of An Account of the Structure of Chinese Characters to teaching Chinese characters to foreigners.This chapter combines the historical background and historical limitations to explore the value and shortcomings of Chalmers John's explanation of the structure of Chinese characters,and summarizes the content that should be paid attention to in the teaching of root characters.The appendix part shows the corpus that the author arranged for writing the thesis,which is convenient for the readers to understand the research content of the thesis intuitively and for other interested researchers to consult.