Contacts
Tuesday
2:00 pm – 3:45 pm
Room H
- Chaired by Alexandra Sizova
- Gabriele Tola, “Competing Terminologies and Norms of Translation: A Late Qing Glossary between Lexical Innovation and Japanese Dictionaries”
- Yezi Mu, “Foreign Influence or Indigenous Language Change: A Comparative Study on the Expressions of Tense and Aspect between the Daoxing bore jing and its Sanskrit Counterpart”
- Alexandra Sizova, “Achievements and Challenges in Teaching Mandarin Chinese in Russia’s Contemporary System of Secondary Education”
Gabriele Tola, “Competing Terminologies and Norms of Translation: A Late Qing Glossary between Lexical Innovation and Japanese Dictionaries”
The speaker discovered the manuscript of an English-Chinese glossary of terms in the field of naval architecture: the text was composed by the English translator John Fryer (1839–1928). The purpose of the speech is to examine the main features of the glossary and its sources; the speaker sketches an outlook of the circulation of terminologies in the period the glossary was drafted. Studying the historical significance and linguistic quality of some translated terms annotated in the glossary, the speaker compares its terminology with the concurrent Japanese one and with other Chinese relevant nomenclatures, demonstrating the complicated interaction in the glossary between lexical innovation and recovery of existing terms.
The purpose of the speech is to help to sketch a clearer outlook of the Chinese language in the late Qing, particularly pertaining to scientific and technical terminology. Exactly at this time, different terminologies were competing with each other. The importance of the analysis of the glossary does not only pertain to the norm of translation adopted; as numerous other lexicographical sources edited during the late Qing, it can also provide a better description and new perspectives on the circulation of terminologies in the time frame considered.
Yezi Mu, “Foreign Influence or Indigenous Language Change: A Comparative Study on the Expressions of Tense and Aspect between the Daoxing bore jing and its Sanskrit Counterpart”
Early Chinese Buddhist texts as the translations or compositions based on Indian Buddhist texts are supposed to be the earliest outcome of historical language contact between ancient Indic languages, early Literary Chinese and early vernacular Chinese. They demonstrate many linguistic features which are not attested in Chinese pre-Buddhist literature and their contemporary Chinese non-Buddhist texts. Some believe that these peculiar features were triggered by the contact with Indic languages while others argue that they were actually results of native language change. This research focuses on the expressions of two common grammatical categories, the tense and aspect, in an authentic early Chinese Buddhist text, the Daoxing bore jing (DXBR), and discusses whether there could be any Indic influences or not by comparing it with its extant Sanskrit counterpart, the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, which basically share the same content. The comparative analysis indicates that although sentences are often marked in the same type of tense in DXBR and its Sanskrit counterpart, there do exist some inexplicable exceptions. Besides, issues concerning the expressions of aspect are even more complicated as no clear correlations can be found. Such inconsistency between the Chinese text and its Sanskrit version suggests that DXBR, or early Chinese Buddhist texts in general, may have mainly adopted the expressions of tense and aspect from Chinese pre-Buddhist literature and ancient vernacular usage with only limited foreign influence.
Alexandra Sizova, “Achievements and Challenges in Teaching Mandarin Chinese in Russia’s Contemporary System of Secondary Education”
This paper presents the preliminary results of the study related to the current situation in teaching Mandarin Chinese at the secondary school level in the Russian Federation.
In the early 21st century, the increased interest to learning Chinese, mainly as a second foreign language (SFL), has been observed among Russian secondary school students. The popularity of this language may be predetermined by the set of factors, including the dynamics of Russian-Chinese strategic partnership, bilateral trade and cultural exchange, energetic PRC’s cultural diplomacy as well as the global trends of internationalisation, multilingualism, informatisation, the rise of attention to students’ communicative and intercultural competences being fully relevant to the modern educational setting in Russia, and others.
Meanwhile, the conceptual, organizational, methodological and practical aspects of institutionalisation and development of Chinese language as a new school subject in Russia has not yet received comprehensive analysis in academia. Based on the wide range of sources, this study aims to highlight some milestones of introduction and regulation of teaching Chinese in the national general education system, analyse the role of internal and external drivers of popularising Chinese language in Russian schools. It also considers recent achievements and challenges in organizing educational process and result assessment, creating relevant teaching materials and applying contemporary language instruction methods (Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), etc.) to Chinese language training practices faced by the pedagogical community and schools for the moment.
Event Timeslots (1)
Room H
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Contacts