A Study on Europeanized Chinese and its application in TCSL

• Main Authors: Meei-yuan Fann, 范美媛
• Other Authors: Shou-hsin Teng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/21096860448208041973

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 華語文教學研究所 === 100 === The development of Modern Mandarin over the past hundred years has at times been intertwined with the interaction between Chinese and Western cultures, resulting in the Chinese language interacting with many European languages. These interactions have in turn exerted influence over the Mandarin Chinese language, largely in a secondary fashion by way of European texts being translated en masse into Mandarin. The fact that the pronunciation, lexicon, morphology and grammar of Modern Mandarin have been affected by such language contact is undeniable. Among these linguistic changes, the largest influence has come from English. The Europeanization of Mandarin discussed in this thesis centers around changes wrought by direct and indirect contact with English. Some Europeanized forms of Chinese have already fully merged into modern Mandarin to the point that even native speakers are unaware of their foreign origins, but others have yet to be accepted by the Chinese speaking community as a whole. Researchers such as Wang Li (1943, 1980, 1990), Kubler (1985), He Yang (2008) and Ma Chunhua (2010) have concluded that the origins of this Europeanization phenomena is a product of indirect contact via translation and is chiefly limited to written language. Tsai Mei-chih (2010), has observed a new wave of Europeanization that has been occurring in Taiwan over the last 60 years. Hu Yunhui's (2011) study on Europeanization examines the translation of subtitles for animated Disney films. With previous research as its basis, the research presented here further investigates the Europeanization of Mandarin by analyzing the translation of English films and television programs as well as linguistic trends within certain online chat rooms in order to find out if this phenomenon is limited to formal written language. Rickford's continuum theory (1993) is adopted here to determine whether a given form is already become fully accepted by the full range of native Mandarin speakers or if it is still an obvious manifestation of Europeanization. Lastly, special attention is given to Mandarin textbooks for CSL learners, specifically as to whether learning materials aimed at intermediate and advanced learners contain Europeanized Mandarin. The discussion presents the pros and cons of these textbooks as they pertain to learners of Chinese and to their impact on Teaching Chinese as a Second Language as a whole. Whether the zero instruction method (i.e., positive transfer) can be applied to CSL learners in order to help them learn Europeanized forms more easily is also addressed. Conversely, if it is the case that Europeanized lexical and syntactical forms actually create interference for Western learners of Chinese, the question is: can the problem be dealt with by using teaching materials and methods which are arranged by level of difficulty?