Journal of Sinology and Chinese Language Education

Learning Anxiety in Advanced Chinese Intensive Reading Course among Thai Local University Students: Take MFU as an Example

2024-02-24T14:11:00+07:00

Foreign language anxiety, as one of the key emotional variables affecting the success of foreign language learning, has also attracted much attention from the Chinese second language teaching community. This paper takes the learning anxiety in advanced Chinese intensive reading course among Thai local university students as the object of investigation. It mainly uses a research method that combines questionnaires and interviews to explore the current situation of learning anxiety, its influencing factors, and its relationship with academic achievement. The study shows that the learners’ overall learning anxiety is strong and individual differences are not obvious. In various anxieties, their test anxiety is relatively the strongest, and “translation” anxiety is obviously the strongest. Learners’ learning anxiety is obviously affected by their personality, learning motivation, academic self-evaluation, and to a certain extent their self-evaluation of Chinese proficiency, but it is obviously not affected by academic expectations. There is a strong linear negative correlation between the two variables of learners’ academic performance and learning anxiety. Based on the above research findings and combined with the interview results, we put forward suggestions to alleviate or reduce the learning anxiety of learners in advanced Chinese intensive reading course, in order to improve their academic achievement.

A study of the Autumn’s Reflections through Chinese Proverbs

2024-02-24T14:18:29+07:00

This research is qualitative research that aims to study the reflection of the autumn season by collecting and categorising 4-syllable Chinese proverbs (or idioms) with 秋 from Chinese Idiom Dictionary, 2nd Edition (成语大词典). The study descriptively analyses utilising the classification of 4-syllable Chinese proverbs with 秋, based on its Chinese linguistic contexts and cultural milieu. The results reveal that 40 proverbs with 秋 can be classified into five main categories (including the proverbs that can be categorised into intersectional categories), 6 words in Category 1-Nature; 6 words in Category 2-Social life; 2 words in Category 3-Tradition; 14 words in Category 4-Psychology; 22 words in Category 5-Timing, incidents, aging, and appearances. The last category, which cannot be classified into any aforementioned categories, has found 4-syllable Chinese proverbs with 秋 the most. Additionally, some proverbs can be classified into intersectional categories, and some case studies can be applied.

A Qualitative Study of Intercultural Adaptation of International Students Staying in Chinese Universities: Take Southwest University as an Example

2024-02-24T14:30:20+07:00

The competence for intercultural adaptation is one of the indispensable abilities of international students. Under the special background of the COVID-19 pandemic and post-epidemic era, international students staying in Chinese universities have been facing new challenges in intercultural adaptation. This paper collects primary materials through time-tracking and in-depth interviews, sorts and codes them based on the grounded theory by employing the NVivo12 software, and builds the research model of intercultural adaptation for international students staying in Chinese universities, with an aim to illuminate the relationship between current situation, attributions and interventions. The results indicate that three major attributions, i.e. language skills, knowledge building and emotional factors, and two existing interventions, i.e. dominant intervention and recessive edification, both have significant effects on intercultural adaptation of international students staying in Chinese universities. Based on the findings, some suggestions are proposed to facilitate the intercultural adaptation of international students staying in Chinese universities and those returning from abroad to Chinese universities to promote the connotative development of internationalization of higher education in China in the post-epidemic era.

An Econometric Analysis of the Features of Vocabulary Use in Intermediate and Advanced Scientific Chinese Texts

2024-02-24T14:42:30+07:00

At present, the construction of “Chinese plus special-purpose” teaching materials has achieved remarkable results, among which the publication volume of Chinese teaching materials for scientific and technological purposes ranks among the top three. The study on the characteristics of vocabulary uses and arrangement in the text can better play its role as a bridge between general language teaching materials and professional skills teaching materials, and serve the special purpose Chinese teaching and learning. In this study, the text in Science and Technology Chinese Intermediate Reading Course and Science and Technology Chinese Advanced Reading Course is taken as research materials, and the three elements of vocabulary richness, text difficulty and vocabulary repetition are measured, and compared with the words in the “International Chinese Language Education Chinese Proficiency Level Standards.” The results show that there is no positive correlation between lexical diversity and difficulty level. The difficulty coefficient of Intermediate text varies greatly under the average word length and sentence length; The repetition rate and repetition interval of the two textbooks are low; About 50% of the words in the two textbooks are non-standard words, and only about 20% are words that are not standard words for six or more times. Based on the characteristics of vocabulary use in sci-tech Chinese textbooks, we give suggestions from three aspects: textbook compilation, student learning and teacher teaching. Based on the characteristics of vocabulary coverage compared with the Standards, we believe that we should establish a special outline for sci-tech Chinese, and put forward three reference principles.

The Value of Calligraphy in the Study of Chinese Characters for International Students: An Exquisite Blend of Clarity and Fusion

2024-02-24T15:04:22+07:00

Chinese characters, as the symbol carriers and communication tools of the Chinese language, hold significant aesthetic and communicative value. However, the challenges of recognizing, reading, and writing Chinese characters have persistently hindered the effective teaching of these characters to foreign students. In this regard, calligraphy, being an artistic form of Chinese characters, can play a dual role in teaching Chinese characters to foreign students. Firstly, it supplements the understanding of the character’s “form”, and secondly, it enhances the comprehension of its “meaning.” This two-way interaction between the structural form and connotation of calligraphy facilitates the learning process of foreign students and enables them to grasp the essence of Chinese characters. Consequently, international students can not only acquire proficiency in Chinese characters but also gain insights into traditional Chinese culture and appreciate the beauty of these characters. This paper focuses on the current challenges faced by international students in learning Chinese characters and aims to analyze the practical value of calligraphy teaching in overcoming these difficulties. It proposes an integrated approach to incorporate calligraphy teaching into Chinese character classrooms for international students, with the objective of breaking down the barriers to their Chinese character learning and contributing to the sustainable and positive development of Chinese language education on the global stage.

Contextualising the Right to the City in China

2024-02-24T11:44:36+07:00

This paper revisits the concept of the right to the city by Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) and contextualises it in the context. Different from previous debate that focused on the issue of right within this concept, this paper highlights the significance of city per se within this concept and argues that as according to Lefebvre, only when the city has been produced as an oeuvre, the use value of the city can be prioritised over its exchange value and thus guarantees the right to the city. This paper then visits the mechanism of urban development in China before the Economic Reform to explore the possibility of understanding socialist city as an oeuvre and how it could contribute to our contemporary research agenda.

An Exploration of Translation Habitus and Strategies of Italian Sinologist Silvia Pozzi

2024-02-24T12:09:25+07:00

This paper attempts to conduct a preliminary study of translatorial habitus of Silvia Pozzi, a young Italian sinologist, from the perspective of the Social Practice Theory which is proposed by Pierre Bouredieu (1930-2002), specifically focusing on her translation ideas and choice of translation materials. Pozzi holds the concept of “respecting original works and leading readers to understand”. In terms of translation materials, this primarily reflects in the three main themes of “Female Literature, Chinese Society, and Science Fiction”. Meanwhile, it goes into her translation strategies for “words with Chinese characteristics: “the Red Guard (Hong weibing), Down to the Countryside (Chadui), and Petitioner (Shangfang zhe)” under the guidance of her translation ideas. she employs the strategies of “literal translation, interpretation and transformation” respectively. It is hoped that this will attract more attention in the academia to her work and Italian Sinology.

Literature Review and Sinological Methodology of Early Medieval China in ‘Sinica Leidensia’

2024-02-24T12:29:18+07:00

This paper classifies and summarises the bibliography of the Brill Collection, Leiden, Netherlands, which relates to the study of the literature of early medieval China, focusing on four types of methodology: space studies, thematic studies, memory studies and intertextuality studies. In this way, it is feasible to construct a representative picture of the characteristics of Dutch Sinological research, represented by Leiden, and to predict its future trends. In addition, it compares these with contemporary Chinese domestic academia, thus further looking forward to new prospects for studying early medieval literature in mainland China.

Ambiguousness and Disorderliness: The Colonial Discourse in Hong Kong Literature in the 1940s

2024-02-24T12:57:43+07:00

In the 1940s, the colonial discourse expressed by Hong Kong literati was extremely ambiguous, which can be reflected in three aspects of their literary works: the description of “daily life,” the construction of “foreigner,” and the shaping of “Hongkonger Identities” Criticism of Westernisation and the revelation of a hybrid essence reveal the ambivalence of Hong Kong literati towards British colonial rule in the 1940s. The different constructions of the images of foreigners in the early period of the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese occupation, and the post-war era, expressed their different positions and opinions on cultural identity, colonial criticism and other issues, and different directions to colonial criticism, showing the complexity of the situation. Moreover, their different portrayers of “Hongkongers” reflected the complex and varied colonial experiences of Hong Kong literati in the 1940s, while also mirroring fragmented split identity.

Notes on the Proofreading of "The Biography of Eminent Monks Seeking Dharma in the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty"

2024-02-24T13:14:10+07:00

The Biography of Eminent Monks Seeking Dharma in the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty, written by Yijing, an eminent monk of the Tang Dynasty, is an important work on the history of ancient Sino-Indian cultural exchanges and other fields, and has always been valued by the academic community. However, due to the elegant language and complicated versions of this monograph, it is extremely difficult to interpret it accurately. The paper examines a large number of relevant materials and editions, and examines 13 version variants and related issues in the book.