Abstract:

Evan Morgan’s The Chinese Speaker: Readings in Modern Mandarin is an important case for us to reexamine the relationship between Westerners’ Chinese practice and Chinese Phoneticization Movement in the Late Qing Dynasty. The Chinese Speaker shows Morgan’s appreciation of Dai Dong’s The Six Scripts and his views of Chinese characters, absorbing his linguistic method of “seeking meanings through sounds”. The concept of “modern mandarin” proposed by Morgan elevated the social level of the target audience, emphasized its significance to China’s social revolution, and effectively explored the formation of a normal national language in terms of concept construction, value enhancement and teaching practice. The Chinese Phoneticization Movement led by Lao Naixuan and his related propositions were also echoed and developed in The Chinese Speaker.

Key words: Chinese Phoneticization Movement, Chinese textbooks, modern mandarin, The Chinese Speaker: Readings in Modern Mandarin, Evan Morgan