Westerners’ Chinese Textbooks and the Linguistic Reform in the Late Qing Dynasty:A Case Study of The Chinese Speaker:Readings in Modern Mandarin by Evan Morgan

  • Yuan Feng
Expand

Online published: 2024-06-05

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.

Cite this article

Yuan Feng . Westerners’ Chinese Textbooks and the Linguistic Reform in the Late Qing Dynasty:A Case Study of The Chinese Speaker:Readings in Modern Mandarin by Evan Morgan[J]. Journal of East China Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 2024 , 56(3) : 83 -92 . DOI: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5579.2024.03.008

Outlines

/