面向美国本土大学生的汉字教学研究-语言学及应用语言学(对外汉语)专业毕业论文.docxVIP

万方数据 万方数据 Abstract With the growing economic and cultural relationship between China and the United States in the recent years, there has been an increased demand for those with proficiency in Chinese. This has, in turn, caused a spike in the interest of Chinese in the United States. Many universities have begun to offer majors in Chinese and research related to Teaching Chinese As a Foreign Language has been conducted at an increasing rate. However, there is one evident flaw in the teaching of Chinese at US universities, which is that the teaching of characters has been greatly undervalued and related research proves to be very scarce. The Chinese writing system is based on pictograph-like “characters.” Learning how to read and write these characters is essential for learning and understanding the meanings of Chinese words, but the writing is by far the most difficult thing for English speakers (whose native language has a phonetic writing system) to learn. Therefore, the teaching of characters should be a focal point for those researching how to improve the teaching of Chinese at US universities. The past theory that students could learn Chinese by only using pinyin instead of characters is now fading in the US, and textbooks that support this method of learning are virtually nonexistent. Learners who do attempt this method of learning Chinese have been proven to only be able to reach an advanced beginner level. Learners who wish to achieve advanced proficiency in Chinese cannot practically do so without the use of textbooks and other written materials (which utilize characters). Thus, learning characters is a necessity for these learners. This thesis covers research conducted by the author about the general state of the teaching of Chinese characters at US universities as well as about the degree of US university students’ mastery of Chinese characters. This research has been coupled with a survey of previous research conducted on related topics as well as theor