Chinese Studies Commons^™

A Brief Introduction To Chinese Dual Immersion And Chinese Bridge Programs In Utah, Alex Yuan

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

This research, through in-depth interviews of ten participants, studied and analyzed, from political, economic and cultural perspectives, the Chinese dual immersion and Chinese bridge programs and the growing “Chinese learning heat” in Utah in a global context.

Creating And Applying Artificial Intelligence Teaching Materials For Online Courses: Review Of Student Teacher Skills When Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language, Qiao-Yu Warren Cai

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

With artificial intelligence (AI) technology rapidly developing, the way in which humans learn is undergoing considerable change. The breakout of COVID-19 at the end of 2019 accelerated the pace with which people use AI technology for various tasks. The issue of e-materials to teach Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) motivates the research of a one-group pretest-post-test design along with pre-experimental work: this in turn examines the online ability of student teachers working with TCFL. Findings show that the basic/proficient/expert technology, pedagogy, and evaluation of online TCFL ability (operating teaching software within narrow AI functions, producing teaching materials and applying …

Examinees’ Affective Preference For Online Speaking Assessment: Synchronous Vs Asynchronous, Yuxiao Du, Fangzheng Zhang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

With technological advancement and the COVID pandemic, online speaking assessment is increasingly used in language teaching. Two modes are developed: online synchronous testing (direct human-to-human interview) and online asynchronous testing (semi-direct human-to-machine interview). Ample literature has explored how each of the two online modes differs from traditional face-to-face speaking assessments. However, few studies have investigated the differences between the two modes, especially in terms of examinees’ affective preferences. This study, therefore, compares the extent to which each mode is accepted and favored by test takers and explores why such an affective preference emerges. The participants are 46 college students enrolled …

Enhancing Grammar Learning With A Multimedia Instructional Module: Design And Teaching Of “Shì…De” Construction For Cfl Learners, Shenglan Zhang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

This pilot study examined the effectiveness and students’ perceptions of a multimedia module on intermediate Chinese-as-a-Foreign-Language (CFL) learners’ understanding and use of the “shì…de” construction. The module was designed based on the First Principles of Instruction (Morrill, 2002) and the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2009; 2014). It provided a systematic and comprehensive approach to teaching the “shì…de” construction, one of the most challenging grammar points in CFL. Twenty-two CFL learners participated in this mixed-methods pilot study. Data were collected using pre- and post-tests, a survey, think-alouds, and semi-structured interviews. Findings show that after using the module, …

Pentasyllabic Shi Poetry : Landscape Poetry : Xie Tiao : The Integration Of Landscape, Lucas Rambo Bender

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

This episode concludes our exploration of Six Dynasties landscape poetry by considering the verse of Xie Tiao (464–499). By Xie Tiao’s time, landscape was becoming an increasingly common topic within the world of courtly verse. Partly for this reason, Xie’s poetry begins to efface the previously definitive distinction between the human world and the natural landscape, and moreover imbues that landscape with the passions of the courtier—in Xie’s case, both his yearning for the court and capital and his well-justified fear of the dangers of court politics.

Pentasyllabic Shi Poetry : Landscape Poetry : Xie Lingyun’S “Mountains And Waters”, Lucas Rambo Bender

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

Xie Lingyun (385–433) is generally recognized as the progenitor and paradigm of poetry on “mountains and waters” (shanshui 山水). Where Tao Qian had written predominantly of the only-partly wild landscapes near his cottage, Xie made his theme the dramatic wildernesses of the southlands. Much of his poetry concerns the scenery of his massive estate, which he staffed with a small army of servants and retainers. His most powerful verse, however, was written in the rugged, unforgiving landscapes he passed through on journeys into exile.

Pentasyllabic Shi Poetry : Landscape Poetry : Tao Qian's "Fields And Gardens", Lucas Rambo Bender

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

Tao Qian (365–427) is premodern China's most famous recluse. After relinquishing his official career at around age 40, Tao returned to his rustic hometown to hide away from what he often suggested was a corrupt court and society. In the hermitage he made for himself at the foot of Mt. Lu, Tao wrote poetry that, on the one hand, extolls his enjoyment of life on the rural margin between the human world and the wilderness and, on the other, narrates the difficulties he had making a living there. For the first time in Chinese history, this is a poetry that …

Traditional Chinese Poems, “The White Blossom” And “Agony Unfurls,” As Well As The Finished Parts In The Martyrdom Of Chen Zi-Ang, A Film Screenplay, And “Shadows Of Phoenixes” In Scarlet Tears On A Golden Branch, A Novel (華夏傳統詩〈素華〉與〈抽怨〉、電影劇本《陳子昂殉道記》已成之部、小說《金枝紅淚》中〈凰影〉已成之部), Xiao-Yu Chen

Student Publications

Book Description

Chen Zi-Ang (courtesy name Bo-Yu, 659–700 CE) was a medieval Chinese author, poet, scholar, twice-prisoner, and a martyr. It has been a devotion of the Daoist and the Chinese folk religions to venerate him as the Holy Land Patron of the Shu Area (Sichuan) and his hometown, Shehong. During his brief life, Chen reverently practiced the cultural-spiritual lineage of Confucianism and was a devout follower of the Daoist religion. He was also a long-term manifester of the Chinese cultural-spiritual archetype of the warrior. Earning his doctorate in 684 CE, he served in a number of minor official roles, …

Nami-Ko: A Realistic Novel, Kenjiro Tokutomi

Zea E-Books Collection

Nami-Ko, also called The Cuckoo (不如帰, Hototogisu), is a tragic story of love and devotion, through sickness, war, oppression, and vengeance. Eighteen-year-old Nami Kataoka hoped her marriage to Baron Takeo Kawashima would bring freedom from her overbearing stepmother. But the couple’s happiness is spoiled by her illness, her mother-in-law’s jealousy, and the schemes of Chijiwa, her husband’s cousin and her own disappointed suitor. Takeo’s naval career takes him away for long periods, and when war breaks out between Japan and China (in 1894), his mother takes advantage of his absence to break up the marriage, sending Nami back …

The Different Waves Of "Chineseness": Analysis Of Culture References And Lyrics In Zhongguofeng Music, Austin S. Ye

Masters Theses

Zhongguofeng music 中国风流行曲 has had an impact on the Chinese pop music industry. Although the style of music uses familiar overtones that have been in wide usage within Western pop music, Zhongguofeng aims to emphasize more of a connection to a unified sense of Chinese culture, ethnicity, and identity. Specifically, I will argue that “Chineseness” is constructed through lyrics, which contain cultural references to the imperial era of China, and accompanying music videos, which provide visual imagery that further draws the viewer into an idealized “China”. In addition, the song’s instrumentals blend Western pop stylings with traditional Chinese instruments and …

An Investigation Into American University Students’ Motivation For Chinese Learning: A Case Study, Qingqing Zhang

Masters Theses

The study investigates the motivation behind learners of the Chinese language as a second language at the university level in the United States of America. The study uses Dornyei’s (1994a) three-level framework of L2 motivation and Dornyei’s (2001a) demotivation theory, as the theory guidelines. In addition, the study takes both quantitative and qualitative approaches and uses questionnaires and interviews for data collection.

First, the study explores the various constructions of motivation for students learning Chinese at a public university in the New England region. All students who were enrolled in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced Chinese courses at the University …

Pentasyllabic Shi Poetry : Landscape Poetry : Landscapes Of The Mind, Lucas Rambo Bender

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

This episode discusses the prehistory of Chinese landscape poetry. In the centuries before poets began to write consistently of their concrete, personal experiences out in nature, landscape appeared in poetry primarily as a foil for the city and the court, where most poets were writing. In this role, the natural landscape could be terrifyingly inhospitable or wondrous and pure. Either way, it was for the most part imagined rather than experienced, a site more often for mental roaming than for extended in-person exploration.

Han Ancient-Style Poetry : The “Nineteen Old Poems” : Reflection Through A Female Persona : A Mosaic Of Emotions, Zong-Qi Cai

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

The first of the “Nineteen Old Poems”, the best known poem of an abandoned woman in the collection, features a mosaic combination of time, space, and emotion fragments and thereby captures the otherwise inexpressible melancholy of an abandoned woman. Such a mosaic combination is to become a preferred structure for the most intense of lyrical expressions in later poetry.

Wang Xitian And The Chinese Experience In Imperial Tokyo, 1899-1923: Class, Violence, And The Formation Of A New National Consciousness, Isabella Yihan Yang

Student Work

A 2021-2022 Williams Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Isabella Yang (Saybrook ‘22) for her essay submitted to the Department of History, "Wang Xitian and the Chinese Experience in Imperial Tokyo, 1899-1923: Class, Violence, and the Formation of a New National Consciousness” (Daniel Botsman, Professor of History, advisor).

Drawing upon a remarkable array of sources in Japanese, Chinese and English, Isabella Yang, in her thesis “Wang Xitian and the Chinese Experience in Imperial Tokyo, 1899-1923: Class, Violence, and the Formation of a New National Consciousness,” has crafted a genuinely path-breaking account of an aspect of …

Han Ancient-Style Poetry : The “Nineteen Old Poems” : Interplay Of Images And Emotions : Binary Structure And Multilateral Texture, Zong-Qi Cai

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

Two distinct formal features, binary structure and multilateral texture, are developed in the “Nineteen Old Poems,” the definitive collection of Han pentasyllabic poetry. The rise of these two formal features attests to the profound impact of transitions from oral performance to poetic writing, from the dramatic/narrative to the lyrical mode of self-presentation.

The Forgotten Floods: Examining The Consequences Of The Yellow River Disaster, 1938-1947, Ryan Mantle

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper examines the shortcomings of Western academia’s coverage of the Guomindang’s decision to breach the Yellow River dikes in 1938. The catastrophe is discussed in individual segments by many in Western academia and lacks a comprehensive view of the event, which this paper will provide. Flood waters inundated the plains of the Henan, Anhui, and Kiangsu provinces, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and creating a massive refugee crisis. The lack of arable land and labor, the damaged agricultural infrastructure, and a major drought led to the Henan Famine of 1942-1943 which killed millions more. After Japan’s surrender in …

Female Bonding And Marginality In Shang Wanyun’S Novella “Xialihe” (1978), Antonio Paoliello

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article explores the representation of homosociality between two marginalized female characters in “Xialihe” (夏麗赫) (1978), a novella by Sinophone Malaysian writer Shang Wanyun (商晚) (1952-1995). Although some scholars have suggested that the writer’s preoccupation with the intimate world of women started only in the 1980s, I argue that “Xialihe” already highlights issues such as female intimacy and women’s social marginalization. The text represents, therefore, a link between her earlier nativist production and her later more feminist approach. Additionally, I contend that, writing from a marginal position at the periphery of Malaysia’s national literary system and from a doubly-conservative environment …

Han Ancient-Style Poetry : The "Nineteen Old Poems" : The Magic Of One Additional Character And The Rise Of Reflective Poetry, Zong-Qi Cai

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

After nearly one millennium since its birth, Chinese poetry achieved an optimal convergence of sound and sense in its pentasyllabic poems developed during the Eastern Han (25-220 CE). Taking full advantage of an explosive rise of two-character compounds, the anonymous Han pentasyllabic poets created a poetic rhythm far more flexible and expressive than all existing rhythms and adapted it for philosophical reflection and emotional brooding on human transience.

两岸问题从三个看法来谈, Michael Connolly

Honors Theses

现在，我们都知道两岸问题。在问题的基础上：台湾是否属于中国的一部分？当然，台湾跟中国有很大的关系。今天，每些土地都称自己“中国。”差不多四百年以前，台湾成为一个中国的殖民地。很多汉族人来台湾，带了他们的文化和语言。但是，从1895年到1945年，日本领导了台湾。这个外国的领导时期改变了台湾的历史。中国的现代政府，中华人民共和国，连一天都没治理了台湾。但是，这个问题可以造成了战争。为了懂这个问题的重要性，我们得寻找历史了解中国的身份。我们会发现台湾的政治重要性，这个问题结果的未来。这个问题对亚洲和世界的政治和和平很重要。台湾的经济，政治状态使两岸问题当作新冷战的中心。在这个文章，我会分析台湾的历史、政治、经济和国际的看法。

Yuefu Poetry : Political Satire Or Coquetry? An Ambiguous Song, Jui-Lung Su

How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

This episode discusses the two opposing interpretations of the poem entitled, “Mulberry Along the Lane,” one of the best-known yuefu songs in classical Chinese literature. Traditionally this poem has been interpreted as a representation of social injustice, depicting the situation of an official harassing a peasant girl. The other perspective is the poem is simply a verbal flirtation between a man and a woman and a popular song about a clever lady who employs an engaging and inoffensive way to turn down her suitor.