Some professors thought that many teachers of Chinese courses in China usually didn’t pay attention to the study of modern linguistic theory, for they wrongly thought that modern linguistic theory was not that necessary for their teaching. Actually modern linguistic theory is quite helpful for student of learning Chinese in China.
It can help students of Chinese courses in China to solve their series of “whys” in their learning Mandarin in China. Here are some examples of using linguistic theory by students of Chinese courses in China.
Example one: the sentence“张三，认识的人很多” is ambiguous. 1) 张三knows lots of people; 2) people who know 张三 are a lot. Why does the ambiguity exit? How to explain this phenomenon?
In addition to this, why can we say “他是王刚的老师”, but can’t say “他是王刚的教师”？However, some students of Chinese courses in China will ask that why we can say “他是王刚的家庭教师”?
The prepositional structure is usually used as the adverbial modifier of verb. Why can the prepositional structure “对……”be used as the adverbial modifier of adjective words directly (such as “对他冷淡/对路过的人都很热情/他对电脑很精通”) Can all of the adjective words be modified by the prepositional structure “对……”? If the answer is negative, then which adjective words can be modified by the prepositional structure? Why can this prepositional structure be used as the attribute of noun with “的”(such as “对住房的意见/对祖国的感情”) Can all of nouns be modified by this prepositional structure “对……”？If the answer is negative, then which kind of nouns can be modified by the preposition structure “对……”？
If students of Chinese courses in China can learn some theories of valency grammar, theories of argument structure and theories of empty category, this kind of questions can be answered and explained.
Example two: the sentence “《现代汉语词典》上面是一部《英华大辞典》” can also be expressed as “《英华大辞典》下面是一部《现代汉语词典》”. There is only a little difference between the two expressions. While the sentence“桌子上面有支钢笔” can’t be expressed as “钢笔下面有张桌子”. Some students of Chinese courses in China are quite confused about this. If they can learn some theories about “image and schema” of cognitive linguistics in the Chinese courses in China, the questions will be solved.
Example three: first let’s look at three model sentences:
a. 老师在花园里看到一只松鼠。
b. 老师在花园里看到一颗流星
c. 老师在抽屉里看到一只松鼠。
This three sentences have the same form, which is “NP+在+NPL+V到+NP” and the words they use are almost the same. But people will have different comprehension to the three sentences——the sentence (a) can be understood as both “老师” and “松鼠” are in the garden; sentence (b) can only understood as “老师” is in the garden, while “流星” is not in the garden; sentence (c) can only be understood as “老师” is not in draw, while “松鼠” is definitely in the draw. When students are having Chinese courses in China, they are quite confused.
If students of Chinese courses in China have some knowledge about conceptual structure theory and semantic orientation theory in cognition linguistics, the differences above will be easily understood by them.
Through the examples given above, we can see the importance and usage of modern linguistic theory for Chinese teaching. Teachers should pay more attention to this in the future.