16:217:545 Chinese Grammar: linguistic and pedagogical perspectives

Description: This course is a graduate seminar in Chinese grammar focusing on topics relevant to the study of Chinese applied linguistics and Chinese pedagogy. The course will be heavily discussion oriented; we will approach our topic through analysis and dialogue. We will look at Chinese sounds, word structure and formation, sentence grammar, and paragraph structure, using a variety of techniques, from analysis to problem solving. This course will demand that students actively participate; and you will be expected to frequently present your own ideas and understand all examples in Chinese. Hence to take this course, students must the advanced speakers of Chinese or have studied Chinese up through the level of Advanced Modern Chinese 302 or the equivalent. (Others may be allowed to take the course with special permission from the instructor.)

Course Goals: Increase student understanding and mastery of Chinese grammar in order to more effectively master Chinese for linguistic and pedagogical research. A secondary goal is to explore the nature of Standard Chinese grammatical structure in general and learn how and where it differs from the grammars of other languages, such as English and Chinese dialects.

Number of Credits: 3 

Prerequisites: Advanced Modern Chinese 302 or the equivalent or higher