Acting Chinese

Acting Chinese is a year-long course that, together with the companion website, integrates language learning with the acquisition of cultural knowledge, and treats culture as an integral part of human behaviour and communication.

Autorentext

Yanfang Tang, Kunshan Carolyn Lee, Li Xu, Jin Zhang, Peng Yu

Klappentext

Acting Chinese is a year-long course that, together with the companion website, integrates language learning with the acquisition of cultural knowledge, and treats culture as an integral part of human behavior and communication. Using modern day examples of Chinese discourse and behavioral culture, it trains students to perform in culturally appropriate fashion, whilst developing a systematic awareness and knowledge about Chinese philosophy, values and belief systems that will prepare them for further advanced study of Chinese language and culture. Each lesson contains simulated real-life communication scenarios that aim to provide a concrete opportunity to see how native speakers generally communicate or behave in social situations. An essential guide for intermediate to advanced level second language learners, Acting Chinese provides a unique and modern approach to the acquisition of both cultural knowledge and language proficiency.

Inhalt

Preface

Teacher's guide

List of abbreviations and symbols

List of characters in communication scenarios

Unit one

Cultural perspective: group mentality

• Lesson one Text:

Behavior highlighted: love to be part of the fun

• Lesson two
  Text:

Behavior highlighted: follow the pack

• Lesson three
  Text: " "

Behavior highlighted: relation-based conduct

Unit two

Cultural perspective: the concept of li

• Lesson four Text:

Behavior highlighted: li-based civilities

• Lesson five Text:

Behavior highlighted: humble oneself and exalt others

Unit three

Cultural perspective: harmony orientation

• Lesson six Text:

Behavior highlighted: harmony as priority

• Lesson seven Text:

Behavior highlighted: forbear and forgive

• Lesson eight Text:

Behavior highlighted: (take) the middle road

Unit four

Cultural perspective: face psychology

• Lesson nine Text: ??

Behavior highlighted: saving face

• Lesson ten
  Text:

Behavior highlighted: face work

Unit five

Cultural perspective: rules of renqing

• Lesson eleven Text:

Behavior highlighted: reciprocation

• Lesson twelve Text:

Behavior highlighted: networking

Unit six

Cultural perspective: differentiated mode of association

• Lesson thirteen Text:

Behavior highlighted: distinguish people based on relationships

• Lesson fourteen Text:

Behavior highlighted: distinction between the upper and lower status

Appendixes: reflection worksheet for cultural exploration

Traditional Chinese character texts

Indexes

Pinyin-English vocabulary

English-Chinese vocabulary

Speech pattern index by lesson