Luolaidong
Chinese characters and Chinese have a history of thousands of years, and have accumulated extremely rich historical experience in the teaching of Chinese characters. After the founding of New China, on the basis of inheriting traditional experience, Chinese character teaching has been continuously reformed and explored; Especially since the reform and opening up, in the reform of Chinese teaching in primary schools, the reform of literacy teaching methods has made the most remarkable achievements, and the research on Chinese character teaching is very active and has made great achievements.
Entering the new century, Chinese character teaching is facing a new situation: on the one hand, a new round of curriculum reform aimed at comprehensively improving the quality of the people is being smoothly and deeply promoted. As far as primary school Chinese is concerned, it is an important task to explore more scientific teaching methods that can better reflect the characteristics of Chinese characters and Chinese. On the other hand, Mr. An Zijie, a famous late patriot and linguist in Hong Kong, predicted before his death: "2 1 century will be the era when Chinese characters will exert their power!" "Humans will learn Chinese characters one day!" [1] Now, we are delighted to see that there is a strong "learning Chinese fever" in the world, and Mr. An's prediction has become a living reality. Faced with this situation, it is our unshirkable international obligation to further improve the scientific level of Chinese character teaching and help foreign friends learn Chinese characters quickly and master Chinese.
At present, two kinds of characters are popular in the world: one is pinyin; The second is ideographic Chinese characters. These two kinds of writing systems have their own advantages and disadvantages, and we can't say which one is absolutely good and which one is absolutely bad. The view that Chinese characters are backward characters is a prejudice without scientific basis; When it comes to Chinese characters, the advantages of Chinese characters are rarely mentioned, which is also one-sided. Chinese characters are a writing system based on the relationship between form, sound and meaning, which has both phonetic and morphological functions. Compared with Pinyin, Chinese characters have different structural characteristics, which embodies the scientificity and superiority of Chinese characters. Understanding and mastering the structural characteristics of Chinese character system is of great significance for reforming Chinese character teaching and improving the scientific level of Chinese character teaching.
1. Judging from the frequency of Chinese characters, high-frequency characters are very concentrated and the number of commonly used characters is small, which is an important structural feature of the Chinese character system.
At the end of 1970s, there were four compositors in our country. According to their experience, statistics show that there are 3000 "common words" in Chinese, and the frequency is as high as 99%. There are 3000 commonly used words, and the frequency of each word adds up to only 1%.
Mr. An Zijie used four influential newspapers in Hong Kong to report Chinese for 45 consecutive days and counted all the words. The total number of words is 1, 4 1 1, 088, and only 4667 different words are counted. Teacher An arranged a vocabulary according to frequency, in which the total frequency of the first 3650 words reached 99.8% of the total number of words. 1982 published a frequency table of 3650 commonly used words.
1In April, 988, the Statistical Table of Frequency Optimization of Fast Reading Chinese Characters edited by Bei and Zhang was published by Beijing Electronic Industry Press. The materials they use come from four aspects: science and technology, literature and art, news reports and political theory written in simplified characters. According to the statistics of 2 1 657039 words, only 599 1 word is used in different characters.
Mr. An Zijie made a comparative study of two Chinese character frequency tables: when the number of words in Bei and Zhang tables is 3650, it accounts for 99.85% of the total number of words in statistical data; When the "An" table is also counted to 3650 words according to the frequency, it accounts for 99.82% of the total words in the statistical data. This proves that both tables are correct. Although the materials used for compilation, the compilation place and the compilation time are different, they can overlap.
According to relevant research statistics, A Dream of Red Mansions has 73 1, 0 17 characters, and only 4,462 variants are used. A Contradictory Midnight has 242,687 words, only 3 129 different words are used. Cao Yu's three plays, Thunderstorm, Sunrise and Peking Man, have a total of 172005 words, and only 2808 variants are used. Lao She's Camel Xiangzi has a total of 107360 words, and only 24 13 variants are used. This proves that fewer commonly used words are a feature of Chinese characters. [2]
The above research on the usage frequency of Chinese characters fully proves that Chinese common words are highly concentrated and the amount of common words is small, which is conducive to alleviating the difficulty of learning Chinese characters.
Mr. An is a scholar who loves Chinese characters and is rigorous in his studies. For the purpose of learning Chinese characters quickly, he studied the frequency order of 3650 words by using various reading materials. After repeated tests, the results are as follows: if you know the top 500 high-frequency words, you can read 75% of general articles; If you know 500 sub-high frequency words (1000 words), you can understand 90% of general articles; If you can read 2000 words, you can gain the ability to read books and newspapers, you can be familiar with 97.4% of modern books and newspapers, and you can even communicate in writing. [3]
The above research results on the frequency and frequency order of Chinese characters have great enlightenment, reference and guiding significance for us to explore and further improve the scientific level of Chinese character teaching. (1) The number of commonly used words is about 3000-4000, which can be used as the basis for stipulating the literacy of Chinese subjects in schools (primary schools and junior high schools). The Chinese Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education (Experimental Draft) stipulates that the total literacy is 3,500, including 3,000 in primary schools and 500 in junior high schools. We think this literacy level is scientific, reasonable and feasible. Science and technology are the primary productive forces, and workers and peasants are eager to learn new technologies; In order to meet this demand, we suggest that it should not be difficult to learn 500 common words in science and technology in junior high school. (2) In word order, learning high-frequency words first is one of the shortcuts to learning Chinese characters. Mr. An Zijie advocates: "Chinese beginners, including our primary school students and adults, and foreigners who want to learn Chinese, can learn the most commonly used 500 words first." This is a very insightful suggestion, which should arouse our attention. 199 1 year, the author conducted a literacy experiment in xingfu village, efeng township, Wanzai county, Jiangxi province. Learning the most commonly used 500 words first has accelerated the progress of literacy and achieved practical results. People's Daily Overseas Edition and Farmer's Daily reported and introduced it successively. The key here is to compile the textbooks for the lower grades, especially the first grade. Literacy and writing are the focus of Chinese teaching in lower grades. We should pay attention to the frequency order of Chinese characters according to the structural characteristics of Chinese characters with high concentration of commonly used words. We believe that it is the responsibility of the textbook writers to comprehensively consider the frequency order, word formation and children's cognitive law of learning Chinese characters and find the best combination point.
Secondly, from the construction method of Chinese characters, there are many pictophonetic characters, which is another important structural feature of the Chinese character system.
Why are there so many pictophonetic characters? In the study of the development history of Chinese characters, the traditional stage is divided into four stages according to the font changes of Chinese characters. Liu Jiaoshou of Southwest Normal University put forward a new viewpoint in undertaking the research of national social science planning project. He believes that the change of font is not the essential change of the development of Chinese characters, and can not explain the historical development law of Chinese characters, but should explain the essential change of Chinese characters from the change of Chinese character construction methods, and then put forward the three-stage theory of the development of Chinese characters, namely: the first stage is the picture writing stage; The second stage is the phonetic stage with phonetic notation as the main body, based on hieroglyphics. The third stage is the writing stage of pictophonetic characters with pictophonetic characters as the main body, and there are still some pictophonetic characters and pictophonetic characters, which belong to this stage from Qin and Han dynasties to modern Chinese characters. [4] It can be said that the pictophonetic characters in Chinese characters are mostly the result of the change and development of their word formation methods.
Chinese characters have fewer single words and more combined words; Among the combined words, pictophonetic characters are the most. According to relevant research statistics, pictophonetic characters account for more than 80% of Chinese characters, and the word formation characteristics of pictophonetic characters are as follows: there are phonetic symbols beside pictophonetic characters, such as Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang.
In all kinds of literacy teaching methods, centralized literacy makes full use of the word-formation law of pictophonetic characters, overcomes the weakness of disjointed sounds and complex structure of square characters, simplifies the complex and puts more than a dozen pictophonetic characters in one class. In this way, after children have mastered Chinese Pinyin, a certain number of independent words (including a small number of combined words) and radicals, they can recognize strings of Chinese characters according to the law under the guidance of teachers. For example, teaching the new words "root, heel, hate, cruel and extraordinary" is easy for teachers and students to learn because of its obvious rules. Children can make the following analysis when they understand the law that the left side of these words is the meaning of symbols and the right side is the meaning of notes: the word "root" is a piece of wood, so it is next to the word "wood"; The word "heel", when "heel", is next to the word "foot", because you use your heel; The word "hate" is hateful hate, so it is beside my heart. Such literacy creates extremely favorable external psychological conditions for children, facilitates learning transfer, simplifies the psychological process of children's literacy, improves the efficiency of literacy teaching and promotes the development of children's intelligence.
According to the structural characteristics of many pictophonetic characters in Chinese characters and their word-formation rules, we think that the writing of literacy textbooks and the application of literacy teaching methods should fully embody and apply this word-formation rule of Chinese characters in order to improve the scientific level of Chinese character teaching. (1) In the arrangement of literacy content, while retaining the diversity of literacy forms, we can appropriately increase the weight of centralized literacy according to the rules of pictophonetic word formation; More importantly, it should be implemented as a guiding ideology, such as "Chinese Garden", homework exercises, and layout. (2) In order to implement the principle of teaching Chinese characters according to word formation, we should pay attention to laying a good foundation for literacy and writing, that is, learning Chinese Pinyin, words with strong word formation ability (including a few combined words), radicals and basic stroke order, so as to cultivate students' independent literacy ability and improve the scientific level of Chinese character teaching. (3) When using pictophonetic word formation rules in literacy teaching, we should pay attention to correct pronunciation. Because as a phonetic symbol, it is not as accurate as alphabetic sounds. For example, phonetic symbols can't distinguish the differences of tones, while others lose or weaken their phonetic functions because of phonetic changes.
Thirdly, there are many monosyllabic characters in Chinese characters, which is another important structural feature of Chinese character system. Chinese characters are ideographic characters, and there are many words with one sound and one meaning. When words have meaning, they become words and morphemes.
According to statistics, "in modern Chinese writing, monosyllabic words account for about 49%, disyllabic words account for about 47% and polyphonic words account for only 4%, while in literary and artistic works, monosyllabic words account for as much as 6 1%, disyllabic words account for about 37% and disyllabic words account for only 2%. On average, monosyllabic words still account for half. [5] Therefore, to learn Chinese characters, we must learn them word by word. Literacy is equivalent to knowing words. More literacy means more words, which is beneficial to the development of language.
As the smallest unit of language, Chinese words are mainly combined through two-level word formation, that is, monosyllabic words with independent meanings are combined to form disyllabic words and disyllabic words. The word-formation ability of this word-formation has reached an amazing level. For example, the word "frugality" can make many words, and the following 17 words can be made with the word "festival": joints, syllables, completeness, procedures, festivals, Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, festivals, festivals, infidelity, defection, clothes saving, restraint, throttling, birth control, saving and saving. The following 18 words can be formed by the word "about": about, approximate, approximate, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about. Words are raw, but they are made up of familiar words, which can receive the wonderful learning effect of "new words are familiar with words", which not only greatly reduces the number of words, but also eases the learning difficulty. This is a great advantage of Chinese characters. According to the statistics of some research departments, there are more than 43,300 commonly used words in Chinese, and only 1000 is composed of more than 3,730 words.
With the progress of society and the increase of foreign exchanges, it is necessary to innovate many new words and translate foreign words, such as special economic zones, special police, express delivery, red stocks, red plates, sandstorms, social insurance, genes, AIDS, chips, aerospace, astronauts, Coca-Cola, overpasses and so on. Whether creating new words or translating foreign words, Chinese characters can be easily solved, and the number of commonly used entries in the new edition of Modern Chinese Dictionary has increased to more than 65,000. Even the translation of new scientific and technological terms can give attention to both sound and meaning, which is good for you.
Comparatively speaking, in order to cope with new things, western characters are overwhelmed with new words. English vocabulary has reached hundreds of thousands at present. On the contrary, the number of Chinese characters is greatly reduced compared with ancient times. For example, Kangxi Dictionary has 47,035 words, most of which have been abandoned for more than 300 years. At present, the number of words used is only about 3000-6000, and there is great potential to create new words, which is enough for us to make great strides in the 2 1 century.
4. From the relationship between Chinese characters and grammar, another feature of Chinese character architecture is that it can also form words, change parts of speech and realize grammatical functions without using the method of "phonetic change", which is very beneficial to Chinese learning. As we know, phonetic words are formed and transformed through phonetic changes, that is, basic words generally come from the roots of mother tongue. Pinyin is connected by adding stems, suffixes or prefixes to form various products with clear meanings. The Chinese character system based on compound words can form words and change parts of speech without "inflecting", which ensures that Chinese characters can mark different parts of speech of Chinese without changing the font.
Moreover, only by changing the word order, using specific auxiliary words (such as "de", "de", "zhe", "le" and "guo") and changing the tone can Chinese realize its grammatical function concisely and accurately, and achieve the purpose of clear meaning. For example, if "teachers love students" is changed to "students love teachers", Chinese can be easily solved by changing the word order without changing the pronunciation at all, so there is no need to change the written word form. But in modern Russian, to change pronunciation, of course, we must also change the word form of written language. In contrast, this is obviously a big advantage of Chinese characters. Yesberson, a famous vocabulary in English linguistics, pointed out in the article On English Monosyllabic Words: "At first, Chinese was regarded as the original language, backward language and children's language. Now I know that this view is completely wrong. Chinese is based on only 400 syllables, followed by four tones, but at most it is about 1600. Just a few monosyllables, tossed and turned, and used repeatedly, can express the meaning completely and flawless. This is beyond the reach of English. It is also mysterious and enviable for English linguists. " [6]
As far as teaching is concerned, the principle of literacy teaching method should be mainly based on the structural characteristics of the writing system. Phonetic words should form words, change parts of speech and realize grammatical functions through phonetic changes, so the teaching principle of "three inseparable" (that is, words can not be separated from words, words can not be separated from sentences, sentences can not be separated from texts) is emphasized, otherwise students will not understand why "teacher" as the subject and "teacher" as the object will have different pronunciations and different writing methods. The Chinese character system mainly uses compound words to form words, which can realize grammatical functions without "inflections", so it is naturally inappropriate to copy the teaching principle of "three inseparable". According to this feature of Chinese character architecture, it is necessary to know more than 2000 frequently used words as soon as possible. We should not exclude the principle of "three inseparable" in literacy teaching, but should use it flexibly in literacy teaching.
5. From the structure of Chinese character writing system, regular writing and high form difference are important features of Chinese character writing system. There are only about 30 letters in Indo-European languages, and there are no fewer than 500 radicals in Chinese characters. The letters of the former are arranged linearly in one direction, forming a basic visual reading unit (word), while Chinese characters are arranged in three basic positions: up and down, left and right, and inside and outside. Therefore, the physical differences of Chinese characters are much higher than those of Latin-Slavic letters. The structural characteristics of Chinese characters, such as height and shape difference, not only distinguish characters clearly, but also have outstanding personality, which is helpful for learning and memory. Chinese characters are extremely convenient for high-speed reading. In terms of visual reading, it is generally believed that horizontal Chinese characters are faster than pinyin characters and are the most superior cognitive symbols. "The Japanese authorities did experiments when building highways. The results show that the languages of Chinese characters are pseudonyms110 and Roman characters 1/20. In other words, the cognitive speed of Chinese characters is 10 times faster than Japanese pseudonyms and 20 times faster than Roman characters. " [7]
The writing system of Chinese characters is not only unique, but also regular. There are only five basic strokes of Chinese characters, and the components of some basic strokes are also limited. Therefore, it is difficult to learn to write Chinese characters. When you master the basic strokes and common components of Chinese characters, it is not difficult to learn new words. To solve the problem that Chinese characters are difficult to write, Mr. An Zijie suggested that according to the word formation method of Chinese characters, Chinese characters should be divided into 8 12 basic characters, 56 radicals and 75 variants with strong word formation ability, and 3,800 different words can be written by "assembling" when writing. The key is to compile teaching materials, stimulate interest, lay a solid foundation, guide scientifically and train strictly, so as to turn the difficult into the easy and write the words well.
Each personality has its own advantages and disadvantages and different learning difficulties; We should adhere to the two-point theory and oppose one-sidedness. We discuss the structural characteristics of Chinese characters and point out their advantages, not to deny their shortcomings, but to fully understand Chinese characters, make full use of their advantages to make up for their shortcomings, resolve difficulties and improve the scientific level of Chinese character teaching.