Modern problems of theory and typology in teaching Chinese

Abstract. The systemic understanding of the language, including in the learning process, is determined by its typology, an important component of competence. In modern textbooks based on communicative principles, theoretical issues are covered less and less systematically. Chinese is isolating and topical (topic-comment structures as the basic type of syntax), with a “non-verbal” syntax, without the imitation of actor-action relation inherent in inflectional ones. Chinese differs from Russian in the opposite significance of language levels: with strong morphemes, phrases, and SSUs. (In the Russian literary language, the following levels are strong: phonemes, lexemes, sentences). The weak lexical level in Chinese is represented by units that are easily connected and easily separated different from the stable “European” words. The part of speech in Chinese coincides with usage (rather than vocabulary unit), it is characterized by positional morphology with a predominance of ranges in modern Baihua. Due to the topicality of the language, the copula in Chinese is not a verb. When studying a language, it is important to remember that it is not a single exemplary variant that is being studied, but a systemic complex that implies knowledge of the patterns of styles, regional variants and“dialects”.

Keywords: Chinese language, typology, topic and comment, language levels, positional morphology, predicational theory of language.

For citation: Kurdyumov V.A. Modern problems of theory and typology in teaching Chinese. Modern oriental studies. 2022; 4 (4). P. https://doi.org/10.24412/2686-9675-4-2022-29-35