Chengyu in Chinese Language Teaching: A preliminary analysis of Italian learners’ data

Chengyu, also known as Chinese four-character idioms, are a type of traditional Chinese idiom, mostly consisting of four characters. They commonly derive from classic Chinese literary sources, including those of the three great philosophical and religious traditions that influenced the entire East Asia cultural sphere: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. Chengyu, therefore, possess a wide range of cultural references, and, from Chinese, spread to the languages of the other countries of the sinosphere, such as Japan and Korea. Although many scholars have emphasized the importance of the acquisition of chengyu, not much attention has been paid to chengyu learning in Chinese Language Teaching research so far. As a preliminary attempt to address this gap, this paper reports the results of two small-scale, exploratory experiments, aimed at investigating Italian learners’ general knowledge of chengyu and their main interpretation strategies, as well as comparing the effectiveness of direct and indirect instruction in chengyu teaching. The experiments involved participants from Bachelor and Master programs of Roma Tre University. The results show a predominant effect of negative transfer from Italian, as well as a better performance of the participants who received indirect instruction

Whole Set of Volume 1 No 1 (2010) of COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Whole Set of Contents of Current Issue (for cross-reference reading and hard-copy preservation of the whole issue

Europeanism, internationalism or something else? Proposal for a cross-lingustic and cross-cultural research project on widespread idioms in Europe and beyond

Terms like Europeanism or internationalism are used rather carelessly in phraseology research, and they are often applied to idioms accidentally observed to have similar lexical and semantic structures in a few languages. The central question as to what idioms actually constitute the so-called “phraseological uniformity of Europe” has never been studied systematically. The present paper describes my first steps of a research project aimed at creating an inventory of factually existing widespread idioms. The total set of idioms is subdivided into smaller groups on the basis of their cultural foundations, thus becoming comparable across a great variety of languages. Questionnaires sent to a large number of idiom research experts are producing fi rst results: numerous idioms are spread across at least several dozens of languages. The problem remains that idioms are currently accessible for only a small portion of the approx. 140 European languages

KOGNITIVNA TEORIJA METAFORE I ANALIZA FRAZEMA

We wish to establish to what extent the methods of analysis developed within the framework of the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor (CTM) can be applied to idiom analysis. Conventionalised figurative metaphors, and hence idioms, have a different function and a different cognitive and communicative value, as compared to novel metaphors. Idioms contribute much less to the structuring of unstructured situations, but they rather convey different kinds of knowledge that they have accumulated in the course of their functioning in the language. What is needed in addition to CTM is a theory specially designed to describe the irregularities of idioms. To develop such a theory is the main aim of modern idiom research. This paper should be viewed as a contribution to developing such a theory.U ovom se radu ispituje u kojoj se mjeri metode analize razvijene u okviru kognitivne teorije metafore (CTM - Cognitive Theory of Metaphor) mogu primijeniti na analizu frazema. Konvencionalizirane figurativne metafore, a tako i frazemi, imaju različitu funkciju i različitu kognitivnu i komunikacijsku vrijednost u odnosu na nove metafore. Frazemi znatno manje doprinose strukturiranju nestrukturiranih situacija, već prenose različite vrste znanja koja su akumulirali tijekom svojega postojanja u jeziku. Ono što je uz kognitivnu teoriju metafore nužno je teorija koja je posebno osmišljena kako bi se opisale nepravilnosti frazema. Ovaj je rad doprinos razvoju takve teorije

Are We What We Eat? Food Metaphors in the Conceptualization of Ethnic Groups

Speakers of English often understand ethnic and racial differences in terms of food imagery. It is quite common in this language to encounter metaphors presenting different groups of people in terms of beans, rice, bread, cheese, apples or chocolate. Given the cognitive and social force of metaphor in our understanding of the world and of ourselves as well as the important role language plays as a channel through which ideas and beliefs are transmitted and perpetuated, such food images may offer a window on the (de)construction of ethnic identi-ties and, ultimately, hide racist views against others who are different because of their skin color, physical features, languages and, obviously, diets

Arabic and contact-induced change

This volume offers a synthesis of current expertise on contact-induced change in Arabic and its neighbours, with thirty chapters written by many of the leading experts on this topic. Its purpose is to showcase the current state of knowledge regarding the diverse outcomes of contacts between Arabic and other languages, in a format that is both accessible and useful to Arabists, historical linguists, and students of language contact

Arabic and contact-induced change

This volume offers a synthesis of current expertise on contact-induced change in Arabic and its neighbours, with thirty chapters written by many of the leading experts on this topic. Its purpose is to showcase the current state of knowledge regarding the diverse outcomes of contacts between Arabic and other languages, in a format that is both accessible and useful to Arabists, historical linguists, and students of language contact