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Mandarin Chinese: An Introduction
Mandarin An Introduction provides a systematic overview of Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of the English-speaking learner. Using a comparative approach, it contrasts grammatical, and other features of Mandarin Chinese language, with relevant issues in English.
The book opens with a chapter on the setting of the Chinese language, giving a brief account of the historical, geographical, social, and linguistic background of China. Included is a discussion of how modern Chinese politics has played an important role in the development of modern standard Chinese. Other topics include sounds and tones, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse.
Mandarin Chinese brings a wide range of topics and issues together in one volume, presenting a coherent, easy-to-follow picture of the language, and a practical, efficient way to learn.
The book opens with a chapter on the setting of the Chinese language, giving a brief account of the historical, geographical, social, and linguistic background of China. Included is a discussion of how modern Chinese politics has played an important role in the development of modern standard Chinese. Other topics include sounds and tones, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse.
Mandarin Chinese brings a wide range of topics and issues together in one volume, presenting a coherent, easy-to-follow picture of the language, and a practical, efficient way to learn.
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First published December 28, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 7, 2021
While this book is not for everyone, I found it suited my needs perfectly. In fact, Gao’s Mandarin Chinese made me want to study Mandarin again. I had studied Mandarin 25 years ago as a grad student in linguistics. While I never got the hang of listening comprehension, what with all those tones bouncing around the discourse, I always enjoyed learning about the many delightful ways Mandarin is nothing like English. There are of course similarities between the two languages, but the differences are far more interesting to me. Gao’s contextualized and contextualizing sketch of Mandarin provides a great overview or review of the language, managing to elucidate cogently many profound differences between Mandarin and English. Significantly, he provides an entree into the fun of learning another language, despite the pending frustration when trying to apply this knowledge in real time conversation.
Gao’s Mandarin Chinese is well organized, with chapters treating such diverse topics as historical and geographical context, language policy and language reform, vocabulary structure and functional categories, phonology, characters, grammar/syntax, and discourse practices. Throughout the book, but especially in the grammar sketch, Gao presupposes a background in linguistic terminology. There is an appendix that provides a far too brief overview of grammar terms. But for the most part, the reader is guided into the linguistics of Mandarin by some terse and succinct explanations of dozens of functional words and particles. LE and DE are the stars of the show, but there are adequate treatments of many other particles and verbs. Gao manages to do something fairly incredible: he describes phonological and grammatical processes without tree diagrams or feature matrices. There is a rather a-theoretical, or at least practical, linguistic ideology inherent here. This can be refreshing for someone accustomed to linguists trying to make facts fit a model rather than vice versa.
Although I had studied Mandarin previously, I still learned a few things I had not been exposed to before. The discussion of Cheng Yu, the set of proverbs or idioms which are each explained by a traditional narrative, was quite enlightening. Gao also delves into the sociolinguistic dimension, demonstrating the many ways social context or level of familiarity among speakers in a speech setting determine the appropriate vocabulary or grammatical constructions which must be used.
I feel there is a lot to like here. Unlike the Mandarin overview by Sun, published by Cambridge, Gao’s book gives the impression of being more thorough, maybe even complete. However illusory this completeness might turn out to be, I still felt satisfied and convinced by the end of the book that Mandarin was once again doable. Gao’s grammar sketch is the largest chapter, but it could have been expanded into a monograph rather easily. But then again, that might push things over the edge for someone struggling with both a radically different language and an unfamiliar terrain of linguistics. I would like to have read more about the fascinating tradition of writing in China, yet here again, the newcomer might be covered in clouds rather than led to experience real clarity. In fact, it would take me a lifetime to achieve clarity with Chinese characters. I found only a few negatives: some awkward English sentences, a few typos or editorial errors, and the lack of a map showing the extent of Mandarin in modern China. But apart from these minor issues, Gao’s Mandarin Chinese is a fantastic review of, and could make a plenty useful introduction to, the most essential details that make Mandarin Mandarin.
As a coda, I wish to comment on what a sketch such as Gao's implies about UG (Chomsky's Universal Grammar) and about the status of Mandarin as a 'logical' language. I have heard Mandarin syntax labeled as 'very logical'. Compared to the verb paradigms of French or the complex syntax of Japanese, Mandarin morphosyntax is highly regular while following strict rules (modifiers always before the head they modify, no movement of question words to the beginning, etc.). Yet if you read classic Chinese linguists like Yuen Ren Chao, it is easy to see that Chinese logic does not operate with the same operators as one typically finds in European languages. Mandarin 'logic words' (e.g. what could be translated as 'if', 'all', 'not', or 'and') pattern differently from English, such that they are not mappable one to one between English and Mandarin. Also in Mandarin, functional heads like Tense or Determiner seem to be missing, or else are expressed according to different patterns altogether. So while it is preposterous to call Chinese 'logical' or 'illogical', it must be admitted that Chinese logic functions differently in comparison to English. As Chao put it, it is not that Chinese fails to be logical, but that the rules of logic are bent to conform to Chinese grammar. To conclude, Mandarin problematizes the assumed universal mapping of utterances to the world of truth conditions. There are many generativists working on Mandarin, but they should all take a few pages from the playbook of linguists such as Gao or Chao. It is possible and desirable to describe a language without formalisms (all of which spawn arcane theoretical machinery) if you want to understand how a language works, and Gao does just that. As i said, Gao's book makes me want to study Mandarin again. Who knows, maybe things will be different this time.
Gao’s Mandarin Chinese is well organized, with chapters treating such diverse topics as historical and geographical context, language policy and language reform, vocabulary structure and functional categories, phonology, characters, grammar/syntax, and discourse practices. Throughout the book, but especially in the grammar sketch, Gao presupposes a background in linguistic terminology. There is an appendix that provides a far too brief overview of grammar terms. But for the most part, the reader is guided into the linguistics of Mandarin by some terse and succinct explanations of dozens of functional words and particles. LE and DE are the stars of the show, but there are adequate treatments of many other particles and verbs. Gao manages to do something fairly incredible: he describes phonological and grammatical processes without tree diagrams or feature matrices. There is a rather a-theoretical, or at least practical, linguistic ideology inherent here. This can be refreshing for someone accustomed to linguists trying to make facts fit a model rather than vice versa.
Although I had studied Mandarin previously, I still learned a few things I had not been exposed to before. The discussion of Cheng Yu, the set of proverbs or idioms which are each explained by a traditional narrative, was quite enlightening. Gao also delves into the sociolinguistic dimension, demonstrating the many ways social context or level of familiarity among speakers in a speech setting determine the appropriate vocabulary or grammatical constructions which must be used.
I feel there is a lot to like here. Unlike the Mandarin overview by Sun, published by Cambridge, Gao’s book gives the impression of being more thorough, maybe even complete. However illusory this completeness might turn out to be, I still felt satisfied and convinced by the end of the book that Mandarin was once again doable. Gao’s grammar sketch is the largest chapter, but it could have been expanded into a monograph rather easily. But then again, that might push things over the edge for someone struggling with both a radically different language and an unfamiliar terrain of linguistics. I would like to have read more about the fascinating tradition of writing in China, yet here again, the newcomer might be covered in clouds rather than led to experience real clarity. In fact, it would take me a lifetime to achieve clarity with Chinese characters. I found only a few negatives: some awkward English sentences, a few typos or editorial errors, and the lack of a map showing the extent of Mandarin in modern China. But apart from these minor issues, Gao’s Mandarin Chinese is a fantastic review of, and could make a plenty useful introduction to, the most essential details that make Mandarin Mandarin.
As a coda, I wish to comment on what a sketch such as Gao's implies about UG (Chomsky's Universal Grammar) and about the status of Mandarin as a 'logical' language. I have heard Mandarin syntax labeled as 'very logical'. Compared to the verb paradigms of French or the complex syntax of Japanese, Mandarin morphosyntax is highly regular while following strict rules (modifiers always before the head they modify, no movement of question words to the beginning, etc.). Yet if you read classic Chinese linguists like Yuen Ren Chao, it is easy to see that Chinese logic does not operate with the same operators as one typically finds in European languages. Mandarin 'logic words' (e.g. what could be translated as 'if', 'all', 'not', or 'and') pattern differently from English, such that they are not mappable one to one between English and Mandarin. Also in Mandarin, functional heads like Tense or Determiner seem to be missing, or else are expressed according to different patterns altogether. So while it is preposterous to call Chinese 'logical' or 'illogical', it must be admitted that Chinese logic functions differently in comparison to English. As Chao put it, it is not that Chinese fails to be logical, but that the rules of logic are bent to conform to Chinese grammar. To conclude, Mandarin problematizes the assumed universal mapping of utterances to the world of truth conditions. There are many generativists working on Mandarin, but they should all take a few pages from the playbook of linguists such as Gao or Chao. It is possible and desirable to describe a language without formalisms (all of which spawn arcane theoretical machinery) if you want to understand how a language works, and Gao does just that. As i said, Gao's book makes me want to study Mandarin again. Who knows, maybe things will be different this time.
September 19, 2012
Alright, so I didn't read the whole book because I'm simply too new to Mandarin. The first 1/3 of the book was extremely relevant to me. As it entered the other 2/3s of the book I found it was going way over my head. I think this book would be far more relevant to me after I have some more experience with the grammar and other characteristics of the language. I like how the book is very high level so I feel like I'm only going toe deep rather then knee or neck deep. This is what I was looking for as something to get my mind off the gritty parts of just going to class and doing the homework.
August 4, 2008
solid overall review of the language. it is an introduction, and introduce it does: the history of mandarin chapter is a little long, and given that chapter six contains some pretty heavy grammar, would think a language learner picking up this book would know of the existence of pinyin prior to reading. that, and the difference between traditional and simplified characters. this is not intended to be an instructional book, but merely a resource for new language learners and therefore would be a good prerequisite for preliminary efforts into learning mandarin.
July 14, 2007
because of this book, i've been picking up on mandarin much, much quicker than i would have otherwise.
November 16, 2007
A clear and concise overview of the language. The writing manages to be accessible without becoming overly simplistic.
January 9, 2015
Got to page 12 and started shaking my head. This book was published in 2000 and it shows. I won't be finishing.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews