Cognitive Contextual Issues in Advanced Chinese:

New Pedagogical Approaches to Text Designing and Syntax Teaching

Hailong Wang

Abstract

Designing advanced newspaper-reading texts is an urgent issue that has been raised in recent years. This is because with its unique style and structure, language used in Chinese newspapers presents a challenge even for students who have achieved literacy in other areas of Chinese reading. Comprehension of newspaper language and syntax requires a different set of skills than reading literary language. Chinese newspaper writing employs different writing techniques, such as a highly stylized way of expression that correlates to a standardized format or custom and formatted expressions. Some social contextual issues and social-linguistic issues expressed call for additional language skills to understand the concepts, and new approaches in preparing text materials are necessary.

My presentation will consist of the following parts: 1) Facing the Issue: facts, problems and reasons. 2) Scanning the “Lead”, initial reading and key words searching, 3) Decoding headlines, and 4) Learning new words in context. In addition, I will discuss pedagogical issues of newspaper language in relation to intensive reading, extensive reading and speedy reading; patterns of Chinese newspaper expressions and grammatical features; the function of teaching re-organizing information and rewriting in advanced Chinese classes. Rhetoric and genre/style analysis in Chinese newspapers will also be discussed.