Course Description
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Chinese Dialects - Description and History

Catalog Description:

Introduction to the Chinese dialects and their description with an emphasis on their relationships, historical origins, and development from earliest evidence of diversity to the present.  Prerequisite: 01:165:302, 304 or equivalent

Course Meeting Time and Location:

Spring 2008 -- Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5th period (2:50-4:10), Scott Hall, Room 204

Course Instructor:

Richard VanNess Simmons

  • Office: Scott Hall 327  ** Office Hours: W 11:15-12:15
  • Office Phone: 932-5597 ** Email: rsimmon@rci.rutgers.edu
  • Web: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~rsimmon/
    • Course Design and Objectives:

    This course will survey the major Chinese dialects, their modern forms, their geographical distribution, and their history, from their earliest discernible origins to the present. Emphasis will be on issues of description of the modern dialects, and how comparative description is used to uncover clues to dialect relationship and historical development. Special attention will also be paid to questions of how social history, geography, and population movement affect dialect history.

    Spoken Chinese has been characterized by great diversity for most of China's history. This course will use the diversity of the modern Chinese dialects as a lens through which to view and understand the diversity of the Chinese languages in earlier times. In addition to modern description and methodology, the course will introduce the fundamentals of traditional Chinese descriptive methods as reflected in early texts, including the Shuowen jiezi, rhyme books, and rhyme tables. Students will learn how the diverse historical forms of Chinese that underlie these texts are, or are not, reflected in the present day Chinese languages.

    Textbooks:

    The above will be the main text for this course and is available from Pequod Printing, 119 Somerset Street.  Please purchase it right away.
    The above texts should be available from the University Bookstore at One Penn Plaza, opposite the New Brunswick train station, and from New Jersey Books, 108 Somerset St.

    Other material may be provided or assigned as the course progresses.

    Class Format and Student Evaluation:

    The class will be conducted in a lecture and discussion format, supplemented by audio recordings illustrating various dialects and their sounds and features. Students will have weekly assigned readings in both primary and secondary sources. They will also be given various assignments and exercises to help them understand the methods and skills used in investigating and describing dialects. Students will be evaluated on the basis of quizzes (for example, on the basics of linguistic description, Chinese history, and geography), a midterm, a final report, a final exam, and class discussions.

    Course Agenda:

    Weeks 1-7
    Weeks 8-15

    Quizzes and Exams