Chinese Courses |
Elementary Chinese (I) (Mandarin) This course provides a basic training in Chinese (Mandarin) in the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Specifically, it aims to help students achieve an elementary level of proficiency in Chinese character writing/recognition, pronunciation (Pinyin Romanization), basic daily conversation, and basic reading. The course focuses on: |
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Intermediate Chinese (I) (Mandarin) This course is designed to help students continue their study of the
Chinese language in all four areas of language skills: listening, speaking,
reading and writing at an intermediate level. The course accentuates a
continued practice of Chinese character writing, grammar, vocabulary building,
daily conversation, reading and basic writing (brief narration and description).
The course is focused on:
By the end of this session, students should have commanded around 350
new characters and/or phrases in order to engage in a sophisticated daily
conversation
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Intermediate Chinese (II) (Mandarin) By the end of this course, students should have commanded around 250
new words and/or phrases in order to engage in a linguistically and culturally
sophisticated communication in Chinese.
CHIN 205 Chinese Conversation This course is designed for students who have learned basic language skills from CHIN107 or beyond (CHIN200). The course aims to develop conversational skills in Mandarin Chinese by means of oral reports on and discussions of a variety of topics; including family, school, and work life. Students will use exciting materials for group discussion including excerpts from the newspaper and TV news, in addition to the textbook. The course will require grammar review and written work where appropriate. Also offered as an Honors course. Prerequisite: CHIN107. |
Anti-Heroes in Modern Chinese Literature This course introduces students to the image of anti-heroes in modern Chinese literature, a counter-tradition endemic to the heroic discourse in Confucian orthodoxy and the government-endorsed ideology of socialism. Through studying the literary representation of various types of anti-heroes: the aesthete, the self-abandoned, the marginal woman, the estranged, the defeated, the superfluous, the social outcast, etc., the course examines the trajectory of a modern anti-hero literature, one that was born of modern Chinese writers endeavor to search for an individual self vis-à-vis a collective identity. The course demonstrates how the sociopolitical conditions of modern China have shaped this anti-hero literature and how societal transformations have yielded value alternatives. The comparative perspective the course adopts will enable students to have a profound understanding of how the literary representation of anti-heroes is historicized and contextualized. Selected films will be shown to complement and enhance such study. Prerequisites: None. Fulfills Multicultural Requirement. Honors Section available.
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Love, Death, and Gender in Chinese Films This course introduces students to the treatment of recurring themes in Chinese films such as those related to various forms of love, death, and gender roles. Specifically, the course examines issues of love (passion, desire, and revenge), death, sexuality, masculinity and femininity in relation to those of duty (filial piety, loyalty to the state, etc.), politics and nationalism. The course, in particular, focuses on the issues of gender politics and female sexuality of various ideological persuasions and psychological dispositions and on how such issues are articulated cinematically. The cinematic representation of these themes is studied both from historical and contemporary perspectives. The course not only introduces students to Chinese culture/society through the cinematic viewpoint, but acquaints them with a knowledge of Chinese film aesthetic and filmmaking on the other. The comparative approach adopted in the course will enable students to explore and appreciate differences and similarities between Chinese and Western cultures in terms of the issues to be discussed. |
Department of Foreign
Languages and Literatures
103 Jastak-Burgess
Hall, University
of Delaware,
Newark DE 19716-2550
(302) 831-6882