外国人对中国古代诗歌教学策略的认知研究英文版.

Cognitive Research on Teaching Strategies of Chinese Ancient Poems for

Foreigners

Guoli Liu

School of foreign studies Henan Polytechnic University,

China 454003

liugl@

AbstractüImages in Chinese Ancient Poems are usually the punch lines and the key points in Chinese for foreigners. According to the Image Schema Theory and the Mental Space Theory of Cognitive Linguistics, teachers should manage to build up schemas of Chinese culture in the minds of foreign students by introducing them the backgrounds and stories contained in Ancient Poems. So that foreigner students can get the meaning between lines and go further to enjoy Chinese Ancient Poems. Meanwhile, it is helpful to introduce Chinese culture to the world.

Key Wordsü Ancient Poem Image Schema Chinese for

Foreigner

I. Introduction

Chinese Ancient Poems are a very important part in

teaching Chinese for foreign students. Meanwhile, because of

the rich images in Ancient Poems and the different

background, ways of thinking and culture, it is difficult for

foreign students to understand and appreciate Chinese Ancient Poems, for many images of Chinese culture are absent in their

minds. In order to enable foreign students to appreciate these

poems, teachers have to construct the image schemas in their

minds.

II. Images in Chinese Ancient Poems

Images contain the values, ways of thinking, life-style,

belief and customs of a nation. “Milky Way” and “Yinhe”, for

instance, are two images of different nations. They have different cultural meaning though they have the same

instruction. The former reminds people of the ancient Greek

myth while the latter, a beautiful Chinese legend of “the

Cowboy and the Weaving Girl”.

There are a large variety of images, for example, a plant,

a bird or beast, an idiom, a proverb, an allusion, a metaphor, even a number, etc. Different nations have their unique

images because of their different backgrounds and customs. There are more fascinating images in Chinese Ancient Poems.

It may be a hero in history (Qu Yuan in the sentence of “Yuan and Xiang River dry never, Qu Yuan grudges forever.”, a traditional festival (Qing Ming Festival in “On Qing Ming shower after shower it rains, lost a traveler’s soul seems.”ˈ a name of a place

( Yang Zhou in “Sailing to Yang Zhou in the March of prosperous blossom.”, title of a poem (Girls of Shang feel nothing about the loss of their country, still singing Hou Ting Hua on the other side of the river.”, an allusion (the cowboy and the weaving girl in “the night in the imperial palace feels cool as water, nothing they can do in bed but looking at the stars of Cowboy and Weaving Girl.”, and so on.

III. Theories of “Image Schema” and “Metal Space”

A. the Image Schema theoryc

The term of Image Schema theory was firstly put forward by Mark Johnson in 1987 based on the philosophy of embodiment and its main characteristics were expounded in the book titled The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. Image schema is a dynamic pattern appearing repeatedly in the process of inter-acting and moving perception, it can provide coherence and structure for people’s experience. People gain the image schemas in the process of inter-active experience between human being and outside world. Schema refers to a cognitive structure that can process the information and experience into a certain commen sense (Wang Yin, 2005, 65-67. Image schema is a mode that stores a person’s former knowledge and experience in his mind. It does not simply pile the facts and experience but categorize them into ordered knowledge systems. Schema is the basis to know the world, it will reorganize, re-understand and re-remember the new information. It links the new information with the former knowledge in a person’s mind. Decoding and recoding the newly-input information rely on the schemas the structures or net. These newly-input information must match the schemas in mind, a person can understand the information. Therefore, the knowledge stored in readers’ minds functions greatly to understand new information. As is known, different community members get different knowledge and value affected by their different traditions, cultures, backgrounds, religions and beliefs. This cultural cognitive mental state was