Contrastive Language Studies: English and Chinese

Singapore University of Social Sciences

Contrastive Language Studies: English and Chinese (CTI111)

Synopsis

CTI111e Contrastive Language Studies: English and Chinese aims to foster an understanding of the fundamental differences between English and Chinese languages in words, sentences, discourse and rhetorical structure. With a special emphasis on its relations to writing and translation, the course adopts a contrastive analysis approach to analyze the differences between the source texts and the translated texts. At the end of the course, students will be able to understand how Chinese the two languages organize and express meaning through their respective lexical, syntactic and stylistic devices. Such an understanding will enable them to communicate effectively in Chinese and English and relate to people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Level: 1
Credit Units: 5
Presentation Pattern: EVERY JULY

Topics

Introduction to contrastive analysis of English and Chinese languages
Contrastive analysis of English and Chinese Phonological system and Morphology
Contrastive analysis of English and Chinese Semantic Features and Word Classes
Contrastive analysis of English and Chinese Sentence Elements and Basic Structures
Contrastive analysis of Word order, Complex Sentence Structures and Modes of Sentence Extension
Contrastive Analysis of English and Chinese Discourse and Rhetoric

Learning Outcome

Recognize the relative uniqueness of English and Chinese in terms of grammatical structure, lexicology and discourse
Identify the subtleties in English and Chinese expressions and sentences
Apply contrastive skills to translating
Demonstrate the linguistic fluency in writing for both English and Chinese
Determine the presence and absence of the key linguistic and cultural features in the translated texts and evaluate the effectiveness of the translation, given the original texts
Interpret the differences between English and Chinese with cultural and social influence
Analyze English and Chinese texts using contrastive skills
Detect, explain and rectify errors in translation