Search

This paper considers how "knowledge" of China was presented for Victorian and Edwardian children in "The Boy's Own Paper" ("BOP") between 1879 and 1914. It considers how genre affects the representation of China in the "BOP" by comparing travel narratives and adventure stories. First, it focuses on non-fiction about China, examining the rhetorical strategies employed by the authors of travel narratives. The travellers express confidence in their ability to survey the land and present readers with the idea that China is abundant in resources awaiting British discovery. Second, the article discusses adventure stories about opium and piracy written during a period when the tension between the British and the Chinese was particularly fraught over these issues. While the authors of the adventure stories created a strong contrast between the Chinese as villains and the British as heroes, the "BOP" travel writers provide contradictory statements within their narratives, reflecting an ambivalence about China and the Chinese. However, because the "BOP" contributors sought to instil a sense of patriotism, to inspire their readers to serve the British Empire, both the non-fiction travel narratives and the fictional adventure stories related to China were published not only to entertain readers with exotic facts and thrilling stories, but more importantly, to persuade them of the necessity of British intervention.

With the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the most troops overseas since Richard Nixon's presidency, President-elect Barack Obama will certainly have his work cut out for him. But at least Obama is a reader (and a writer), and there is no better antidote to the stress of the present than an hour or so lost in a good book. This article presents this year's selection of great reads--for President Obama as well as for everybody--which was created to help everybody better understand the past, the present, the brave new future.

Ding Yan is one of the representative writers of the "post -70s" in China. During the interview, she started from her own literary road. In the early days, she mainly created poetry and novels. In 2010, Ding Yan left Xinjiang and moved to Guangdong. Here she created two representative nonfiction works such as "Factory Girl" and "Factory Boys". She believes that the writer should not have a limit on nim or herself. Although there is a boundary between fiction and nonfiction, they can learn from each other. China's nonfiction writing has just begun, and there are still many areas that can be expanded. From the interview, we can clearly see the growth of the writer, her writing habits, her writing experience, and her understanding and thinking about nonfiction writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Li Yunlei, who is a young scholar, writer and editor of a journal, has many unique thoughts on the trend of Non-fiction Writing in China in the 21st century. In the written remarks, he pointed out that Non-fiction is an open concept, and many of the current names of Non-fiction do not really capture the concerns of the literary world. He said that an excellent Non-fiction work should have both authenticity, thought and literature, and the construction of the critical theory system of Non-fiction should start from "reality", this is also the biggest problem encountered by Non-fiction theory. He believes that any creator should have full confidence and gradually discover and experience the differences between himself and others in his own way around his most authentic life experience or the social issues which he is most concerned about. At the same time, it also reminds Non-fiction writers to maintain an appropriate distance from consumer society and capital in order to solve the current dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study by Wang, Jiayi examines the lexical interferences between German and Chinese in Chinese German language teaching. The focus is on verbs and verb constructions. The author discusses the role of the native language in learning and using vocabulary and advocates for a contrastive approach to vocabulary acquisition. The book provides an overview of the research status in China on contrastive studies of the German-Chinese language pair and offers suggestions for vocabulary exercises. It emphasizes the complexity of lexical learning and the necessity of appropriate vocabulary instruction in foreign language teaching. [Extracted from the article]

As an important part of nonfiction writing, local nonfiction literature is limited by the writer’s dual identity of “countryman”and“intellectuals”. Therefor, it often falls into the narrative pattern of“return and return”in Lu Xun’s style. Taking China in Liangzhuang as an example, when Liang Hong returned hometown, he was a countryman of Liangzhuang with memories of his hometown, but when he left home, he was an intellectual who examined rural problems with rational eyes. Between“return”and“departure”, her emotion and rationality are inclined and out of control in the blending, which makes the text lack the strength of rationality in the concentrated emotion, while the rational content itself crosses the fields of social science. The dilemma of modelized narration in China in Liangzhuang shows the defects of local nonfictional literature itself, and also reflects the difficulties of local nonfictional literature in breaking through the local literature of the May 4th movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study "The lived experience of Chinese international students in the U.S. An academic journey" by Zhou and Wei examines the experiences of Chinese international students in the USA. The authors use a phenomenological and narrative methodology to investigate the personal, academic, and linguistic development of five Chinese students. The results show that the students have made progress in intercultural and linguistic competence, but have also faced challenges such as transitioning from foreign language learning to second language acquisition. The authors provide recommendations for US universities, English language teaching in China, and Chinese international students. It is noted that further research on similar language learning situations, taking into account digital technologies, is necessary. [Extracted from the article]

The present publication is the dissertation of Zhang Ningjie, which deals with the development of the images of Germany by Chinese students studying German in China. Zhang examines how Chinese students studying German stereotype and evaluate Germans. For her study, she created a questionnaire in which 407 students participated. In addition, she conducted interviews with 16 selected students. The results show that the image of Germany in China is generally very positive and that stereotypes consist of social and private aspects. The publication makes a valuable contribution to stereotype research and is particularly relevant for teachers in the field of German as a foreign or second language. [Extracted from the article]

The book "China Competence in Germany and Germany Competence in China" offers various perspectives on the topic of "China competence". However, there are points of criticism as the expectations for multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary approaches are not met and the term "China competence" is not sufficiently clarified. Many contributions consist of previously published articles, which limits the gain of knowledge. Nevertheless, various approaches and positions by Chinese authors from different fields are illuminated. It is discussed how China competence can be defined and whether it should be understood strategically or in terms of understanding. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Soziologische Revue is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)