Studies in Chinese Language: Volume 8

Description

The eighth volume of the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday series. Studies in Chinese Language, the eighth volume in the collected works of Professor M.A.K. Halliday, approaches the Chinese language from several interesting vantage points, ranging from studies of medieval to modern grammar, and also covering topics related to Chinese phonology, grammar and discourse. Professor Halliday's PhD thesis provided the basis for the first paper in this volume, 'The Language of the Chinese Secret History of the Mongols' (with examples from the book on CD-ROM). The final section on grammar and discourse includes papers looking at grammatical metaphor and scientific discourse in both Chinese and English.

Professor Jonathan J. Webster is Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at the City University of Hong Kong. He is also the Managing Editor of the International Linguistics Association's journal WORD, and the editor of the forthcoming Journal of World Languages (2014). M.A.K. Halliday was Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney.

"In this volume, Professor Halliday describes the Chinese language system in terms of categories of grammar, lexis, and phonology, in both medieval and modern Chinese, Putonghua and Cantonese. This lays the foundation of his systemic-functional framework in general linguistics. His pioneering work on probabilistics in Chinese grammar and his observation of grammatical metaphor herald the heyday of contemporary corpus linguistics and text linguistics. Michael Halliday has proved himself worthy of the honour to be recognized as one of the most influential linguists today, and to be ranked along such great names in Chinese scholarship as B. Karlgren, H. Maspero, Chao Yuenren, Luo Changpei, Wang Li, and Lu Shuxiang." Hu Zhuanglin, Tenured Professor, Peking University. "an initiative greatly to be welcomed." Reviewed in IH Journal, 2008 '... a major enterprise comparable to a grand retrospective of the paintings of some prominent artist of a distinctive school.' Roy Harris, Times Literary Supplement * Blurb from reviewer *