Applied Linguistics at the Turn of the Century

Author: Yu Genyuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-12-01
Features: Applied linguistics is the driving force behind the development of modern Chinese linguistics.
In the early 1940s, when I first encountered linguistics, I heard about the distinction between theoretical linguistics and applied linguistics, but my understanding at the time was quite vague. Theoretical linguistics, of course, focused on theories, but what exactly did applied linguistics apply, and what did it study? I wasn’t entirely clear. In the past two decades, with the rapid expansion of linguistics’ scope of application, research in applied linguistics has gained widespread attention in the linguistic community, and its content has gradually become more defined. I haven’t conducted in-depth research on applied linguistics, and to this day, I can still consider myself an outsider. But based on my limited understanding, the greatest feature of applied linguistics lies in its ability to closely integrate with social reality and serve practical life. If this understanding isn’t entirely wrong, then the main driving force behind the rapid modernization of Chinese linguistics over the past century may very well be applied linguistics.
Traditional Chinese textual, phonological, and etymological studies also had their practical purposes—deciphering characters and interpreting classics—but their research was oriented toward the past. In the late 19th century, Ma Jianzhong’s Mashiyutong was published, introducing Western linguistic theories and methods, and separating the study of Chinese grammar from textual and etymological studies. This was a powerful blow to the traditional Chinese linguistic mainstream, which was dominated by textual, phonological, and etymological studies. However, Mashiyutong’s research was limited to the classical Chinese of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, still oriented toward the past. Around the same time as Mashiyutong’s publication, influenced by Western phonetic scripts and Japanese kana, the Qieyinzi movement was flourishing in southern China. The Qieyinzi movement was entirely dedicated to serving social reality, and it quickly spread northward after its inception, laying the foundation for the development of phonetic symbols and the promotion of the national language. In the early 20th century, the nationwide promotion of phonetic symbols and the national language movement marked a significant turning point for Chinese linguistics, shifting its focus from the past to social reality. It was a pioneer in applied linguistics in China, and its profound significance lies in fundamentally changing the direction of Chinese linguistic research.
To meet the needs of the phonetic symbols and national language movement, some linguists with progressive ideas turned their attention to the modern era, publishing several works on the pronunciation of the national language and beginning to organize efforts to compile a national language dictionary. The most influential was Li Jinxi’s New Grammar of National Language (1924), the first systematic study of vernacular grammar in China that formed a complete grammatical system, playing a pioneering role in modern Chinese grammar research. The National Language Dictionary compiled by the Chinese Great Dictionary Compilation Office completely broke free from the old framework of dictionaries from the Shuowen Jiezi to the Kangxi Dictionary. By 1945, when the eight volumes were completed, it became the first modern-oriented dictionary in China, laying the foundation for the compilation of modern dictionaries.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the purpose of linguistics serving society became even clearer, and the role of applied linguistics became more prominent. In 1951, The People’s Daily serialized Lu Shuxiang and Zhu Dexi’s Talks on Grammar and Rhetoric, disseminating grammatical knowledge and guiding language use, sparking a nationwide in learning grammar and rhetoric and greatly advancing Chinese grammar research. In October 1955, the National Conference on Textual Reform and the Academic Conference on the Standardization of Modern Chinese played a crucial role in promoting the development of Chinese linguistics. These conferences focused on applied linguistics. The Draft Proposal for the Simplification of Chinese Characters and the determination of the content of "Putonghua" approved by the National People’s Congress after the conference, as well as the Hanyu Pinyin Scheme formulated by experts from various fields and approved by the National People’s Congress, were all major events affecting the cultural life of the entire nation.
To promote the standardization of Chinese, the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences began compiling the Modern Chinese Dictionary in 1956, with Lu Shuxiang and Ding Shengshu serving as successive chief editors. After multiple revisions, it was officially published in 1978, becoming the first highly academic standardized dictionary in China and receiving widespread praise both domestically and internationally. To support the promotion of Putonghua, surveys of Chinese dialects were conducted nationwide in the 1950s and 1960s, with a scale and scope unprecedented in history. More importantly, they trained a generation of dialect researchers, laying a solid foundation for the rapid development of Chinese dialect studies in recent years.
The role of applied linguistics in driving the development of modern Chinese linguistics became evident in the 1950s and 1960s. In the past two decades, guided by the reform and opening-up policy, Chinese linguistics has achieved unprecedented development. One of the most striking changes is the emergence of new disciplines such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, pragmatics, and Chinese as a second language teaching. These new disciplines are closely related to applied linguistics and are even part of its content. This indicates that applied linguistics has matured in China. Among these new disciplines, computational linguistics and Chinese as a second language teaching are undoubtedly in the lead in terms of development speed and are likely to become the main driving force behind the future development of Chinese linguistics.
In recent years, computer technology has developed at an astonishing pace, affecting research in all disciplines. In linguistics, this has given rise to the new discipline of computational linguistics, with speech engineering technology becoming a hot topic. After 20 years of effort, research in Chinese speech recognition and synthesis, natural language understanding, Chinese information processing, the construction of Chinese corpora, the frequency statistics of modern Chinese characters, and the frequency statistics of Chinese words and sentence patterns have all achieved remarkable results, with some approaching international advanced levels. These projects all fall under the umbrella of applied linguistics, and most are the result of close collaboration between engineering experts and linguists.
What deserves special attention is that some speech engineering technology experts have joined the ranks of Chinese linguistic research during collaborative studies with linguists. Their research directions and methods have greatly broadened the horizons of Chinese linguistic research. We need more computational linguists proficient in Chinese research, and even more importantly, we need to cultivate a new generation of linguists skilled in computational linguistics. They will become the main force driving the progress of Chinese linguistics. With their push, Chinese linguistics is likely to experience a qualitative leap in the near future.
In the past, Chinese as a second language teaching was sometimes mocked as "childish" teaching. In the past two decades, however, it has "emerged as a new force," rapidly becoming one of the most rapidly developing and widely influential new disciplines in the field of linguistics. This is naturally closely related to the country’s reform and opening-up policy. Over the past 20 years, the number of international students has surged, and the number of teachers engaged in Chinese as a second language teaching has doubled. A continuous stream of research results has finally added a vibrant new discipline to the field of Chinese linguistics. Professor Lu Shuxiang pointed out more than once since the early 1950s that Chinese as a second language teaching is an important force driving Chinese linguistic research. However, over the past few decades, this force has not been fully utilized. The reasons are multifaceted. In the past, too much emphasis was placed on the political role of Chinese as a second language teaching, and in recent years, too much importance has been given to its economic benefits. Teaching and research have never been placed in the primary position, nor have they been reviewed from the perspective of the development of Chinese linguistics.
There are many urgent issues in Chinese as a second language teaching that require in-depth research, some of which may become new breakthrough points in Chinese linguistic research. Let me give two simple examples: our current phonetic research cannot solve the problem of foreign friends speaking with an accent, and our current grammatical research cannot clearly explain the usage of "le" to foreign friends. This shows that our past research was not comprehensive or precise enough, and the fundamental reason lies in the neglect of pragmatic analysis. Chinese as a second language teaching is a highly interdisciplinary new discipline that must be studied from multiple perspectives. This is not only to improve the level of Chinese as a second language teaching but more importantly, to promote the development of Chinese linguistics and raise the level of research in Chinese linguistics.
At the turn of the century, the world is facing a new technological revolution, the core of which is information technology based on computers. For linguistics, the core of this technological revolution is computational linguistics. The development of computational linguistics will have an immeasurable impact on all fields of linguistics. As China’s international status continues to rise, the number of foreign friends learning Chinese will increase at an even faster pace, and in the near future, it is very likely to create what is known as the "Chinese fever" phenomenon internationally. Our teaching and research must be fully prepared to welcome the arrival of the "Chinese fever" phenomenon.
Facing such rapid development in objective circumstances, the tasks of applied linguistics have become even more arduous, and its prospects have become even broader. At this critical time, the establishment of the Department of Applied Linguistics at Beijing Broadcasting University was a very visionary decision. It is hoped that the establishment of the Department of Applied Linguistics will not only cultivate specialized talents in applied linguistics but also become the driving force behind the development of modern Chinese linguistics.