Singapore University of Social Sciences

Contrastive Language Studies: English and Chinese

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
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