Zhang Zhigong's Achievements and Honors

Over the years, Zhang Zhigong has been devoted to the study of Chinese grammar, and has made important contributions to both the pedagogical and theoretical grammars of the Chinese language. Zhang Zhigong has presided over the formulation of Chinese teaching grammar on two occasions, expounded some basic theories of teaching grammar, promoted the popularization of teaching grammar nationwide, and devoted a lot of efforts to the establishment and updating of teaching grammar. 1954 to 1956, secondary schools implemented the teaching of Chinese language and literature separately on a trial basis, and the teaching of Chinese grammar was one of the most important subjects in teaching Chinese. Teaching Chinese language, grammar is one of the most important contents. Since Ma Jianzhong introduced western grammar, Chinese grammar has appeared in various systems, and the terminology used is also very divergent. This situation created great difficulties for those who studied grammar. However, in the linguistic circles at that time, theoretical and grammatical monographs were in full bloom, and there were many different grammatical systems, while the teaching must have a unified system that could be recognized by everyone, easy to teach and learn, and useful after learning. For this reason, under the leadership of the Ministry of Education and with the support of the linguistic community and teachers, Zhang Zhigong began to preside over the drafting of a grammatical system for teaching Chinese. At that time, two principles were determined: first, as far as possible, this system could integrate the achievements of Chinese grammar scholars over the past several decades; second, as far as possible, the content of this system (from thesis to terminology) would be familiar to the general public, especially to language teachers in secondary schools. According to the above principles, after many discussions, revisions and trial teaching, the Tentative System of Chinese Teaching Grammar was finally drafted and unanimously approved at the National Symposium on Grammar for Linguists held in Qingdao in July 1956, as a basis for the preparation of secondary school textbooks on Chinese language. During the formulation of the Tentative System, he personally went to the Beijing Teachers' Training College to try out the system and keep abreast of the trial situation of the textbooks. Commenting on this grammatical system, Mr. Wang Li said, "Rather than merely blending the achievements of various schools, the Tentative Grammar System has established a new system." ("On the Problem of the Tentative Grammar System for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language", Language Learning, No. 11, 1957) In order to introduce and elaborate on the Tentative Grammar System for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, Mr. Zhang Zhigong edited a collection of essays on Grammar and Grammar Teaching in 1956, which was divided among more than twenty grammarians for secondary school Chinese language teachers to refer to. On this basis, he also edited the textbooks of Chinese Language (Books 1-6) used in secondary schools nationwide. Later, when the experiment of separating subjects was discontinued, he also presided over the rewriting of the textbook of Chinese Language into Chinese Language Knowledge for the reference of teachers and general readers, which became a representative work on teaching grammar. The book has had a wide influence in Hong Kong, Japan, and all over Southeast Asia; The Modern Chinese Language Method, written by Shunichi Kasaka of Japan in 1962, is mainly based on Knowledge of the Chinese Language. From 1956 to 1981, the Tentative System was not only the basis for grammar teaching in primary and secondary schools, but was also used in most of the works on grammar in a number of higher education institutions, especially in higher teacher training colleges, as well as in the community in general. Due to its popularity among readers, the People's Education Publishing House reprinted the book in 1980. With the continuous development of grammar research and grammar teaching, the grammatical community has also made many new discussions on pedagogical grammar, and has put forward many suggestions for changes to the Tentative System. In order to absorb the latest results of grammar research and further improve the teaching grammar system, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Zhang Zhigong once again presided over the formulation of the new teaching grammar system. 1981 July in Harbin, held a national seminar on grammar and grammar teaching, grammarians from all over the country, grammar practitioners, excellent secondary school teachers gathered together, *** with the development of a new teaching grammar principles and programs, finally resulting in the Tentative System of Teaching Grammar for Secondary Schools, which was published by the Ministry of Education. The final product was the Systematic Outline of Secondary School Teaching Grammar (Trial). Once published, the Systematic Outline immediately received widespread attention. Workshops were held in many provinces and cities to explain and study the new system of pedagogical grammar; many scholars and teachers wrote articles to elaborate on the system, creating a frenzy of study, research and use. At the same time, Zhang Zhigong also wrote many articles on the nature, purpose, object, content and method of teaching grammar, summarizing and outlining it theoretically, and in 1997, the Shanxi Education Press published Selected Essays on Chinese Grammar Teaching, which collected his major works and essays on teaching grammar. From the 1950s to the 1980s, Zhang Zhigong twice successfully presided over the formulation of the pedagogical grammar system, and it can be said that he was the veritable founder of the establishment of China's pedagogical grammar system. In connection with the creation of the teaching grammar, Zhang Zhigong also did a lot of research on the theoretical grammar of Chinese. In studying theoretical grammar, he always emphasized the importance of practicality and the need to study grammar from a practical point of view, so that people could learn and use it. General Knowledge of Chinese Grammar and Speech on the Study of Grammar are representative of this. General Knowledge of Chinese Grammar was published by the China Youth Publishing House in 1953. This book has become a unique monograph on grammar by adopting the views of many schools of thought. Its main features are: (1) It emphasizes the classification of words according to their grammatical functions, and believes that "the classification of words is based on grammatical features". (b) It makes some new treatment of word classification, firstly dividing words into real words and imaginary words, and then into eleven subclasses. This is a relatively new research result, which was later adopted in the "Provisional Chinese Teaching Grammar System". (c) It is believed that words can be combined in two ways - word order and dummy words, and that they can be combined to form three kinds of relationships - subject-predicate, union, and bias (including modification, supplementation, and verb-object). (iv) There were also new creations in syntax, and the concepts of existential sentence, regular sentence and variant sentence were firstly proposed. (e) Lexical and syntactic methods are explained in a cross-sectional manner, such as a brief introduction to the grammatical system, followed by nouns, verbs and adjectives, then judgmental and quasi-judgmental sentences in which these three types of words form the predicate, then the use of several types of real and imaginary words, and then the expansion and change of sentence components, etc., which makes it easier for learners to understand grammar and learn to use it. This book was one of the most influential grammatical works at that time because it absorbed the strengths of various schools and formed a system of its own, and in 1955, Kasaka Shunichi translated the book into The Basics of Chinese Grammar, which had a significant impact on the Chinese language learning community in Japan. Speech on Grammar Learning, published by Shanghai Education Press in 1962. It is a popular and quite innovative work on grammar. From the convenience of learners and the characteristics of the Chinese language, the book tries to formulate a Chinese grammar system in line with the characteristics of the Chinese language. The author starts with "the organization of words and sentences", and talks about the four kinds of relations arising from it: the former restricts the latter, the former dominates the latter, the latter explains the former, and the former and the latter are united. It begins with the organization and use of sentences, directly demonstrating the most basic features of Chinese combinations. It goes on to talk about the use of various words, about various cases of compound sentences, about complex long sentences, and so on, in a way that is close to the practical and creative. The book embodies several principles of writing that are inspiring for language teaching nowadays: focusing on application, teaching the most basic things, focusing on logical relations, and connecting with rhetorical expressions in speech and writing, as well as tones and moods. In addition, studying theoretical grammar, Zhang Zhigong noticed the difference between Chinese grammar and Western grammar at a very early stage, and repeatedly called for getting rid of the constraints of Western grammar and establishing a Chinese grammar that conforms to the characteristics of the Chinese language. This was revealed in Common Sense of Chinese Grammar and Speech on the Study of Grammar, and this tendency became even more obvious when it came to the editing of Modern Chinese for the Central Radio and Television University as well as his later studies. Modern Chinese (Upper, Middle and Lower), edited by Princess Zhang Zhi and published by the People's Education Publishing House in 1982, the middle volume of which deals with Chinese grammar. In this part, the author further tries to formulate a Chinese grammar that conforms to the characteristics of the Chinese language, and at the same time incorporates some of his new research results. The book I*** has three chapters. The first chapter, Overview, briefly describes the grammatical system, in which morphemes are categorized into virtual and real, phrases are categorized into triple and multiple, and non-subjective predicate clauses and sentence clusters are explained, all of which are rich in new ideas. Chapter 2, Combination, centers on the characteristics of Chinese language, focusing on the order, association, collocation, extension and transformation, which starts from the grammatical forms and structures to talk about the meanings they express and the problems that should be paid attention to when applying them. Chapter 3, Expression, focuses on affirmation and negation, existence and disappearance, time and space, degree and scope, tone and mood, etc. It starts from some important grammatical meanings and talks about the grammatical forms and structures needed to express these grammatical meanings as well as the problems that should be paid attention to, which is a semantic analysis of Chinese syntax. This arrangement, taking into account both structure and semantics, not only pays attention to the characteristics of the Chinese language, but also can be utilized for learning, which is a new attempt to teach grammar. Zhang Zhigong also wrote a number of papers to elaborate his views on grammar, such as General, Special and Individual, Possible and Necessary, A Few Opinions on the Study of Chinese Syntax, Theoretical Significance and Practical Significance of the Study of Grammar, Divergence of the Chinese Grammar System, Problems in Establishing a New Grammar System for Teaching, Interrelationships between Monosyllabic Morphological Elements and Multi-syllabic Words in the Chinese Phrasebook, Research and Teaching Grammar, Grammar and Grammar, and the Teaching of Language. Grammar Research and Grammar Teaching", "Linguistic Norms and Conventions", "The Problem of Chinese Lexical Classes Needs Further Study", "Re-study of Chinese Grammar", etc. Some of these papers are very useful for grammar research and teaching. Some of these papers have a strong guiding effect on grammar research and study.

Three Zhang Zhigong has also done a lot of research work in Chinese rhetoric and other areas of Chinese language. In the study of rhetoric, Zhang Zhigong's main contributions are: establishing a relatively scientific system of modern rhetoric, giving a relatively scientific and precise definition of rhetoric, and clearly proposing the three natures of rhetoric, and so on. The next volume of Outline of Rhetoric, Modern Chinese can represent the author's main viewpoints. Outline of Rhetoric, published by China Youth Press in 1953. The book takes the rhetorical phenomena in modern spoken language and modern vernacular works as the object of study, and is a purely modern vernacular rhetorical work. The most prominent feature of the book is that it breaks the limitation that rhetoric mainly focuses on rhetoric, and connects with grammar at one end to talk about the rhetorical phenomena in the use of words and sentences, and the order and tone of voice at the other end, and extends to the structure of the chapters and the style of the language at the other end, which greatly expands the scope of the study of rhetoric. The four chapters of the book*** include diction, sentence construction, modification, chapter and style. This arrangement of content and structure, it can be said, pioneered modern rhetoric, and had a deeper and wider impact on the study of rhetoric at that time and in the future. The next volume of Modern Chinese (Chinese Rhetoric), I*** five chapters. Chapter 1 Introduction, Chapter 2 Words and Sentences, Chapter 3 Paragraphs and Chapters, Chapter 4 Styles and Styles, Chapter 5 Metaphors and Others. The book clearly puts forward that "rhetoric is the art of using language", "the use of language requires the unity of normality and artistry", and puts forward the three qualities of rhetoric: national, social and contemporary. This is a much creative work on rhetoric. Zhang Zhigong wrote a special article on "Chinese Rhetoric" for the Encyclopedia of China - Language and Literature Volume. He put his understanding of the characteristics of rhetoric and the three characteristics of rhetoric into this special article. In other areas of Chinese language, Zhang Zhigong also expressed many insightful views. He has studied such issues as the status of linguistics, the nature of language, and the practicality of language study. When he taught a course on general linguistics in his early days, he explored the question of the origin of language from the perspective of a fringe discipline, which was a more advanced research method at that time and for many years thereafter. His emphasis on the importance of morphemes, his emphasis on the study of morphemes, his division of morphemes into real and imaginary elements, and his advocacy of a two-way study of semantics, both static and dynamic, were all groundbreaking.

Four Zhang Zhigong has been engaged in the writing of Chinese and foreign language teaching materials for many years. He has always believed that the preparation of teaching materials must be based on academic research, and that it is impossible to prepare good teaching materials without an academic foundation. Therefore, he practiced, over the decades on language education has made a lot of research, from traditional to modern, from Chinese to foreign languages, has achieved fruitful research results. Zhang Zhigong's research on traditional language education has three main stages. In the first stage, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he mainly collected information on traditional language education and explored some experiences from traditional language education. The research results of this period are concentrated in the book "The First Exploration of Traditional Language Education" (published by Shanghai Education Press in 1962). The book outlines four major steps for traditional language education: centralized literacy - further literacy education - basic training in reading and writing - further training in reading and composing; and summarizes out that the main lessons of traditional language education are: concentrated literacy, separate literacy and writing, emphasis on sentence training - genus pairs, and emphasis on more reading and writing. The results of this research played a positive role in language teaching at that time. The "Draft Bibliography of Mengxue" attached to the end of the book is the result of the author's systematic research on Mengxue and Mengshu, which has high academic value and precious historical value. The second stage, from 1977 to around 1990, was mainly to re-conceptualize traditional language education, and through re-examination, to explore the road of language education reform combining modernization and nationalization of language teaching. The author successively published articles such as "Re-understanding of Traditional Language Teaching", "Gains and Losses of Traditional Language Teaching", and "The Past, Present and Future of Chinese Language Teaching", summarizing the three major experiences and four major drawbacks of traditional language education. The three major lessons are: the establishment of a complete and effective system of teaching Chinese characters; the establishment of a complete system of teaching the study of articles; and the establishment of a system of language teaching methodology based on a large number of reading and writing practices. The four major drawbacks are: neglect of language practice; neglect of application practice; neglect of language knowledge teaching; and neglect of literary education. This research has provided an important reference for the nationalization of modern language education. In the third stage, around 1990, the author once again delved into traditional language education, and on the basis of "A Preliminary Study of Traditional Language Education", he focused his research on teaching materials, writing "A Treatise on Teaching Materials for Traditional Language Education--Cum Bibliography of Montessori and Shadow of the Book" (published by Shanghai Educational Publishing House in 1992). The book, centered on teaching materials, with descriptions and discussions, and accompanied by a large number of book shadows, is another major contribution of the author to the study of traditional language education. The purpose of studying traditional language education, summarizing the experience and pointing out the shortcomings is to reform the present language education for the sake of the present. Therefore, on the basis of the study of traditional language education, Zhang Zhigong concentrated on the study of modern language education, put forward the idea of systematic reform of language teaching, and actively advocated the scientization and modernization of language teaching. The author wrote a large number of essays in this area, which were collected into several collections: Diffuse Discourse on Language Teaching (published by Fujian People's Education Press in 1963), Collection of Essays on Language Teaching (published by Fujian People's Education Press in 1978), Zhang Zhigong's Discussions on the Reform of Language Teaching (published by Jiangsu Education Press in 1987), and the third volume of the Collected Writings of Zhang Zhigong (published by Guangdong Education Press in 1991). Zhang Zhigong's Essays on Language Education (published by the People's Education Press in 1994) and so on. In language education, Zhang Zhigong's main contributions are: (a) calling for the scientificization of language teaching, "the so-called scientificization, that is, to figure out the laws of language teaching, according to the laws." In his articles such as "Improving the Efficiency of Language Teaching", "Language Teaching Needs to be Much More Efficient", and "A Few Issues on the Reform of Language Teaching", he stated his ideas about scientization many times and made scientific explorations in literacy teaching, language teaching, literature teaching, and teaching of the literary language. (ii) Holding high the banner of modernization of language education, he proposed that language teaching should be in line with modernization. Modernization includes modernization of the requirements and contents of language teaching, modernization of language teaching methods and modernization of language teaching means. In his view, developing students' intelligence, cultivating their ability to read quickly, training them to master Putonghua, and making them agile, accurate and efficient in oral and written communication, etc., are all new requirements for language education put forward by modernization. (c) He put forward the idea of a "one-stop" overall reform of the language curriculum, language teaching materials and language teaching in early childhood, elementary school, middle school and high school. In his article "Some Preliminary Ideas on Reforming the Language Curriculum, Language Teaching Materials and Language Teaching", he put forward a rough outline of his overall reform concept. The basic idea of this conception is "to take knowledge as the precursor and practice as the main body, and to rely on the development of practical ability", which not only emphasizes the importance of knowledge, but also stresses the development of ability, reflecting the instrumental nature of the Chinese language and the law of language. (d) "Concise, understandable and useful", the six-word motto of language teaching. The general principle of teaching language knowledge put forward by Zhang Zhigong is "concise, understandable and useful", which has been continued since it was first written into the Syllabus for Teaching Secondary School Language in 1977 and has been jokingly called Zhang Zhigong's "six-word aphorisms", and has played an important role in the improvement of teaching language knowledge. It has played an important role in improving the teaching of language knowledge. In addition, Zhang Zhigong had many other commendable views on literacy teaching in elementary school, the teaching of literary language, literary education, language education in universities, the teaching of Chinese language to brotherly peoples, the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, and so on. For many years, language teaching has been inefficient and ineffective. Where exactly is the crux of the problem? This is a question that Zhang Zhigong has been pondering over since he engaged in language education. He tried many times to find a solution to the problem, which is the "Chinese Rhetoric" course that has been offered since 1981 at Peking University, Beijing Foreign Languages College (now Beijing Foreign Languages University), and Beijing Normal College (now Capital Normal University). 1986, the main content of the course and his discussions on rhetoric were published in a collection called "Chinese Rhetoric", which was entitled "Chinese Rhetoric". In 1986, the main contents of this course and his discourse on rhetoric were published in a book entitled Collected Discourses on Chinese Rhetoric (published by the People's Education Publishing House in 1996). The book clearly pointed out that Chinese Rhetoric is a bridging discipline between the basic knowledge and theory of language and the application of language in listening, reading and writing. This is a new discipline, and the purpose of establishing this new discipline is to connect the two ends of theory and application through this bridge, so as to improve the efficiency of language teaching. "After the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Zhigong spent most of his time writing and reviewing foreign language teaching materials, and thus offered many insights into foreign language education. As early as 1952, he published the book How to Learn Russian, and from 1962 to 1966, he edited a set of English and Russian textbooks for middle schools. He also wrote a number of articles on foreign language teaching, such as Purpose and Requirements of Foreign Language Teaching in Secondary Schools, Trying to Talk About Two Basic Problems of Foreign Language Teaching, and Strengthening Research Work in Foreign Language Teaching. The main achievements in this regard are collected in the fifth volume of Zhang Zhigong's Collected Works. After Zhang Zhigong's death, Zhang Zhigong on Language-A Collection of Extra Collections (originally titled Zhang Zhigong's Recent Writings on Language, which was changed to its present name due to his death, indicating that it was connected with his five-volume anthology) and

Zhang Zhigong's Self-Selected Collections, which had been arranged during his lifetime, were published by the Language Publishing House and the Peking University Publishing House.

The Collected Works collects some of Zhang Zhigong's essays and speeches published in newspapers and magazines after the publication of the Collected Works, among which there are some papers and speeches on language standardization, a topic he was most concerned about, and some new explorations of the problem, the re-study of Chinese rhetoric and grammar, as well as some papers on the old problem, language teaching. There are new explorations of the problem--research on Chinese lexicography and grammar, as well as further research on the old problem--language teaching, and so on. Zhang Zhigong's Selected Works is divided into two volumes: the first volume contains essays and papers on language education, and the second volume contains essays on language research.