汉学之难

Elling O. Eide, “Methods in Sinology: Problems of Teaching and Learning” Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1 (Nov., 1971), 131-141.

[Page 134]

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…Achilles Fang has said that competence in Chinese demands an effort roughly equivalent to that required for the mastery of Greek and Latin plus all the Romance Languages. That may be an extreme position, but there was, I think, some merit in the dragon speeches that used to greet the beginners in a Chinese program. Chinese is not, after all, just another language, and competence in Chinese does require much more than the mere learning of a foreign tongue. The student deceived on this point is almost sure to suffer, for not only is he likely to have come ill prepared for rigorous language training, but he will then even be denied a refuge for his wounded ego. It is one thing to be having difficulty with the most difficult language in the world, quite another to be going down for the count in your struggle with something promoted as “just another language.” Further, and worse, such a student is ill prepared for the other demands that will, or should, be placed upon him. We cannot expect students to learn everything at once, but it is important that they know from the beginning what our standards are. You cannot talk purposefully of methods, or even of Sinology, with a student who eyes you resentfully when you refer to works in French or German, and who has not yet dreamed of the things in Japanese. It is essential, therefore, that we not promote Chinese in such a way as to conceal the elements of training that are necessary for competence and expertise.

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[Page 137]

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… It is not surprising that administrators are ignorant of our special needs, but it is, certainly, our duty to explain. To remind them that the mere fact Chinese is a language does not mean we need, or even want, the same facilities as other language programs. An English professor does not, after all, have to worry in the slightest about the arrangements of the books on the shelf when he suggests that a student look something up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But what if that encyclopaedia, call it “The Primary Tortoise of Her Britannic Majesty,” were in a thousand volumes rather than twenty-five, written in unpunctuated Chaucerian English, and arranged not alphabetically, but by subject or by rhyme—the rhyme, let us note, of Caedmon’s day. Clearly, we can make a strong case that our problems really are peculiar, and for the sake of our students it is important that we do so at every opportunity.

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