Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

自《通典》行世，歷代學者多將之歸入史部故事類、典故類，強調其資料彙編的特性，現代學者亦多持此態度。清代實中國經學發展之高潮，清儒治經不再專守於一經一注，傾向追求通貫群籍，由是每取《通典》以為典籍的文字校勘之佐證，惟他們對《通典》之利用實不僅止於此。本文擬勾稽清代學人對《通典》之評論與對其具體使用，窺探《通典》一書於經學研究中所發揮的影響，以及清儒對是書性質之研判。就本文所考，清儒研治經書除以《通典》為中介，鉤沉其中所載的六朝前儒之訓詁經解，或藉以校訂經文注疏文字，更有逕把《通典》視為《五經正義》外的一種「古注疏」，肯定其於經義探研上之價值。Since being published, Tongdian has been chiefly categorized as a historiographic or policy and politic writing, and emphasize has been placed on its expansive compilation of information. Such approach has been also widely adopted in the contemporary scholarship. Qing dynasty -- a climax of the development of Chinese classics study, during which, the study of Confusion classics was not seeking for ＂an annotation solely for a classic＂ anymore. Instead, an extensive application to different classics of the annotation was pursued, especially when referencing to Tongdian as an allusion for collating texts. However, the application of Tongdian was not limited to this. Through scrutinizing the commentaries and utilizations of Tongdian by Qing dynasty scholars, this paper analyzes the influences Tongdian has made on the study of classics, and the classification of Tongdian by Qing scholars. Based on its researches, the Qing classical study had taken Tongdian as a medium, probing into the exegesis of the Six Dynasties depicted in it, or collating the classics, annotations or texts. Besides, in Qing classical study, Tongdian had also been considered as a kind of ＂ancient annotation＂ other than that of Wujing zhengyi, which affirmed its significance on the study of classics.

The trend towards an embedded approach to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has led to calls for more collaboration between EAP practitioners and subject tutors (Wingate 2012). In this paper, we argue that this does not go far enough. The field of EAP can be seen as comprising two areas of important work which, at present, remain somewhat distinct: research and pedagogy (Ding and Bruce 2017). Both are interested in student writing, and both have approached student writing primarily through the lens of genre. Existing research on student writing (e.g. Nesi and Gardner 2012) draws heavily on methods of analysis applied to published academic texts (Hyland, Flowerdew, among many others). Taken together, EAP research has led to a good set of useful conclusions about specific features of text such as hedging, nominalisation, etc., on the one hand, and broad generalisations about ‘science’ v ‘social science’, for example, on the other. Our survey of the literature leaves us with the observation that there are too few voices within the EAP research side of the field that go beyond investigating what’s typical in academic writing to asking the question that practitioners engaged in pedagogy want answered: what is good academic writing? We report on a project in which EAP practitioners have joined forces with subject tutors to explore this very question. Based on the experience of this project, we argue that a call for ‘collaboration’ between EAP and subject tutors is not ambitious enough. Significant gains are to be made if tutors with expertise in EAP and tutors with expertise in a specific academic discipline take a ‘dual practitioning’ approach to what both sets of professionals dedicate a significant proportion of their career to: student education. Such an approach recognises equal value of contribution to a shared interest. Subject tutors are rightly respected for their knowledge of their respective academic field. EAP tutors possess not only the knowledge of academic text in terms of both product and process, but the metalanguage to make this knowledge explicit. In addition to benefitting the field of EAP itself, a dual practitioning approach will help to prevent a deficiency model which undermines the values and intentions of academia and academics.

In the past few years’ creativity seemed to have been the buzzword driving contemporary programmes of education and having a substantial impact on curriculum design worldwide. However, many of those programmes simply include the word ‘creative’ and leave students to their own devices, without effective guidance or examples of what creativity actually means or can lead to. This also appears to be the case in China, where students are closely supervised throughout their primary and secondary education, and once they progress to university they are expected to study independently without such supervision. One of the ways to encourage autonomy and creativity in HE learning is stimulating the interest and curiosity in that specific area, however not every module can be interesting and inspire curiosity and not every student will find interest in fields that perhaps are not so closely related to their major. This presentation will describe how interest, curiosity and creativity were enthused in year 2 University EAP students at an English Medium Instruction Collaborative University in China through research led learning and teaching.

A wide range of resources have been developed to support the learning of high frequency words and academic vocabulary. In contrast, technical vocabulary, which can account for as much as 30% of the words in a technical text (Chung & Nation, 2004), has received less attention from language practitioners so far. Our project aims at developing resources to assist science and engineering undergraduate students in the learning and use of technical vocabulary. This presentation will discuss data collected by survey and focus groups and explain the principles of resource development. Sample learning objects will be demonstrated