Key Information
Talk title: Chinese as a One‑Unit or Two‑Unit System? The Ontological Debate in International Chinese Language Education (中文一元抑或二元：国际中文教育的本体论之辨)
Date: Tuesday, 28th April
Time: 3-5pm
Location: G.159 – MacLaren Stuart Room, Old College, South Bridge, EH8 9YL, South Bridge, Edinburgh. EH8 9YL
The event is free, but please book via link HERE
This talk will be delivered in Chinese without translation.
First Inspector General for Chinese Language Education at the French Ministry of Education; doctoral supervisor at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO); first President of the European Association for Chinese Language Teaching. Former Vice President of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching. Founder and Honorary President of the French Association of Chinese Language Teachers. Former chief editor of the national curriculum for Chinese language teaching in primary and secondary education in France, and responsible for the development of examination standards for Chinese language teacher certification, as well as for the evaluation and recruitment of Chinese teaching staff nationwide.
He has successively served as chief editor of more than 40 monographs, including A Key to Chinese Speech and Writing, A Guide to the Use of Chinese Grammar, Studies in Chinese Language Education in France, and Intercultural Chinese Language Pedagogy. In addition, he has published more than 140 academic articles and developed the MOOCs Introductory Chinese and Dongba Script.
Honors include the “Chinese Language and Culture Friendship Award” (2003), the Special Contribution Award of China Book Publishing (2015), the Huilin Culture Award (2017), and appointment as International Advisor to China Publishing Group (2017). He was awarded the rank of Commander in the Ordre des Palmes Academiques (France, 2014) and Officer in the Order of Arts et Lettres (France, 2015).
法国教育部首任汉语总督学，法国东方语言文化学院博士生导师，欧洲首任汉语教学协会会长。曾任世界汉语教学学会副会长。法国汉语教师协会的创始人及荣誉会长。曾任全法基础教育汉语教学大纲主编和中文专业师资考试大纲的制定、汉语师资力量的考核和聘用。
先后主编《汉语语言文字启蒙》、《汉语语法使用说明》、《法国汉语教育研究》、《跨文化汉语教育学》等专著40多部。另外，发表学术文章140余篇并研发《中文启蒙慕课》及《东巴文慕课》
“中国语言文化友谊奖”（2003年）、中华图书特殊贡献奖（2015年），会林文华奖（2017年），中国出版集团国际顾问（2017年）。法国教育部学术棕榈司令勋章（2014年），法国艺术与文学勋章（军官勋位）（2015年）
Abstract
At the heart of International Chinese Language Education lies a fundamental ontological question: is the minimal unit of instruction one — the word — or two — character and word? While the dominant “word‑based” approach treats the word as the sole learning unit, Professor Bellassen argues that Chinese is inherently structured around a dual system: the semantic character and the communicative word. This character–word duality, he contends, is a defining feature of Chinese and should form the foundation of pedagogy. Drawing on two centuries of Western Chinese teaching practice, he proposes that clarifying this ontological issue is essential to resolving persistent theoretical tensions in the discipline and achieving greater conceptual coherence.
摘要
国际中文教育作为一个学科，其本体论层面的核心争议历久未决：这一学科的最小教学单位究竟是一个还是两个？一元论仅将”词”视为唯一的语言学习单位，以此构建整个教学体系；二元论则认为，汉语语言本身同时以表意的”字”（含语素）与交际的”词”作为编码解码单位，这是汉语有别于拼音文字语言的本体性特征，决定了”字”与”词”理应共同构成国际中文教育的最小教学单位。这场争论表面上是教学单位的选择之争，实质上是对汉语语言性质的本体论判断之争，它不仅关乎教学法的取舍，更关乎整个学科建立在什么样的语言观基础之上，也决定着教学论的路径选择与学习者的习得走向。因这一本体论问题上长期存在的认识论障碍，造成了当前国际中文教育的学科困境：即教学界以”词本位”的单一框架理解汉语，遮蔽了汉语”字—词二元”的本体性特征，导致学科基础产生内在矛盾。有鉴于此，本讲座立足于西方近两个世纪汉语教学的历史实践，以西方学习者为认知出发点，通过历史考察与本体论分析，论证”字—词二元”是汉语本体的核心独特性，进而主张澄清并确立这一本体论判断，是国际中文教育从根本上解决学科认识论困境、实现学科自觉的先决条件。