Contrastive Linguistics: History, Philosophy and Methodology

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Contrastive Linguistics is the first book written by a linguist from mainland China on the histories and principles of comparing and contrasting Chinese and Western languages, specifically English. From Wilhelm von Humboldt's initial study in comparative linguistics to the present day, traditional scholarship in contrastive linguistics has taken a Western perspective and shown how foreign languages relate to the Indo-European language family. However, such a view has a limited scope, and there is an alternative history to contrastive linguistics. This book is an attempt by Professor Wenguo Pan to redress the balance in contrastive linguistics, comparing Western languages to Chinese, rather than vice versa. He provides a survey of contrastive linguistics in China throughout the past century, and aims to open a window for the world to see what the new generations of Chinese linguists are doing in this exciting field, and to start a dialogue between scholars of different backgrounds and linguistic traditions. Contrastive Linguistics looks at the history of this discipline both in Europe and in China. Professor Pan presents a survey of the historical, philosophical and methodological foundations of the discipline, but also examines its scope in relation to general, comparative, anthropological and applied linguistics. This book will be of interest to academics interested in a new perspective on contrastive linguistics or Chinese linguistics.

Reviews

Overall, the book is the first attempt to bring history, philosophy and methodology together to broaden the view of contrastive linguistics... Besides the academic merit, commendably, it is also the first time that Chinese scholars have presented achievements in contrastive linguistics research to the world through their careful observation, diligent thought and lucid exposition. * Languages in Contrast 9:2 *
The present volume stands out as one of the most comprehensive surveys of the history of contrastive linguistics, quite possibly the most comprehensive one published to date. The width and depth of Pan and Tham's knowledge and understanding of the theoretical and methodological issues associated with contrastive linguistics scholarship on a global scale is nothing short of astonishing and truly praiseworthy. Such a volume was no doubt long overdue, but the fact that it appeared in 2007, the year in which contrastivists the world over celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publication of the charter of contrastive linguistics, Lado's Linguistics across cultures, is eminently significant. It is a momentous occasion for all involved in contrastive linguistics research to reflect upon the results obtained through the implementation of various models of contrastive analysis, observe them and reinterpret in a wider context, get a better, more profound grasp of the full potential of the discipline and reaffirm their commitment to carry on further research. Contrastive Linguistics: history, philosophy and methodology is not only an indispensable reference tool to a range of specialists - theoretical and applied linguists of various provenance - but also a valuable contribution to the modern history of language research. The authors should be congratulated on a truly remarkable achievement, persuasively reinstating the relevance of contrastive analysis and its theoretical and methodological apparatus within present-day linguistics. -- Svetlana Kurtes, University of Cambridge, UK * Linguist List *

Author Bio

Professor Pan Wenguo is at East China Normal University. He has published widely on contrastive linguistics and translation studies including An Outline of Contrastive Study between Chinese and English (Beijing, 2003: BLCU Press). Tham Wai Mun is Assistant Professor in the Division of Chinese, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.