Teachers of Chinese Language Have to Pay Attention to and Become More Adept at Employing Comparative Method

Abstract

Comparative analysis is one of the most basic analytic tools in language studies. It is also the most fundamental and most effective means of analysis in the study of function words. As a Chinese language teacher, one has to pay attention to and be good at employing the comparative method. There is a variety of comparison being used in the studies of language. The most predominant among which is the comparison of synonyms or near synonyms. For instance in the case of the adverb “净”some suggest that it is equivalent to the adverb of scope “只” (only), and the sentence 净顾着说话，忘了时间了 is more or less the same as 只顾着说话，忘了时间了 meaning “Only caring about talking, one forgot about the time.” Still others believe that “净” is equivalent to the adverb of scope “都” (all), and the sentence 这一带净是稻田⭠ is more or less the same as 这一带都是稻田⭠, which means “These areas are all paddy fields.” So what about all these views? After all what really is the grammatical meaning of “净”? It is only through a specific in-depth comparison of “净” with “只” and “都” that one can obtain a satisfactory answer. And this article has given a concrete comparative analysis of the above three words in order to explain the necessity of the use of the comparative method. When employing the comparative analysis method, one is often required to attentively examine, analyze the compare from multiple perspectives, multi-levels, and multi-facets. The article also provides another example of the comparative analysis between “曾经” and “已经” to illustrate how to employ concretely the method of comparative analysis.