In this course, I learned the history of how China resisted foreign aggression, fought for national independence, and the history of Chinese people dedicated to liberation. The content mainly involves 3 parts:
From the Opium War to the eve of the May 4th Movement( 1840-1919);
From the May 4th Movement to the founding of New China(1919 - 1949).
From the founding of New China to the new period of socialist Modernisation (1949-2008)
During the first part, to explore a way out, Chinese people gave various tries, including the Taiping Tianguo peasants war, the New Policy of Foreign Affairs,戊戌维新运动。Though all these movements failed due to their own limitations, they had wakened Chinese people’s national consciousness and had them realised
how emergency to “saving the survival of the Dead’ and “Revitalising China’.
In the second period, I learned about the turning point and many historical events until New China-born, including the May 4th movement, the victory of the new Democratic revolution, the failure of the Great revolution(国共第一次合作1917-1927），japan’s All-out War of Aggression against China1937, the victory in the resistant against Japan1945, and finally established a New China,
After that, I also learned about the intense situation and difficult problems that China had to face right after 1949, including the postwar cold war battle, and China herself National Liberation movement. Additionally, I learned how the Chinese overcame the difficulties，rectified chaos(打破封锁，纠正’大跃进’，’文化大革命’）to establish a socialist system, provoked the Reform and Opening-up policy 1978, and finally earned a new stage in social development and gained a position in the International environment.
1895 : Japan forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Maguran
1860: Anglo-French army burned down the YuanMingyuan.
甲午战争后（1895）Sino-Japanese War严复translated the ‘Theory of evolution into Chinese. “Natural selection and ‘survival of the fittest’ — provide a theoretical basis for this sense of crisis and national consciousness.
中学为体，西学为用。’
辛亥革命：xinhai revolution — in 1911, The Hubei New Army and the Communist progressive Association groups decided to act jointly to hold an armed uprising in Wuchang.
1912, 3 Provisional Treaty Law of the Republic of China is the first code in Chinese history to have a constitutional nature.
New Youth magazine and Peking university — the main fronts of the New Culture Movement.
Lu sun’s novel “Diary of a Madman
October Revolution to Chinese.
On August 7, 1927, the central committee of the Communist Party of China secretly met in Hankou (eighty-seven meetings). “ Should pay great attention to the military in the future, and it must be known that political power is obtained from the barrel of a gun.
Zuni conference: began to establish the leading position of the correct Marxist line with Mao Zedong as the main representative in the party Central Committee.
The Great Significance of the victory of the Long March of the Red Army.
1917-1927 大革命失败（皖南事变）（国共第一次合作）—八七会议；遵义会议；红军长征；
1927-1937十年内战：西安事变
1937-1949十年抗战（国共第二次合作）
In this course, I learned the linguistic basic concepts and basic theory. Basis theories involve vowels, consonants, phonemes, phones, conditional variants, free variants, distinguishing features, syllables, phonological changes, assimilation, alienation, weakening, and shedding. For example, I learned vowel pronunciation location and pronunciation method, consonant pronunciation locations, and pronunciation method.
In terms of vowels pronunciation, we use a vowel map to indicate the tongue position( front, central, back), mouth openness(close, close-mid, open-mid, open), and mouth shape (unrounded rounded) of vowels while saying. See the Figure below.
As for the consonant, we should pay attention to which part or parts of发音器官are participating in saying a consonant, as well as how they are cooperating, such as if the consonant is voiceless or voiced, aspirated or not-aspirated.
According to the different parts of organs of speech发音器官and the methods used, we can divide the common consonant into various groups such as:
爆破音：plosive consonant — also named stop consonant because the consonant generally will be stopped suddenly at the last part of pronouncing. [p,t,k]
鼻音：nasal consonant — the mouth part will be blocked, thus the sound will be out from the nose while the consonants are speeches. [m,n,]
颤音：trilling consonant — shaking tongue to get the sound /r/
擦音：气流从窄缝中摩擦而出【f,s]
边擦音：舌头抵住上颚，气流从舌侧摩擦而出的音[l]
Besides learning the theory of pronunciation, I also studied grammatical category语法范畴, the grammatical structure of the language as sentence patterns, the important functions of language including communication and thinking, etc.
Language is a system composed of phonetic, semantic, and grammatical elements, which can be divided into the bottom layer and upper layer. The bottom layer is composed of a set of phonemes, the systematical symbol of language without involving semantics. The upper layers are composed of a combination of phonetic semantics and constitute a language symbol system.
The essential attribute of a linguistic sign is its sociality, is unarguable, arbitrary, and socially agreed upon to use it . Thus language cannot be separated from society, and social activities. This indicates the important functions of language are communication and thinking.
语音：
Voice:
What are the common pronunciation characteristics of vowels and what are the common pronunciation characteristic of consonants.
Vowels: a o e I u v
The vocal organs are not obstructed.
The muscles of the vocal organs are balanced and tense.
Weak airflow during pronunciation.
Consonants: b
The vocal organs are obstructed.
The muscles of the vocal organs are unbalanced and tense.
Strong airflow during pronunciation..
词汇：
Vocabulary
A word is the smallest unit of language that can be used independently.
A word is stereotyped because the correspondence between the phonetic form and the meaning of a word will not change easily.
A word is completeness, which refers to that words can be understood independently as a whole and independently combined with other linguistic material units.
A word is the smallest unit of composition of a sentence.
Vocabulary can be divided into various categories including :
1. Basic words and unusual words.
2. Common usages words and non-common usages words
3. New words and old words
4. Native words and foreign words.
5. Dialect words.
语法：
Grammar
The grammar of a language is highly abstract, has strong recursion, is strictly systematic, and is relatively stable .
Human being languages can be divided 4 categories from the grammatical or lexical aspect, including 1. Isolating languages孤立语, inflectional languages屈折语, agglutinative languages粘着雨, and polymorphic languages多式综合语.
孤立语isolating languages：Chinese, Vietnamese
the characteristics of isolating languages are that there is almost no morphological change, and the grammatical relationship between words is mainly expressed by function words and word order. That is function words and word order are the most important grammatical means of its expression.
屈折语inflectional languages:德语German
1. Inflectional languages are rich in morphological changes. A word form of an inflectional language can often express more than one grammatical meaning, such as the English word ending -s, which can express both the third person and the singular.
2.
黏着语agglutinative languages .朝鲜语Korean
1. agglutinative languages rich in morphological changes. A word form of an agglutinative language generally only represents one grammatical meaning, so multiple grammatical meanings need to add multiple constitutive elements. 比如韩语中表示
多式综合语：polymorphic languages are rich in morphological changes
语用pragmatics
the criteria of cooperation principles:
1. The criterion of quantity: why is said should contain the information required for the purpose of the conversation, and it is not acceptable to fail to meet or exceed the required information
2. The criterion of quality
3. Relationship criterion: there must be a relationship between the words that appear before and after.
4. Guidelines of style: Speak clearly - avoid obscurity — avoid ambiguity — be concise — be organised.
语言发展的特点the characteristic of language development
Gradient, 2. Imbalance.
语言的混合linguistic mixing refers to two or more different languages whose elements are mixed with each other to form a new language system.
洋泾浜
语言的融合language fusion means that one language is excluded by another language and finally completely replaced, which is the result of in-depth long-term and extensive contact between differ t ethic groups.
— fusion is usually based on one language, retaining its own grammatical structure and basic vocabulary, while another or several languages gradually lose their communicative function and die; eventually, two or more languages merge into one language.
In this course, I learned Modern Chinese theories including phonetic / phonology语音，lexicon/vocabulary词汇，syntax/ grammar语法，and practiced connecting with these theories by imitating giving lectures / attending speech contest, etc.
普通话定义：definiton of Modern Chinese ( Mandarin - China National standard common language) takes Beijing dialect as its standard pronunciation, northern dialect as its basic dialect, and typical modern vernacular writings as its grammatical norms.
dialects of Chinese: Modern Chinese consists of Mandarin National standard common language and 9 main dialects includes北京话- located in Beijing area;晋方言-太原；徽方言-黄山/湘-湖南长沙；吴方言-苏州话/上海话；赣方言—南昌市；客家话-广东梅县；粤方言-广州话（cantonese),闽方言（闽南/闽北）-福建/台湾
typical modern vernacular writings: folks dramas/ novels written during Ming/Qing dynasties, especially the works produced after May 4th movement.
语音：
The phonology part includes characters of voice, Modern Chinese vowels, consonants, syllables, phonemes, flow changing of pronunciation etc.
characters of initials 21个声母: pronunciation position, pronunciation method, aspirated or non-aspirated.
finals韵母39：close, close-mid, open-mid, open; front, central, back; rounded oral shaped, unrounded oral shape.（the 3 elements of the pronunciation diagram of the finals includes 1. The tongue position is high or low. 2. The tongue position is front or back, 3. Whether the lips or oral shapes are rounded or unrounded.
single finals单韵母10个；complex finals复韵母13个；nasal finals鼻韵母16个
the characters of phonetic: physical traits and social traits.
The physical traits of Modern Chinese phonetic/pronunciations can be describe from the following 4 aspects:
1. Pitch - the height of the sound as Chinese 4 tones.
2. Sound of intensity - refers to the length of the intensity of the sound as (intonation -语调, question intonation; exclaim intonation, etc)
3. Length of sound - refers to the length of the sounds as (轻声：soft tone - shorter and lighter than the original tone)
4.音质/音色（Timbre); refers to the natural traits of the sound. Timbre can be expressed/described from the difference in pronunciation organs, pronunciation methods, and the resonator shape during pronunciation.
According to the different pronunciations methods, Modern Chinese initials can be divided into the following categories:
Depending on the different ways of forming obstacles and removing obstacles :
Stops initials; b p d t g k;
Fricatives: f h x sh r s
Fricative; j q zh ch z c
Nasal ; m n;
Side note; l
2. Depending on the vocal cord vibrates (声带是否震动）：
1. Voiced: m n l r
2. Voiceless: b d g j zh z
音变：pronunciation air-flow change
语流音变：language/speech air-flow change - in the speech flow, some sounds undergo certain changes under the influence of the before and after sounds, that is the speech flow sound change.
轻声soft tone: it is a special sound change of 4 tones in Modern Chinese pronunciation. It generally is a shorter and softer sound compared to the original tone. Eg.
儿化韵Era rhyme: the suffix “er” is combined with the final syllable of the previous syllable to form a syllable and the final syllable has a special sound change phenomenon with the timbre of the tongue. Eg.
变调: change of tone; 1. 214+214 —>35+214旅馆21+ 214好吃；2.不的变调：不好；不去
词汇lexicon/ vocabulary
This part includes morpheme, the composing of words, fixed words, etc.
单纯词simple words—：单音节词words with one syllable（人/天/马）；多音节词multiple syllables words（连绵词：双声-参差/叠韵-从容/其他-蝴蝶；叠音词：猩猩/姥姥；音译词：沙发/葡萄/巧克力/奥林匹克）
合成词composition words/combination words — a word is composed of at least two different root words 1联合型—it is formed by the juxtaposition of two roots with the similar, same, related or opposite meaning ( parallel type)；道路；改革；善良；美好；骨肉；尺寸；开关；买卖；反正：2.偏正型-partial synonyms: only the meaning of one root is at work, then the meaning of the other root disappear or is weakened. 国家，火车，火热，好看，男子3.补充型supplementary type : the latter root complements the former root.提高，改进
4.动宾型Verb - object type: the former root represents action and behaviour and the latter root represents the thing dominated by the action and behaviour (dominant type).管家；下岗；动员；失望。5.主语谓语型subject-predicate type: the former root represents the thing being stated.地震，日食，民主。
语法syntax/grammar.
This part includes word categories, phrases, sentence syntax, sentence patterns, complex sentences, etc.
文字Chinese characters
the texts in the world can be divided into two categories: alphabetic language and ideographic language. The phonetic text refers to a language text recording phonemes and syllables by using a small number of symbols.
Syllabic text/script refers to a language system that records unlimited language content with a limited symbol which follows the following rule: one syllable for one symbol, one symbol for one syllable.
Another system is called the ideographic text/ script—ideographic writing system, which refers to a system to use different strokes to form a large number of ideographic symbols
Chinese is an ideographic language that has the following traits: 1. There are thousands of commonly used ideograms, 2. One syllable can be expressed in multiple Chinese characters indicating different meanings, at the same time, one Chinese character can have different pronunciations depending on different meanings. 3. Chinese characters are mostly pictophonetic characters, and the phonetic sounds are not fixed beside the sound.
汉子演变过程：
甲骨文—金文—篆书—隶书—楷书—草书—行书
Oracle — bronze inscriptions — seal script — official scripts — regular script — cursive script — running scripts
Oracle was founded in Yin and Shang era engraved on the tortoise cells and animal bones over 3000 years ago. (刀刻）
Bronze inscriptions refer to those used characters engraved on bronze ware (Zhong ding) in the West Zhou dynasty, they are also called Zhong Ding Wen.（撰写，汤烙）
Seal scripts refer to the characters used in Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period，（大篆）（小篆）, and divided into dazhuan / xiaozhuan in Qin dynasty.
Official scripts refer to the characters used in Qin and Han dynasties书写工具的不同。
Regular script: popular during the late Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties.
Cursive scripts: East Han dynasty,
Running Scripts:
独体字：Monolithic characters — a whole character, which can not be separated. Most of them are pictographs and reference characters like日/月/上下
合体字：Combined characters - referee to the combination of two or more single characters into one character, such as明,
This course is about the grammar and expression of modern Chinese. It is based on the difference between the ancient Chinese. The modern Chinese, also called vernacular, becomes an official language that is generally accepted by the educated people as a written language since the May 4th Movement.
It is the classical Chinese which ruled the written literature and it inherited the ancient Chinese used in Pre-Qin Dynasty, which led to its obscurity. However, the ancient spoken Chinese is similar to modern Chinese, it is much easier to understand a dialogue written on a book than before. In this course, I have not only learned grammar, phonetics, vocabulary and word meanings of modern Chinese but also the use of them such as the Pinyin system, etc.
Phonetics
4 characters of phonemic: timbre, intensity, length, and pitch.
22 consonants and 10 vowels
4 tones:
the level tone (阴平55)
the rising tone (阳平35)
the falling-rising tone (上声214)
the falling tone (去声51)
Pinyin
Initials23 and finals39 form the fundamental elements in pinyin. Every Mandarin syllable can be spelled with exactly one initial followed by one final, except for the special syllable er or when a trailing -r is considered part of a syllable. The latter case, though a common practice in some sub-dialects, is rarely used in official publications. One exception is the city of Harbin, whose name comes from the Manchu language.
Only a few consonants could not be initials, such as: ng. And Chinese final sound is also in contact with the vocal. Little of them are not vowels, such as eng, ong, etc.
Polyphone 多音字
没, mou means to cover and mei means gone.
度, du means degree and duo means to measure.
缝, feng35 means sew, and feng51 means crack(on the wall…)
Word
偏义复词one-sided compound
One of two characters becomes the meaning of the word.国家深浅褒贬
同义复词synonym-compound
Both two characters that have similar meaning becomes the meaning of the word. 美丽 灿烂 窈窕
During two semesters of Ancient Chinese courses, I learned the basic knowledge of the ancient Chinese language, the common concepts of Ancient Chinese culture, and how to read the ancient Chinese works by using or referencing tools (as《康熙字典》，《辞海》，《说文解字》). The content in the Ancient Chinese courses I learned includes 3 sections: selected reading materials of the ancient Chinese (poems, articles, poses, novels; the theories of ancient Chinese language, and the frequent terms of the ancient Chinese language.
As for the selected classical reading material, those writings are produced from the period before the Qin dynasty to the Qing dynasty.
文选selected works: linguistic materials of Ancient Chinese
常识general knowledge: the relevant knowledge and theories required to learn ancient Chinese
常用词words used frequently: the ancient word meaning materials that must be accumulated in learning ancient Chinese.
The theories include grammar of Ancient Chinese (words usage, sentence syntax, sentence structures, fixed format, etc), common knowledge of Ancient Chinese culture, the ancient Chinese phonology, and rules of poem/ci writing. Additionally, I also was taught certain terms/words about ancient music rhythm, and creative activities.
Ancient Chinese course learning involves the understanding of Ancient China’s history and its development progress including how dynasties had been shifted from one to the next and what changed adhering to the shifts.
Depending on the works created in different periods, the development or stages of Chinese can be divided into 4 stages :
Distance ancient Chinese — pre-in and Han dynasties
Medieval ancient chines — from the Wei and jin dynasties to the sui, tang and 5 generations dynasties.
Close ancient Chinese — late song dynasty and yuan dynasty to the eve of the May 4th Movement.
Modern Chinese— from the “May 4th Movement’ to the present.
Due to there being no way to get a systematic record of the accent spoken language, we mainly learned the written part.
As for the ancient written language of Chinese, there are two systems including文言classical style language and古白话ancient vernacular/folk words/straight words language.
文言classical style language:
The ancient Chinese written language formed on the basis of the pre-Qin spoken language and the works written by later generations in the written language. These written languages are collectively referred to as classical Chinese:
such as the works of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song dynasties and the literati of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
Such as儒家经典confucians classical works such as《诗经》，《尚书》，《周易》，《春秋》，《周礼》，《礼记》；诸子作品如and works of various masters such as《老子》，《庄子》，《墨子》，《孟子》，《荀子》, as well as some historical records/articles.
白话文：ancient vernacular/local language work formed on the basis of northern dialect after the 6 Dynasties such as ancient vernacular novels.
For understanding those ancient Chinese works, I first learned how to read them and figure out the text's meaning. This progress requires to study of the phonetic modes of Ancient Chinese and the accurate meaning of words used differently from Modern Chinese.
For example语音：
There is no alphabet to mark Chinese characters until 1958（1958 China started to implement the汉语拼音方案using Roman phonetic alphabet for Chinese characters pronunciation marking)
.The ancient Chinese people use different phonetic modes including直音，and反切to record the pronunciation of words collected in tool books such as《广韵》。As for the interpretation of Ancient Chinese, people use methods similar to phonetic modes to interpret the meaning of Ancient Chinese words also recorded in certain books as《说文》or directly noted in the original books. Methods include
直训（directly explain the word with another word, as《说文》“元，始也”），
描写（description-- that is to explain the characteristics, shape, position, function, etc, of the object to be interpreted. For example说文，“缶，瓦器，所以盛酒浆，秦人鼓之以节歌。”
义界：to define, is known as the definitional formula. As “斗，十升也”。Dou, is ten litres.
譬况，that is, using things that people are familiar with to compare things that are unfamiliar or difficult to explain. For example: “黑，火所以熏之色也”：black, the color smoked by fire.
常用工具书简介：
说文解字
康熙字典
词源：a reference book specially used for reading ancient books and ancient literature and history research.
辞海is a comprehensive dictionary that collected characters, objects words, works, historical events, ancient and modern place names, organisations, and terms of various disciplines.
经传释词Qing王引之wrote, this work focuses on the use of function words in pre-Qin and Han dynasties. Receive 160 function words.
词诠杨树达Wrote. It is a dictionary dedicated to explaining ancient Chinese function words.
语法：
Ancient Chinese works were written a long long time ago, words, phrases, syntax, and usage have been changed so much that many works can’t be easy to understand without knowing the rules used before.
Therefore, we are required to study the ancient Chinese grammar including the usage of general words of ancient Chinese词类活用, rules or patterns of ancient Chinese sentences like宾语前置句，惯用句式，and function words of ancient Chinese (夫，之，焉，与。。。。）。
词类活用：
夫如是，故远人不服，则修文德以来之，既来之，则安之。
来：使。。。来
安：使。。。安定
宾语前置句objective prepositional sentences：
无乃尔是过与？ 恐怕该责备你吧。
过：责备
尔：你
惯用句式customary sentence pattern：
无乃……与/乎？恐怕……吧？I’m afraid ….
何以……为？为什么要……呢？ 何以伐为？为什么要讨伐他呢？expressing rhetorical questions, why should
如……何？该怎么办呢？to form a rhetorical question.
虚词用法functional word usage：
夫：句首语气词，表示要开始发表自己的看法了。to use at the beginning of a sentence indicates that the person who is going to state arguments.
焉： 指示代词兼句末语气词，多用在动词后面充当补语。demonstrative pronouns and end-of-sentence particles are often used as a compliment after verbs.
又何加焉？—又何加于是？Why do you add it?
Besides the pronunciation, words, and grammar, I also was taught the structure of Ancient Chinese. In this part, I learned the 6 principles of creating and using Chinese characters named六书in xushen’s book说文解字。
They are象形/指事/会意/形声/转注/假借。
It is worth noting that the first 4 are described the methods used to create Chinese characters while the latter two intend to describe the development of Chinese characters from a historical view and the ways to use existing Characters.
象形pictogram — to draw the thing like what it looks, and the strokes are curved according to the appearance of the object.日月
指事refers to things: express some kind of partial or relative concept. The method is to add abstract signs to the corresponding parts of the pictographs to indicate the scope of the indicated parts.上下
会意comprehension — is to synthesize meaning, that is several symbols form a relationship with each other to express a certain meaning.
This meaning is different from the meaning of each radical, usually a verb, an adjective, or a noun without a specific image(such as a noun that expresses the concept of time)
They are abstract so they are difficult to express in a pictographic way.
劣，少+力—力量小。is composed of two parts “less” and “power”, which means weak.
歪，不+正—
尘，小+土—小土为尘。“small” and “earth”, small earth is dust.
尖，小+大—上小下大是为尖。upper is small and the lower part is large indicating sharpness.
形声phono phonetic characters
it consists of two parts :
形符pictograph (also called signifier)—expresses meaning or literal meaning ;
声符phonetic part — expresses the pronunciation of the word.
梅；从木从每
江： 从水从工
星：从日从生
衷： 从衣从中
转注：注释is a type of form-meaning relationship between characters.
假借：借用字it refers to some words that no special characters have been created, but a word with the same or similar pronunciation is selected from the ready-made words to replace it.
後-王后；后—back.
训诂学：critical interpretation of ancient texts;
Exegesis of ancient texts
Exegesis’ main task is to interpret the meaning of Ancient texts, to explain and clear the ancient language. In this course, I learned the brief history of exegesis from the Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty, the style/ format of exegesis, the content of exegesis, the methods of exegesis, the common exegesis terms, tool books of exegesis.
The works to interpret ancient texts/books initially started in the Han dynasty and rised to the peak in the Qing dynasty.
The achievements and famous contributors to exegesis include:
汉：毛亨/孔安国/马融/郑玄the work of annotating ancient books began in the Han Dynasty.
唐：Tang people not only interpreted the pre-Qin classical works but also interpreted other ancient books created after Han Dynasty, such as the to interpreted the《史记》，《文选》。
清：Qing scholars had contributed great effort to the interpretation and textural research for ancient books, as well to the collation of ancient books, and expressed their own views on the interpretation of words and sentences in ancient books and text revision.
训诂学常识the common knowledge of exegesis：
古今，各地相隔远则语言不通矣，地远则有翻译，时远则有训诂。有训诂则能知古今如旦暮，所谓通之也。In ancient and modern times, if the distance between places is far away, the language will not be understood. If the place is far away, there will be translations. In time, there will be exegesis. With exegesis, you can know the past and the present, such as dawn and dusk, the so-called communication.
The methods to interpret includes: \
Interpret the pre-Qin language in the language of the Han Dynasty;如郑玄《诗经笺》
Interpret Middle Chinese in Modern Chinese;
Interpret dialects in elegant/popular languages.
The importances achievements includes《尔雅》《方言》《释名》《说文》。
王引之《经传释词》— explaining function words.
训诂方法：
People implemented various methods to do the exegesis works including 1.审辨字形Find meaning by form，2因声求义seeking syntax/meaning through voice，3排比用例to get the meaning by comparing to similar usage，4.考察文例。5.方言佐证。
Among these methods, shengxun (seeking meaning by sound) is one of the important exegesis methods. This method can solve the problems of clear and false, dialect examination, and etymology(求语源）.
Generally speaking, the interpretation of vocal training is to seek meaning from sound, that is, a method of exegesis to seek or prove semantics through phonetics.
The two rules of exegesis:
1. Interpret words by words. (To use the modern language to explain the ancient language, to use the standard language at that time (Mayan) to explain the dialect. )
“政者， 正也“
“仁者，人也“
2. Unlock the text( explain the specific meaning of the word, the specific color, the meaning of the sentence, explain the sentence, paragraph, etc.
“痒者，养也，校者，教也。”
会意 = 右文说
in this course, I learned the history of rhetorical activities, what is rhetoric and related concepts, and how rhetoric helps to efficiently improve language expression and communication.
In ancient Greece, rhetoric refers to the art of oratory including arguments and the modification of words.
In medieval Europe, rhetoric was considered to be a required coursed for literate people and was one of the ‘three arts’ along with grammar and logic.
In China, there were studies on rhetoric and style in the pre-Qin classic e.g《易经》“修辞立其诚”，in the Han dynasty, scholars discussed ‘赋比兴’ of《诗经》. Among those words,《文心雕龙》is the representative one.
Nowadays, we have concluded a quite comprehensive definition of rhetoric. Which is, rhetoric is a science of language that studies the laws to improve the effect of language expression, and a science that takes rhetorical activities as its research object. Rhetoric is a part of linguistics that its research objects include language problems in communicative activities; language problems related to improving the effectiveness of expression, and what to solve is how to “express properly and appropriately” during communication activities.
To reach the goal mentioned above, rhetoric requires to have a comprehensive consideration and grasp all kinds of elements that will be involved during communicative activities, such as the characteristics of the communicative object, the characteristic of the communicative environment, the conditions of the communicator's self, the characteristics of the object to be stated, and the characteristics of language itself, etc.
To express efficiently, rhetoric requires communicators to take into the specific local problems of language expression account. What should be noticed is the choice of specific words and sentences should obey the strategic principles of communication.
What’s more, I learned the research methods of rhetoric including观察，归纳，比较，统计, as well as the principles of rhetoric as:
The relationship between language, speech, thinking, and thought.
The relationship between the linguistic world and physical worlds.
In the language world, the relationship between language symbols and objects is relatively stable, and belonging to the social collective, and individuals cannot be changed at all.
To use the familiar words(understand well), use words and sentences to match personal identity, to pay attention to the relationship between written and spoken language.
To adapt to the environment to improve the effect of language expression. Words/sentences in different contexts would have different meanings and effects. (言内语境inter-language context/言外语境extra-language context)
Have to consider the terms of promises. The promise in pragmatics refers to the known information of both parties in communicative activities, which is the key to the smooth progress of communicative activities.
视点
得体性。appropriateness is to properly handle all kinds of contradictions in communication activities, not to go to extremes, and to maintain a proper balance.
To master rhetoric well, we have to clearly understand the relationship between rhetoric and logic
逻辑学，logic studies the laws of people’s thinking, to solve the problem of right speech.
语法学，grammar studies the structural laws of language, to solve problems that do not make sense.
修辞学，rhetoric studies the laws of improving the effectiveness of the effect of language expression and deals with the question of whether it is good or not.
In this course, I learned the basic phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar of Vietnamese. I also learned some basic sentences, and short articles to practice pronunciation skills, reading skills, and speaking skills.
Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, each syllabic has at least one meaning.
Vietnamese absorbed many foreign words, especially from Chinese, which have a proportion of more than 60% of the total vocabulary of Vietnamese. Among them, a relatively small number of monosyllabic Chinese character words are directly used, such as: học(学) tại(在); and a considerable number of Chinese characters that have been copied from the original text to Vietnamese, such as lịch sử(历史)、định nghĩa(定义)、phong phú(丰富)、Điều hoà(调和)、Thời sự (时事). Actually, these words’ sounds are similar to the pronunciation of Cantonese. This case refers that many ancient Chinese sounds and words have been preserved in Vietnamese and other Asian languages like Korean历史역사,丰富풍부하다.
音韵
Phonological
Vietnamese syllables can consist of five-part: initial, preposition, final, last final part, and tone.
Grammar
Vietnamese is an isolated language, which means the verbs have no type change, and nouns have neither grammatical gender and number forms nor grammatical changes in syntax.
Vietnamese is a language with adjectives after it, so Vietnamese is not Việt(越) Nam(南) Tiếng(语) , but rather Tiếng Việt Nam.
Different function words express different meanings. E.g the function words (đã(已经)、đang(当,正当,正在)、sẽ(将要) ) have their own meaning. They will express 3 different situations while added to the front of verbs, e.g.:“viết (写)” đã viết (已经写)、đang viết (正在写)、sẽ viết (将要写).
Tone:
Vietnamese vowel letters express the type of tone by adding or subtracting symbols, they use 5 symbols to express 6 tones. E.g: à, ả, ã, á, ạ
There are 6 tones in Vietnamese that is即平声flat sound、玄声xuan sound、问声question sound、跌声falling sound、锐声sharp sound,重声heavy sound.
1 ngang平声(阴平)清平、次浊平44，平，长，类似普通话阴平声ma
2 huyền玄声(阳平)全浊平31，中降，长，类似普通话去声mà
3 hỏi问声(阴上)清上21(4)，低降或低降后升，长，紧喉，类似普通话上声mả
4 ngã跌声(阳上)部分浊上32/4，中，紧喉且中断mã
5 sắc锐声(阴去、阴入)清去、清入45，高升，短má
6 nạng重声(阳去、阳入)浊去、部分浊上、浊入21，低降，短mạ
以塞音-p, -t, -c, -ch结尾的字相当于汉语入声，只能为锐声或者重声。
补充：
古代汉语音韵常识
1.《广韵》是宋代的官韵， 是中国第一部官修的韵书，是研究汉语古音特别是中古音的重要材料。
Common sense of ancient Chinese phonetics
1. "Guangyun" is the official rhyme of the Song Dynasty. It is the first official rhyme book in China, and it is an important material for the study of ancient Chinese pronunciation, especially the middle ancient pronunciation.
2.四声的定义及其历史演变The definition of four tones and their historical evolution.。现代汉语是阴平，阳平，上声，去声。古代汉语的四声：平声，上声，去声，入声。平分阴阳，浊上变去，入派三声。
3.诗律和词律常识Common sense of rhythm and rhythm
（1）声韵学自魏晋以来，受印度梵音学的影响，有了新的发展。Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, phonology has undergone new development under the influence of Indian Sanskrit phonology
（2）格律就是诗词关于字数、句数、对偶、平仄，押韵方面的格式和规则。It is the format and rules of poetry about the number of words, the number of sentences, duality, flatness and rhythm.
（3）韵在诗词中指一个音节的收音。放在句子的特定位置上称“用韵”，也叫押韵。韵字一般都放在句末，故又称韵字为一首诗的韵脚。Rhyme refers to the sound of a syllable in poetry. Putting it in a specific position in a sentence is called "using rhyme", also called rhyme. The rhyme is usually placed at the end of the sentence, so it is also called the rhyme of a poem.
（4）对偶， 两句相对，诗句中上下两句相同位置上的字词相对。如 杜甫七律《登高》无边落木萧萧下，不尽长江滚滚来。
Duality, the two sentences are opposite, the words in the same position of the upper and lower sentences in the verse are opposite. For example, in Du Fu's Seven Laws of "Ascension to the Heights", the boundless falling trees are falling, and the endless Yangtze River is rolling in.
（5）律诗 8句：5律，七律，长律
平平仄仄平平仄，
仄仄平平仄仄平.
仄仄平平平仄仄，
平平仄仄仄平平。
黄鹤楼
崔颢
故人已辞黄鹤去，
此地空余黄鹤楼。
黄鹤一去不复返，
白云千载空悠悠。
晴川历历汉阳树，
芳草萋萋鹦鹉洲。
日暮乡关何处是，
烟波江上使人愁。
绝句 每首四句： 5 绝，七绝；平仄取七律半首。
次北固山下
王湾
客路青山外，行舟绿水前。
潮平两岸阔，风正一帆悬。
海日生残夜，江春入旧年。
乡书何处达，归雁洛阳边。
