Xue-guanhua 學官話: A Ryūkyūan Source of Language Education

by Dániel Z. Kádár

The Sino-Japonic manuscript Xue-guanhua/Gaku-kanwa (Learning Mandarin Chinese), compiled for students from the Ry ky Kingdom, is a noteworthy historical Chinese educational source. It represents historical cross-cultural interactions between Okinawan residents in China and the locals in a wide variety of speech situations, and as such it is one of the few historical cross-cultural sources available on Chinese communication and social behaviour. Along with revealing norms of historical Chinese communication, Xue-guanhua provides a vivid description of Chinese social and cultural customs. The present volume, which provides a detailed introduction and annotated translation of Xue-guanhua, is relevant not only to researchers but also to readers with interest in Chinese and Okinawan language and culture.

135 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2011

About the author

Dániel Z. Kádár is Research Fellow in the Department of Oriental Studies, Research Institute for Linguistics at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has published in the areas of politeness research and East Asian studies, and his most recent publications include Terms of (Im)politeness (2007), Politeness across Cultures (with Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, forthcoming), Historical and Contemporary Chinese Politeness (with Yuling Pan, forthcoming) and Politeness in China and Japan (with Michael Haugh, forthcoming).

Reviews

[Cloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all time!