早期海关汉语教材探析——兼谈专用汉语教材编写

An Analysis of Early Customs Chinese Textbooks——Compilation of Chinese Textbooks for Specific Purposes

《邮政成语辑要》《海关语言必须》《海关英华语言录》《邮用语句辑要》是20世纪早期西方人编写的专用汉语教材和学习工具书,编写者结合当时海关(含邮政)各领域的具体工作内容,广泛搜集不同工作岗位用语,编辑成册,供海关洋员学习。通过分析和考察,我们发现,其内容紧密结合具体的工作场景展开,语料真实生动;而且作者注重选用使用频率较高的语料,使学习者能直接应用于实际中,体现了其较高的实用价值,甚至在一定程度上能作为史料使用,为相关领域的研究提供佐证。作为最早的专用汉语教材,因考虑到无法全部涵盖,加之社会的变化导致新词语的产生,作者采用开放式编写模式,留出空间供学习者不断补充和修订。在专业术语方面,这些专用教材起到了统一和规范行业术语的作用,为语言的规范使用打下基础。这些教材不可避免地存在不成熟之处,但其真实性、针对性和实用性,不仅为当时的专用汉语学习提供了切实的帮助,也为当今专用汉语的教学与教材编写提供借鉴。

The books A Glossary of the Principal Chinese Expressions Occurring in Postal Documents,An Anglo-Chinese Glossary for Customs and Commercial Use,Custom Officers' English-Chinese Vade-Medum,and A Glossary of the Principal Terms and Words Occurring in Postal Documents are Chinese textbooks and reference books compiled by Westerners for specific purposes in the early 20th century.The editors combined the specific work content of Customs(including postal service) in various fields at that time,extensively collected the terms for different work places and edited them into a book for the foreign customs staff.Through analysis and investigation,we find that the contents were closely integrated with specific work scenarios,that the language material was real and vivid,and that the editors selected language material with higher frequency,so the learner could directly apply what they learned from the books to their actual work.These books were so practical that they could even be used as historical data to a certain extent,providing evidence for research in related fields.As the earliest Chinese textbooks for specific purposes,the editors adopted an open-ending mode of writing,leaving room for continuous additions and revisions by the learners in order to deal with the incomplete coverage and the generation of new words.In terms of professional terminology,these textbooks played a role in unifying and standardizing industry-specific terminologies,laying a foundation for the standardized use of the language of Chinese.They were inevitably immature,but their authenticity,relevance,and practicality not only made them helpful in Chinese learning for specific purposes at that time,but also offered a reference for the teaching of Chinese for specific purposes and for the preparation of teaching materials today.