Liu Lening
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) of the University of Macau (UM) held the Macao Humanities Forum, where Liu Lening, professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, delivered a lecture titled ‘Pedagogical Grammar: Its Status and Formation in the International Education of Chinese’. The lecture attracted a large audience of faculty and students.
Speaking at the event, Joaquim Kuong, assistant dean of FAH, highlighted the importance of learning Chinese, noting that it is one of the official languages of the United Nations and Macao. He said that new perspectives and approaches in pedagogical grammar can help address the challenges faced by Chinese language learners. Li Defeng, associate dean of FAH, introduced Prof Liu’s significant contributions to theoretical and applied linguistics, particularly in Chinese language education.
During the lecture, Prof Liu first discussed the background of how international Chinese education became a discipline in higher education, and presented an ontological perspective on the discipline. He pointed out that the core of international Chinese education research is the structure and function of Chinese as reflected in pedagogical grammar. With reference to construction grammar, Prof Liu redefined grammar as ‘reflections and results of actual language use’. He argued that grammar should be guided by the principles of accuracy, conciseness and sufficiency. He also advocated the incorporation of the latest findings in linguistics into pedagogy. Using three examples involving ‘來’ (lai, a Chinese verb meaning ‘come’ in English), Prof Liu illustrated the need for Chinese language teachers to explain subtle grammatical issues such as the different semantic roles of the phrases in a sentence. He also highlighted the importance of addressing the differences between learners from different linguistic backgrounds and their grammatical errors.
During the Q&A session, UM faculty and students raised questions about strategies for applying pedagogical grammar in teaching scenarios. Prof Liu noted that the current training of Chinese language teachers often focuses on teaching methods and intercultural communication, but neglects the linguistic foundation of Chinese itself. He encouraged Chinese language teachers to deepen their understanding of linguistics and linguistic research findings to transform their teaching practices. At the end of the forum, Xu Jie, dean of FAH, presented Prof Liu with a souvenir in appreciation of his insightful presentation.
This was the third lecture of the Macao Humanities Forum for the 2024/2025 academic year. Each year, the forum invites prominent scholars in different fields of the humanities to share their latest research findings with students and faculty members in Macao. Previous lectures of the forum have covered a wide range of topics, including literature, linguistics, history, translation, and arts.
