[ { "id": 206696, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "238\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nwith Mandarin /-u/ which Huang incorrectly compares to English /-u/ as in fool. Again this is phonetically misleading since the English vowel has an offglide [-uw] and the Chinese vowel [-u] does not.\n\nIn several places Huang compares Chinese r- to English r-. This may work in syllable initial position for many speakers, but Chinese speakers differ and English dialects are so divergent in treatment of this consonant that guidance based on cross-language comparisons must be used with great care. Explanations on pages xxix, 10, 11 and elsewhere should certainly distinguish English »r-« in syllable initial position as contrasted with other positions. Page 54 could well have included the information that the pronunciation of /r-/ varies in North China from something like English r- to something with much more friction approaching a French j- (hence the Wade-Giles j-).\n\nIt is not enough to argue as some authors do that these phonetic differences are slight and unimportant. The whole purpose behind a book like this is to give someone all the useable information about the fine points of Mandarin pronunciation. Misinformation, especially erroneous comparisons to English sounds, leave the student exactly where he would be with no help at all, that is, substituting the closest available English sound for the correct Mandarin sound. We do not need special instruction for that type of language learning, but we do need specific guidance in avoiding such problems. This book fails us here so we are still waiting for someone to publish the guide to Mandarin pronunciation. As of this date the best help continues to be found in the brief introductions to texts like Beginning Chinese by John DeFrancis, Speak Mandarin by Henry C. Fenn and M. Gardner Tewksbury, and Mandarin Primer by Y. R. Chao. All these texts give articulatory comparisons in terms of American English pronunciation but add corrective instructions.\n\nCornell University, 1972.\n\nJOHN MCCOY", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207376, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "136\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\n46 See K. A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng, History of Chinese Society, Liao (907-1125) (Philadelphia, 1949), 8-10; also Igor de Rachewiltz, “Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai (1189-1243); Buddhist Idealist and Confucian Statesman\" in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, Confucian Personalities (Stanford, 1962).\n\n47 Wittfogel and Feng, 9.\n\n48 See Herbert Franke, \"Sino-Western Contacts under the Mongol Empire,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 6 (1966), 52.\n\n49 Kuwabara, 96-99.\n\n50 See Henry Serruys, \"Mongols Ennobled during the Early Ming,” HIAS, 22 (1959); also Serruys, \"Landgrants to the Mongols in China: 1400-1460,” Monumenta Serica, 25 (1966), especially 394. As had been the case with other barbarians in China's past, the use of Mongol and Jurched troops in the Ming could be a liability as well as an asset. See Serruys, \"Sino-Jürched Relations During the Yung-Lo Period (1403-1424),” Göttinger Asiatische Forschungen (Weisbaden, 1955); 67-68, 71.\n\n51 See the summary discussion in Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China (London and Toronto, 1975), 138-139; also George L. Harris, \"The Mission of Matteo Ricci, S.J.: A Case Study of an Effort at Guided Culture Change in China in the Sixteenth Century,” Monumenta Serica, 25 (1966).\n\n52 James B. Parsons, Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming Dynasty (Tucson, 1970), 129.\n\n53 C. R. Boxer, \"Portuguese Military Expeditions in Aid of the Mings Against the Manchus, 1621-1647,\" T'ien-Hsia Monthly, VII (1938); S. Y. Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923 (New York, 1970), 13; North-China Herald, January 10, 1852. Boxer, 32, offers the explanation that the expedition was undermined by Cantonese who feared that the Portuguese, if successful, would be granted extended trading rights, while the North-China Herald suggests that when the men reached Nan-ch'ang they were ordered to return because \"the contemptible figure they presented completely disappointed expectation.\" It is probable that each of these interpretations has a measure of validity.\n\n54 Serruys, \"Were the Ming,” 136.\n\n55 Boxer, 35.\n\n56 Wills, Guns, Pepper and Parleys, especially chapter 2; Fu Lo-shu, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820) (Tucson, 1966), I: 32-33, 58; Teng and Fairbank, 34.\n\n57 The Ch'ing did, however, ally with the Russians against the Dzungars during the K'ang-hsi period and the Ch'ien-lung emperor did make good use of Western cannon (Hsi-yang p'ao) in his famous campaigns. See, for example, IWSM, TC 9: 30a-b; also Teng and Fairbank, 34; Swisher, 697.\n\n58 See Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, \"Russia's Special Position in China during the Early Ch'ing Period,\" Slavic Review, 13.4 (December, 1964).\n\n59 Chinese Repository 11: 64; Swisher, 98-99.\n\n60 See Masataka Banno, China and the West, 1858-1861 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), especially 45-53, 207-209; Swisher, 683-697.\n\n61 See, for example, IWSM TC 22: 11b-13b; also Richard J. Smith, \"Foreign-Training and China's Self-Strengthening: The Case of Feng-huang-shan, 1864-1873,” Modern Asian Studies, 10.12 (1976).\n\n62 For the use of this expression (or a variant) as late as the 1890's see WCSL 101: 9 and 129; 16.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 } ]