The construction of Chinese pedagogical grammar system

Abstract

This paper explores two sets of criteria used to construct pedagogical grammar systems both in English and Chinese. Larsen-Freeman (2001, 2014) built a three-dimensional grammar framework to guide English teachers in constructing an approach to teaching grammar. The three dimensions are grammatical structures (morphosyntactic form), meaning (semantics; it can be lexical or grammatical) and appropriate use in context (pragmatics). Feng and Shi (2011, 2015) proposed a new model of teaching and learning Chinese called Trinitarian Grammar, consisting of three parts: the structure of sentences, the function of the structure and the contexts of the structure and the function used in Mandarin Chinese. This paper, however, suggests a four-dimensional framework for Chinese pedagogical grammar: grammatical structure, meaning (including lexical and grammatical meaning), pragmatic function and a sequence of typical contexts starting with an “optimal understanding model (OUM)”.