I. The concept of language
What does "China people" mean? To answer this question, let's first review Mr. Ye Shengtao's authoritative exposition on the origin and meaning of the subject name of "Chinese". He said: "The textbook editorial committee of the People's Government of North China used the name" Chinese "for the first time when it selected primary school textbooks in 1949. In the past, this middle school was called "China" and the primary school was called "Mandarin", which was even unified. At that time, the same person thought that spoken language was' language', written language was' writing', and writing in language could not be biased, so it became one. We should also pay equal attention to' listening',' speaking' and' reading' in this subject, recite texts and practice writing. Because of reading and writing, if you ignore listening and speaking and do not pay attention to training, the effect of reading and writing will also be damaged. " This passage makes the concept of "language" clear. "Language" is spoken language and "text" is written language. In other words, "Chinese" includes both spoken and written language. At the same time, it also explains the origin of the subject name "Chinese" and the importance of listening, speaking, reading and writing in Chinese class. There are two points to be clarified here: first, Chinese class can't be regarded as just learning spoken English. An article puts forward that "without Chinese course, people can't use language when they study?" It goes without saying that people can still learn to use the language without Chinese courses. "I think this view only applies to oral language. Can't illiterate people speak? However, offering Chinese courses in schools is not entirely about learning spoken language, but more importantly, learning written language. Of course, written language can also be learned in life, but it should be given priority to in school Chinese class, otherwise, it can't be learned in school. Therefore, Chinese classes in schools must pay equal attention to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Second, Chinese can't be understood as "language". Although society sometimes regards "writing" as a substitute for written language. But strictly speaking, "writing" and "written language" cannot be equated. In fact, Ye Lao pointed out the difference between "Chinese" and "language" and "writing" and "literature" long ago. He said: it is not the original intention of this name to interpret Chinese as "language", "writing", "language" and "literature". The second explanation is close to the original meaning, but the meaning of the word "Wen" is wider than that of "Wen", which is not entirely literature. There are literary works and non-literary articles in the textbook, which can prove it. The' words' of the first explanation, if understood as written language, are also in line with the original intention. " Therefore, "language and writing training" appears from time to time in Ye Lao's papers, and the "writing" here is "written language". Because both spoken and written language carry certain cultural, ideological and emotional connotations. "Writing" is different. Although there are many monosyllabic words in Chinese characters, all of which have certain meanings and Chinese characters have certain cultural connotations, a single Chinese character cannot reflect a complete language. Chinese characters are just writing tools to express language. Just as language is a tool to express spoken language, Chinese characters cannot be regarded as spoken language, and words cannot be equated with written language. Therefore, the "language training" advocated a while ago is easily misunderstood, which makes Chinese teaching become a simple "language training" and makes Chinese teaching lose rich cultural, ideological and emotional connotations. It can be seen that the concept of Chinese subject must be clearly understood so that there will be no problems.
Chinese is a subject for students to learn spoken and written language. Therefore, we must first understand the essence, function and law of language.
Second, the unity of language, thinking and thought.
Language is a social phenomenon owned by human beings. There is language in human society, and language is produced because of the needs of human social communication. The function of language is that people express their thoughts and feelings, exchange their thoughts and feelings, communicate with each other and get to know each other. Personally, language is a tool for thinking and expressing thoughts and feelings; As far as the relationship between people is concerned, language is a tool for exchanging ideas and communication. As far as human existence is concerned, language is the process and result of human understanding and transforming the world. It is embodied, communicated and spread through language, and it is a tool for human beings to spread culture. If human beings want to survive and develop, they must master language tools.
Language and thought, as tools for thinking, expressing ideas, exchanging ideas and transmitting culture, are the unity of opposites. Here, we must first understand the two different concepts of thinking and thought. Thinking is the function of the human brain, which generally indirectly reflects the objective world; Thinking is an active process, and its active forms are concept, judgment and reasoning. Thought is also an activity, and ideological activity is the result of conceptual reasoning and concrete application of reasoning; Thought is based on thinking and accompanied by thinking. The content and result of this activity are called thought.
Language is unified with thinking and thought. Mr. Ye Shengtao said: "Language is the stereotype of thought. The so-called stereotype not only determines the form of thought, but also determines the material of thought, because the material used in language is the material of thought itself, which is two in one. If you can't say what you think, you can. If you say it, you can make people hear it. If you write them down, they can see them. People can know what you are thinking through your language. " This fully shows that language can not be separated from thought and thinking, and the process of thinking is also the process of thinking; The process of thinking activity is also the process of language formation. In the process of understanding the world, people always express their feelings in words through thinking activities; Language reflects people's understanding of the objective world and the subjective world.
Language and thought, language and thought are unified, but different. We can't confuse language and thinking, nor can we confuse language and thinking. Language and thinking have different functions. Language is a tool for exchanging ideas, the form of language is words and sentences, the content of language is semantics, and the law of language is grammar. Thinking is a tool of cognition, the form of thinking is concept, judgment and reasoning, the content of thinking is thought, and the law of thinking is logic. Language reflects thinking, thinking reflects the relationship and connection between objective things, carries out analysis and judgment, and forms thoughts, which are expressed through language and reflected by language. Therefore, language and thinking, language and thinking are both unified and different.
The difference between language and thinking is also reflected in the fact that there is a certain correspondence between the structural units of language and thinking, but they are not completely consistent. Generally speaking, words, phrases and concepts correspond, sentences and judgments correspond, and complex sentences, sentence groups and judgments correspond. Reasoning correspondence. This correspondence not only shows the unity of language and thinking, but also shows the differences between them. At the same time, we should also see that different language structural units can be associated with the same thinking structural unit; The same language structural unit can also be associated with different thinking structural units. Because there are synonyms and homophones in language, for example, the same concept can be expressed in different words in language. Language also has a purely grammatical function. For example, function words do not express concepts, interrogative sentences do not express judgments, and coordinate complex sentences and some sentence groups do not express reasoning. Language can also express feelings, perceptions, representations, emotions, will and so on. In particular, language is emotional, which shows the difference between language and thinking and thought.
We can also understand the relationship between language and thinking from the generation and development of language and thinking. In the history of human development, spoken language has promoted the development of brain marrow and separated human beings from the animal kingdom. With the further development of brain marrow, sensory organs and thinking ability have also been further developed. "The development of brain marrow and its senses, increasingly clear consciousness, abstract ability and reasoning ability, constantly promote the further development of labor and language." Engels thoroughly analyzed the dialectical relationship between language and thinking. Although he came to this conclusion from the history of human development divided by the animal kingdom, it also conforms to the law of language and thinking development in the process of human and individual growth. The development of thinking promotes the development of language, and the development of language promotes the development of thinking.
In the past, when we talked about the essence of language, we often ignored the relationship between language and thinking, so there will be two tendencies in Chinese teaching. One is to emphasize only the instrumentality of language and ignore the culture it contains. Ideological content and thinking process; Second, it only emphasizes ideological content and ignores language form. To solve this problem, we must clearly understand the relationship between language and thinking, and the relationship between language and thinking, so as to follow the principle of unity and difference in Chinese teaching.
Third, the unity of instrumentality and humanity.
Chinese is a basic tool discipline. Because language is a tool for communication, expressing thoughts and feelings, exchanging thoughts and feelings and transmitting culture. Learning Chinese is to let students master language tools firmly. The primary task of Chinese teaching is to teach students to use language. (1) Students should learn to understand and express themselves. From birth, babies must learn to speak English and express their thoughts and feelings in oral language, not only to express but also to understand what others say; When you grow up to primary school, you must be literate and read, learn human thoughts and culture, learn to understand written language, and learn to read; Learn to express your thoughts and feelings in oral and written language, and learn to write. (2) Learn to communicate in language. The most important function of language is communication. No one can do without oral communication, and even more so in a society with universal education. Learning Chinese means learning the ability of oral and written language communication. In the past, we paid insufficient attention to the communicative function of language in Chinese teaching. In the newly formulated Chinese Curriculum Standard, it is clearly stated that "you should have the basic ability of daily oral communication and learn to listen, express and communicate in various communication activities." (3) Learn to accumulate language. Language has a memory function, which helps people to remember information through language. Students learn through language memory. Without language memory, there will be no language accumulation, no achievements in language learning, let alone the inheritance of human culture.
Chinese is not only instrumental, but also humanistic. The unity of instrumentality and humanism embodies the essence of language. Language and thinking, language and thinking are unified. Specific to Chinese teaching, we should unify Chinese teaching with the cultivation of humanistic spirit. As a carrier, language contains cultural and scientific knowledge and has certain ideological, emotional connotation and aesthetic significance. Language is a tool for communicating thoughts and feelings, and it is also a tool for thinking. People master languages in order to exchange ideas and feelings with each other. Especially literary works, are more expressive. Wang Guowei, the authority of "realm theory", believes that the medium for literary works to reach a high realm is language, and the languages of literary works mainly include "scenery language" and "emotional language", among which "emotional language" is the main one. Although not all primary school Chinese textbooks are literary works, most of them are literary works or have literary factors. The selection of Chinese textbooks in primary schools contains certain thoughts and feelings. Therefore, primary school Chinese has the function of exchanging thoughts and feelings. Chinese not only plays its language function. In addition to transferring knowledge, we can also express our thoughts and feelings by describing typical events in detail or in general, vividly describing the scenery, accurately shaping the characters and clearly explaining the truth through colorful model essays. Chinese teaching in primary schools can not only improve students' ability to understand and express the language, but also develop their thinking ability, improve their ideological and moral character, cultivate their sentiment and make their children smarter as they learn. In this sense, the instrumentality of Chinese is not only manifested in re-understanding, but also in clearly expressing ideas, developing students' feelings and cultivating students' personality. Therefore, Chinese should be called expressive discipline; Become a discipline that carries out humanistic education, ideological education and emotional education for students; Chinese is a discipline with strong humanity, emotion and ideology.
I think it is of great significance to put forward "humanity". Humanism refers to various cultural phenomena in human society. Yi Ben: Civilization stops, so does human nature. Observing astronomy is to observe the changes of time; Look at humanity and turn it into the world. "(Ci Hai). It seems that the connotation of human nature is very broad. All kinds of human cultures can be covered, which is by no means ideological or emotional. "Humanism" is aimed at astronomy, and humanism is to educate the world. To understand the humanity of Chinese teaching concretely, we should put people first in Chinese teaching and highlight the cultural nature of Chinese teaching.
How to understand the unity of instrumentality and humanism? I think we must grasp two points: first, the unification of the two cannot be biased towards one aspect. Chinese teaching is not only an ideological education task like other subjects, but also an individual task determined by the essential attributes of Chinese subjects. Cultivating students' personality through Chinese teaching can not be ignored. However, the essence of language has both language form and language connotation, and language form is a unity with culture, thought and emotional connotation, so Chinese teaching has always emphasized the unity of literature and Taoism, that is, the unity of language form and content. Second, the unity of instrumentality and humanism must be combined with literature teaching. All written materials with standardized language and scientific content can be used as Chinese textbooks (of course, as Chinese textbooks, we must be selective. In teaching, the emphasis is on Chinese forms; Other subjects, such as history, geography, society, thought, etc., focus on language content. Chinese teaching pays attention to the form of Chinese, but does not abandon the content. The humanistic, ideological and emotional connotations contained in language are contained in the language, that is, they must be taught in the text; Accept culture while understanding and perceiving language. The cultivation of emotion embodies the characteristics of Chinese teaching.