List of figures

List of tables

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Introduction

Part I

Writing, Sounds, and Culture

1 Chinese Manuscript Culture

2 A Century of Chinese Writing Reform

3 Chinese Phonology and Cross-Cultural Exchange in History

4 Monosyllabicity of Chinese in a Quadripartite Classification of World Languages: Exceptions Explained

Part II

Philosophy, Politics, and Culture

5 The Linguistics of Chinese Philosophical Keywords

6 Power and Persuasion: Language and Politics in China

7 Chinese Exceptionalism: Linguistic Construction of a Superpower

8 Distinguishing between Early Modern and Modern Chinese Lexicons: Mandarin’s Journey to Becoming a national language

Part III

Words, Expressions, Discourse, and Culture

9 Chinese Idioms and Culture

10 Colloquialisms and Chinese Culture

11 Place Name as Personal Identification

12 Chinese Emotions: Words, Meaning and Culture

13 Classroom Discourse in Chinese as a Second Language

Part IV

China, Chinese, Dialects, and Culture

14 Sinophone Studies

15 A Dynamic Perspective on the Languages and Peoples of China

16 On the Origin of Han Chinese and Chinese Dialects of South China

17 The Common Language, Dialects and Chinese Cultural Traditions

Index

Liwei Jiao is Senior Lecturer of East Asian Studies at Brown University. His research interests include Chinese phraseology, lexicography, language and culture, and language instruction. His publications include a series of Routledge dictionaries, such as 500 Common Chinese Idioms, 500 Common Chinese Proverbs and Colloquial Expressions, and A Cultural Dictionary of the Chinese Language. He has also contributed three entries, including one on Yuen Ren Chao, to the Encyclopedia of China (third edition, 2022).