An Analysis of the Pedagogical Significance of Whole Book Reading: Chinese Ancient Fables as an Example

Ancient Chinese fables originate from the historical context of situations, and their original allegorical content containing political ideologies or philosophical interpretations are not easy to comprehend for children in modern days. To meet the requirements of teaching whole book reading, some fables in Chinese Ancient Fables are adapted by adding enlightening sentences or eliminating obscure allegorical content, indicating the influence of the context of situation on fables’ content and structure. This paper applies theories of systemic functional linguistics, including register, contextual configurations of situation, and schematic structure, to develop a schematic structure of the fables in Chinese Ancient Fables: " <background setting> conflict onset ^conflict turning point [ ^conflict resolution·(explicit allegorical significance)]". Three characteristics are explored from the schematic structure: 1. The text structure is clear and logically coherent, to adapt to the cognitive capacity and reading proficiency of third-grade students; 2. The ambiguous time setting reveals the textual feature of fictionality, and the use of historical place names or person names was to indirectly indicate the time and add cultural depth and historical appreciation to the stories; 3. The absence of the component "explicit allegorical significance" triggers multiple and diversified interpretations of the fables. The findings suggest that genre analysis can be adopted for teaching whole book reading. Based on the understanding of individual fables, students can understand the fable collections and grasp the main points of Chinese Ancient Fables. Simultaneously, genre analysis provides guidelines for students to interpret the diverse allegorical meanings of Chinese ancient fables from multiple perspectives.

Keywords

Chinese Ancient Fables, teaching of whole book reading, genre, context of situation, schematic structure

source

International Journal of Chinese Language Education; Jun 2024; Issue No. 15; p.81-103

Language

Chinese