What traditional Chinese culture can be implied from Chinese characters? How to read Chinese classical documents by exploring the mysteries of Chinese characters? Students queued up at the lecture hall at A5-602 at 15:10 of September 13th to find their answers here.
Professor Li Suo gave a lecture to students Photo by Li Chao.
Students with tickets checked in by scanning QR code Photo by Li Chao
Professor Li Suo gave his book with his own signature to students as gifts photo by Chen Yuchen
Two students recorded lecture contents by using cell phones Photo by Chen Yuchen
Student representative gave the contributing lecture speaker trophy of Rixin Forum to Professor Li as a gift photo by Li Cao
At 15:30, a smiling old man with grey hair walked slowly into the lecture hall in warm applauses. The old man is Professor Li Suo who is the academic leader in Chinese linguistics research of Dalian University, the former dean of Literature College, the key instructor of national excellent classes, the top university teacher in Liaoning Province. The theme lecture entitled "Culture of Chinese Characters and Reading of Chinese Classic documents" began.
“Fellow students, what do you think come first, characters or words?" asked Professor Li. Students expressed different views on this topic. Professor Li analyzed the features and the relationship between shapes and meanings of Chinese characters by illustrating the oracle-bone inscriptions of “攵”、“武”、“刃”、“水”、“休”and giving modern people false analysis of Chinese characters' shapes and meanings. He analyzed the social cultures, cultural backgrounds and folk habits in ancient times by illustrating the shapes of “弃”“婚”. Vivid descriptions and humorous words won on-site audience great waves of laughter.
The Master said, is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him? Professor Li asked students their understandings to these sentences and then gradually guided them to get precise explanation through cultural analysis of “时”“朋”and told students how to read classic documents in the right way, which benefited them quite a lot.
Professor Li said " We should deeply understand the source of traditional cultures so that we can better grasp the trend of developments. Chinese characters served as an indispensable role in this process. Professor Li summarized three principles which should be adhered to in analyzing Chinese characters' shapes, meanings and cultural information. They were analyzing the shapes of ancients Chinese characters such as oracle-bone inscriptions, Chinese bronze inscriptions and seal characters. We were not able to grasp the initial meanings of characters after the introduction of seal characters. The phonological symbol of phonological characters only stands for pronunciation, and it could not be regarded as ideographic characters. Classic documents must be read in the light of history and we could not take their meaning for granted and misused the modern meanings and ancient meanings of ancient characters and misjudged ancestors' initial meanings.
Professor Li's lecture aroused students' great interest in culture of Chinese characters. Students and teachers asked quite a lot of questions including the conflicts between the culture of Chinese characters and the culture of alphabetic words, the relationship between the culture of Chinese characters and calligraphic arts, how to teach foreign students to learn Chinese in an effective way. Professor Li answered these questions patiently and gave his book Chinese Characters and Traditional Chinese Culture as gifts with his own signature and expressed his best wishes by writing some words on the title page with regular scripts in small characters.
The two-hour feast of traditional culture ended in a pleasant atmosphere. Professor Li's humorous and profound lecture impressed all students and teachers, which open a window of better understanding and inheriting traditional culture. To express thanks to professor Li, Wang Ziyu from business management department gave the trophy of contributing lecture speaker of Rixin Forum to him on behalf of students.
Zhang Bo, a Chinese teacher from international education department said, " I have lots of difficulties in teaching foreign students Chinese, I am quite inspired by Professor Li's lecture and learn lots of useful things and the systematic teaching methods that the professor mentioned is worth being carried out in our daily teaching practice."