Germanistische Linguistik in China

Abstract

This paper first makes an attempt to define the position of German linguistics in the major of »Germanistik« at tertiary level in today’s China. Since China’s reform and open-up policy in 1979, »Germanistik« as an important major at China’s universities has witnessed ever increasing academic communication between the Chinese and German scholars in the field. As a result, concerning German linguistics, in particular, applied linguistics of German, various international and domestic conferences of »Germanistik« were held, and academic publications such as periodicals, collections of treatises, monographs as well as textbooks appeared regularly and frequently, which manifested great achievements in the field. Secondly, the paper introduces the following six areas as the key researches of German linguistics in China: 1. the history of the German language and the history of German linguistics; 2. the study of the grammar and the language system, including phonetics, morphology, lexicology, lexicography and syntax; 3. language in use, including speech act theory, text linguistics, discourse analysis, functional-communicative theories, cognitive linguistics etc.; 4. the German language for special purposes; 5. contrastive linguistics; 6. intercultural communication between the Chinese and German peoples. The paper ends with an overview on the development trend of German linguistics in China.