See also the description of the Chinese program.
Chinese
Degrees Offered: Undergraduate Major, Minor --
Graduate M.A., Ph.D.
The Department of Asian Languages and Literature offers
an undergraduate major and minor in Chinese language and
literature, and graduate programs for
the M.A. and Ph.D.
Chinese Undergraduate
Major
The Chinese Language & Literature major
has a requirement of 75 credits.
I. LANGUAGE COURSES:
30 credits, with a minimum of 20 credits beyond
the third year of the language, including:
- CHIN 451 (First-Year Classical Chinese)
with the rest from:
- CHIN 411, 412, 413 Fourth-Year Chinese
- CHIN 421, 422, 423 Business Chinese or I BUS 490 Special Topics: Business Chinese
- CHIN 452, 453 First-Year Classical Chinese (Winter & Spring
quarters)
- CHIN 470 Advanced Readings in Modern Chinese
- CHIN 482 Advanced Readings in Modern Chinese
- CHIN 551, 552, 553 Second-Year Classical Chinese
II. LINGUISTICS COURSES:
5 credits required:
- CHIN 342/442 The Chinese Language
5 credits optional:
- CHIN 443 Structure of Chinese
III. LITERATURE COURSES:
15 credits (10 credits if the optional 5 credits of
linguistics are taken) from
among the following courses, or from Chinese literature
courses
offered
in
the Department
of Comparative Literature:
- ASIAN 201 Literature and Culture of Ancient and Classical
China
- ASIAN 204 Literature and Culture of China from Tradition
to Modernity
- ASIAN 211 Languages and Cultures of China
- ASIAN 263 Great Works of Asian Literature (when China
is the topic)
- CHIN 373 Chinese Poetry
- CHIN 374 Chinese Prose
- CHIN 380 Premodern Chinese Narrative in Translation
- CHIN 381 Literature in Modern China
- CHIN 385 Popular Culture in Twentieth-Century China
- CHIN 461, 462, 463 History of Chinese Literature
IV. CHINA-RELATED HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE COURSES:
25 credits including the following course in the History
Department:
- HSTAS 211 History of Chinese Civilization
with the remaining credits fulfilled by choosing
courses explicitly related to China from such departments
as Anthropology, Art
History, International
Studies, Linguistics,
Sociology, etc. You can download a list of approved courses in pdf format.
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Chinese Undergraduate
Minor
The Department offers a 30 credit undergraduate
minor in Chinese. Courses taken for the minor must have
a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0. No more than 15 transfer
credits may count toward a Chinese language minor.
I. LANGUAGE COURSES:
15 credits at or above the third-year level. Must include CHIN 451, plus other courses drawn from among the
following:
- CHIN 212, 213 Second-Year Heritage Chinese
- CHIN 301, 302, 303 Third-Year Non-Heritage Chinese
- CHIN 411, 412, 413 Fourth-Year Chinese
- CHIN 421, 422, 423 Business Chinese or I BUS 490 Special
Topics: Business Chinese
- CHIN 452, 453 First-Year Classical Chinese
- CHIN 470 Advanced Readings in Modern Chinese
- CHIN 482 Advanced Readings in Modern Chinese
II. AREA RELATED HUMANITIES COURSES:
15 credits taken from among the following:
- ASIAN 201 Literature and Culture of Ancient and Classical
China
- ASIAN 204 Literature and Culture of China from Tradition
to Modernity
- ASIAN 211 Languages and Cultures of China
- ASIAN 263 Great Works of Asian Literature (when China
is the topic)
- CHIN 342/442 The Chinese Language
- CHIN 373 Chinese Poetry
- CHIN 374 Chinese Prose
- CHIN 380 Premodern Chinese Narrative in Translation
- CHIN 381 Literature in Modern China
- CHIN 385 Popular Culture in 20th Century China
- CHIN 443 Structure of Chinese
- CHIN 461, 462, 463 History of Chinese Literature
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M.A. Program
Admission
The applicant must meet the requirements of the Graduate School as outlined in the University Catalog. An undergraduate grade point average of 3.0 in the junior and senior years is a prerequisite for admission, together with three letters of recommendation and a statement of purpose. Admission to the M.A. program with specialization in Chinese language and literature requires that a student have strong undergraduate preparation in one of the following: Chinese language and literature, another foreign language and literature, Asian Regional Studies, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, English, Philosophy, or History. He or she will, in addition, be expected to have completed four years of modern Chinese and one year of classical Chinese, each with a grade point average of at least 3.0. Students lacking such preparation may be admitted to the M.A. program provisionally, and will be required to make up the deficiencies during their first year of residence.
Program Description
The program in Chinese language and literature offers work in the textual, linguistic and literary study of Chinese as well as in the history and criticism of the Chinese literary tradition. The student will work out an individual course of study with an adviser. Although a student normally emphasizes either linguistics or literature, both are important components for all students. Courses offered in other programs within the department, and in other departments, such as Comparative Literature, Anthropology, Linguistics, or one of the other language and literature departments, may constitute valuable additions to the program where they support and enrich a special emphasis.
Course Work and Credits
I. Degree Requirements
Two options are available to the student in the M.A. degree program: (1) a thesis program, and (2) a non-thesis program which requires two seminar or research papers in lieu of a thesis, and two 500-level departmental courses in addition to the requirements specified below.
II. Special Course Requirements
The M.A. course program must include in every case the following courses or their equivalent (38-40 credits):
- Second-Year Classical Chinese - CHIN 551, 552, 553 (15 credits)
- Methods and Materials
- CHIN 559 (5 credits)
- History of Chinese Literature (any
one course of the three-quarter sequence) - CHIN 461, 462, 463 (5 credits)
- The Chinese Language - CHIN 442 (5 credits)
- At least one course from each of the following two groups (8-10 credits):
- Group I -- Literature
- CHIN 461, 462, 463 - History of Chinese Literature
- CHIN 482 - Advanced Readings in Chinese Prose
- CHIN 554, 555, 556 - Readings in Chinese Prose
- CHIN 561, 562, 563 - Studies in Chinese Literature
- CHIN 580 - Readings in Vernacular Fiction
- CHIN 575 - Studies in Chinese Drama
- CHIN 590 - Readings in the Thirteen Classics
- CHIN 591, 592, 593 - Studies in the History of Chinese Thought
- CHIN 573 - Seminar in Chinese Poetry
- CHIN 582 - Seminar in Chinese Fiction
- CHIN 583 - Seminar in Modern Chinese Literature
- CHIN 590 - Seminar in Six Dynasties Literature
- Group II -- Linguistics and Philology
- CHIN 443 - Structure of Chinese
- CHIN 542 - Chinese Historical Phonology
- CHIN 557 Introduction to Chinese Philology and Textual Criticism
- CHIN 531, 532, 533 - Studies in Chinese Phonology
- CHIN 540 - Seminar on Chinese Linguistics
- CHIN 541 - Seminar on Chinese Grammar
- CHIN 544 - Chinese Dialectology
- CHIN 558 - Seminar on Chinese Lexicology and Grammatonymy
Foreign Language Requirement
For a complete description of the Department's language requirement, please refer to the Policies and Procedures, 2.4.0 - 2.4.6. For the M.A. in Chinese, the additional language requirement must be fulfilled through a graduate reading examination. The additional language may be another Asian language or a European language, but may not be the student's native language, and must be relevant to the student's program of study.
M.A. Examination
For a complete description of the Department's M.A. General Examination, please refer to the Policies and Procedures, 2.5.0 - 2.5.2. The first part of the M.A. Examination in Chinese will cover Chinese literature, and the second part will focus on language (linguistics and philology) and texts. The examination should normally be taken no later than Autumn Quarter of the third year.
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Ph.D. Program
I. Admission
The student must meet such general admission requirements for the doctoral program as the Graduate School may set forth.
After successful completion of 45 credits (a minimum of three quarters) of graduate study in this Department, a student wishing to enter the Ph.D. program with specialization in Chinese language and literature shall, irrespective of any particular qualifications or background, submit a formal petition to the Department stating his or her post-M.A. academic plans and goals. (For a fuller description of the requirements of the petition to proceed into the Ph.D. program, please consult the Department's Policies and Procedures, 3.4.2 - 3.4.3f.)
Ideally, the prospective candidate will have completed an M.A. degree in the field of Chinese language and literature prior to entering the Ph.D. program. If the student has an M.A. in another pertinent field, e.g., in Linguistics, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, History, or Asian regional studies, it will not be necessary to take an additional M.A. in Chinese language and literature. The student will however be required to satisfy all course and examination requirements for the M.A. program in this department. Upon admission to the program, the student should be prepared to enter courses in modern Chinese at the 500 level, and should have at least two years of Classical Chinese.
A student who intends to go directly from the B.A. to the Ph.D. program must present an unusually strong background preparation in the disciplines of literary study or linguistics. He or she will be expected in the course of his or her work to satisfy all curriculum requirements for the M.A., and must petition the Department for special permission to by-pass the M.A.
II. Course Requirements
As noted above, all students in the Ph.D. program must complete, if they have not already done so in the M.A. program in this Department, the course requirements for the M.A. in Chinese. Equivalent courses from other programs may be substituted subject to written approval by the regular instructor of the course in question. In addition, whichever quarters of the sequence Chin 461, 462, and 463 were not taken for the M.A. must be taken for the Ph.D. The student's post-M.A. course work should be designed, in consultation with his or her adviser, to fill in gaps or strengthen weaknesses in the student's background, and to establish and develop four fields of special study that he or she will pursue in some depth in preparation for the general examination (see below, Part III). The Graduate School has a minimum requirement of 90 credits for the Ph.D. (which includes credits taken in the same program toward the M.A.).
III. Field Requirements
A "field" as used here is considered to be an area of study within the overall domain of Chinese language and literature limited by genre, discipline, and time period, but not overly specialized or narrow, that the Ph.D. student shall investigate in some depth. The student shall be expected to familiarize himself or herself with both the original texts and the secondary scholarship of the field, and to show some potential for carrying out original research in the area in question. Each student must pursue four such fields of special study, and will be examined separately by an appropriate faculty member prior to the general oral examination. The field examinations must be written.
The four fields that a student elects to study must, in the aggregate, reflect both of the primary components of the Department's graduate level offerings, i.e., language (linguistics and philology) and literature. Students are encouraged in connection with at least one field to incorporate to a significant extent some aspect of Chinese history and culture, exclusive of strictly literary or linguistic facets thereof. With permission of his or her adviser a student may offer one field from outside the Department, for example, in general linguistics, literary criticism, a non-Chinese literature, Chinese philosophy or religion, or a particular period of Chinese history. Such a field must be demonstrably related in a significant way to the student's overall course of study.
IV. Examinations
The student is, as mentioned above, examined in each of the four fields separately by an appropriate faculty member. Prior to the General Examination the students must demonstrate a reading knowledge of an additional Asian language and a pertinent European language. (The student may apply the foreign language reading examination required for the M.A. to this requirement.)
Upon the successful completion of the student's individually established program of course work and study, and the completion of the above examinations, the student's supervisory committee will administer the General Examination. This is usually a two-hour long oral examination, and covers principally, but not exclusively, the four fields that the student has prepared. Passing this examination, the student then writes a dissertation, under the direction of a dissertation adviser. An oral Final Examination in defense of the finished dissertation completes the degree requirements for this program.
Please note: Students admitted to the Ph.D. program may, at the discretion of their adviser, be required to add to their basic program any course(s) considered necessary to remedy a deficiency in their background.
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