Research on Thomas Wade\u27s view about the style of Chinese : based on his Yü-yen Tzǔ-êrh Chi

Along with the missionaries’ coming into China, diplomatic officials and merchants also poured into China. Out of the needs of work and life, these people compiled many textbooks and dictionaries to learn Chinese. Thomas Francis Wade (1818-1895) is an outstanding diplomat who came to China in 19th centenary and made brilliant contribution to the research of Chinese language. This paper focused on Wade’s most important textbook, Yü-yen Tzŭ-êrh Chi, analyzed his view about the style of Chinese language. Wade agreed with Edkins’s opinion of dividing Mandarin language into three kinds, and emphasized the importance of Peking Mandarin. He formulated the Wade-Giles Romanization system for Chinese and analyzed the structure of Chinese character. Moreover, he realized that the parts of speech of Chinese language are very flexible, and also gave a deep analyzation of the implied meaning of Chinese words. In a word, Wade’s analysis of Chinese language was relatively scientific and of great value to the research of Chinese language, further study about his view is still required