WHAT DIFFICULTIES IN LINGUISTICS DID I ENCOUNTER IN MY UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM?
When I was an undergrad in China, my curriculum started to get steeper in terms of difficulty as we approached the third year. Without an experience in studying exclusively with other Chinese students who majored in Linguistics or Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, I conceded that the progression in difficulty of my curriculum was not challenging at all. Yet, for many foreign students, their first encounter with a course named "现代汉语" (Modern Chinese), which was actually an introduction to all basic linguistical aspects of modern Chinese, was not a pleasant experience at all. This was their first exposure to linguistical concepts, and thus they languished in misery. That was not an exaggeration at all because many of them got C or even failed the course. Personally, I found this course and "语言学纲要" (An introduction to linguistics) to be one the most interesting courses that could fully hold my attention. I was definitely absorbed by the contents and were very focused in making sense of these concepts. After all, I was already able to speak French more fluently and got some understanding of Russian. I could rely on my rather extensive language acquiring experience to concretize many relatively abstract concepts. Yet it was not a piece of cake for me eitherl. I struggled to understand even such a basic concept as "phoneme". What were the differences between "phoneme" and "phone"? Let me try to pull out the definition from the textbook of the course, which I still keep and re-read in my spare time.
Definition of a phone (音素)
音素是从音质角度划分出来的最小的线性的语音单位（...）（64页） (page 64)
A phone is the smallest linear phonetical unit which is extracted (or divided) from the perspective of speech sound quality (...)
Definition of a phoneme (音位)
音位是具体语言中有区别词的语音形式的作用的最小语音单位。（...）（67页）(page 67)
A phoneme is the smallest phonetical unit that can differentiate meaning in words in terms of phonetical formation in a particular language.
《语言学纲要，北京大学出版社，2013年》(An outline of Linguistics, Beijing University, 2013)
What are the problems with these definitions from a book that looks at Linguistics as a whole?
Let's analyze it: They are both called "the smallest phonetical unit", the difference between them is that a phoneme can differentiate meaning in words? But why? Why so? The term "音质角度" (from the perspective of speech sound quality) and "语音形式" (in terms of phonetical characteristics) are simply redundant and could be frankly kicked out of the definition. And what did it mean by linear (线性)? This term should not be introduced at our level because it related to more advanced areas. I read and re-read the wall of texts and find it completely puzzling because, while the authors decided to start with a description of allophones, they did not state the most important relationship between a phone and a phoneme. They were hidden behind a plethora of disconnected examples. I believe that with hindsight, I would be able to pick out the answer by going through 3 pages of descriptions. Yet I was stuck and could not make sense of it. Asking teachers would be the fastest way out, but I wanted to make it work by myself.
What then did I do? I went to the university library and browsed through the electronic catalogue, looking for another book that were at my level. I eventually chose this textbook named "现代汉语语音教程". It was much more straightforward in defining a phoneme and a phone. What did it write? It started with a phone by defining:
音素是最小语音单位。因素是构成音节的单位 (20页）(Page 20)
A phone is the smallest phonetical unit. A phone is a unit that constitutes a phoneme.
音位是一个语音系统中能够区别意义的最小语音单位 （24页）(Page 24)
Yes, that's right!
The key was "a unit that constitutes a phoneme"! Now I can see the relationship between the two. But what does it mean by "constituting" here? After all, a [p] and a /p/ is both the same, right? Both texts said they were the smallest phonetical unit, so what were the differences?
Well, it was this table, not any definition, that answeds the question most conclusively!
No! It was not the term 变体 in the second column that was helpful here either, it was actually the grouping of all these phonal variations into a phoneme that made me understand that a phoneme was actually just a set of different phones. Variations which do not distinguish meanings in a word are called an allophone. That's it! That's the relationship that I have been looking for. What's point in putting me through all these agonies to become a text mining robot?
Two things that I was able to draw experience from: The god-damn textbook that your teacher chose for you was not necessarily your friend. It might take longer to be able to find a resource that brought to light the concept that you could understand.
What I want to say is this: a good book, a good instructor, is someone who can cut through all the complex interlinking definitions and concepts and presents them in the most understandable way at an appropriate level so that his students could comprehend them. This is an art, an art of writing, an art of teaching. Arete, comme les Grècques disaitent lointainement!
2 - TERMINOLOGY
For some reasons, I found myself keep going through the equivalent definitions in both Chinese and English. Since there weren't a lot of textbook in English in my college's library, I had to rely on wikipedia. You knew what? It was much more pleasant to read classification of vowels and consonants based on the their articulatory and other phonetical features than the Chinese bloody definitions that were long-winded and muddled. So much so that by the end of the day, I could recite /p/ was a labial plosive stop consonant, instead of 双唇塞爆音. The Chinese characters didn't help either. Even if I could remember the description in Chinese, I would not be able to write all those characters down on my exam paper.
3 -LACK OF HISTORICAL CONTINUITY OF LINGUISTICAL CONCEPTS
As I stated earlier, I did not sadly study with Chinese students. What happened was that a thick layer of history was culled from my path when I studied the lite-version Linguistics. Guess what? Concepts that we were introduced in a Chinese course came from both Western or classical Chinese tradition of Phonology. Only till recently did I realize that the Chinese portion had a deep and profound origin. This explained why terminology sometimes did not match. But more dangerous was that concepts were poorly motivated, taught and understood? What were 声母 and 韵母, what were 合口呼，开口呼, 摄口呼. A search of terminology in English will result in an absence of equivalents.
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