How to cultivate talents in Shandong University's "Paleographology" strong foundation class? This article discloses details

The Paper reporter Yue Huairang

All provinces across the country have gradually entered the stage of delivering undergraduate admission notices. Some "unpopular" majors have once again received public attention recently.

The Paper reporter noticed that on July 24 this year, the official website of the School of Liberal Arts of Shandong University published an article "Shandong University's "Paleographology" Strong Foundation Program Talent Cultivation Initial Results", which introduced the details of Shandong University's "Paleographology" Strong Foundation Project .

Introduction to the article: In September 2020, the first strong basic class of Chinese Language and Literature (Paleography) of the Faculty of Liberal Arts of Shandong University enrolled, and it has enrolled two sessions so far. In the past two years, the School of Liberal Arts has organized special classes led by professional teachers. Through continuous exploration, a series of effective training measures have been formed.

Shandong University has a long tradition of studying ancient characters. Chen Mengjia, Ding Shan, Gao Heng, Wang Xiantang, Yin Menglun, Yin Huanxian, and Jiang Weisong who once taught here are all renowned experts at home and abroad. They either specialize in ancient characters, or use ancient characters as materials to study history, documents, and calligraphy. Since the new era, Mr. Jiang Keyu, Jiang Baochang, Xu Chao, Yang Duanzhi, etc. have also paid more attention to ancient writing materials, and have specialized writings. In 2001, they began to recruit doctoral students in the direction of philology.

Since Chinese Language and Literature (Paleography) was shortlisted for the first batch of pilot units of the "Strong Foundation Plan" of the Ministry of Education in 2020, the School of Liberal Arts of Shandong University has successively introduced 6 full-time teachers and 5 part-time teachers in the field of Paleographs. By the second half of 2022, there will be 12 full-time teachers of ancient characters and 5 part-time teachers of ancient characters in the Department of Literature and History of Shandong University, and the research direction will cover all branches of ancient characters. For example, Liu Zhao (part-time chair professor) and He Hui (part-time supervisor) research on oracle bone inscriptions, Dong Lianchi and Jia Haisheng (part-time distinguished professors) research on bronze inscriptions, Xu Zaiguo (part-time distinguished professors), Hou Naifeng, Huang Jie’s research on the Warring States characters, Yi Qiang, Wang Hui's Qin and Han writing research and so on. This kind of more professional teaching staff in the research direction can ensure that each teacher specializes in teaching the field that he is best at, which is a strong guarantee for the cultivation of strong basic classes.

In terms of optimizing the curriculum system, in the 2020 training plan for the first strong foundation class, the courses for the major of ancient characters in Shandong University include Introduction to Paleographs, Structure of Ancient Characters, Guided Reading of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Guided Reading of Warring States Characters, Guided Reading of Qin and Han Characters, and "Shuowen Jie" "Words", a total of 6 subjects. With the continuous strengthening of professional teachers, we will readjust and optimize the courses in March 2022: one is to divide the guided reading of oracle bone inscriptions into two courses, the guided reading of oracle bone inscriptions and the guided reading of bronze inscriptions, and the second is to add an overview of ancient characters, ancient characters skills and experiments Intensive reading of ancient texts and classic papers. Such adjustments can maximize the research advantages of teachers, and most importantly, allow students in strong basic classes to receive the most cutting-edge and professional knowledge. The ancient writing skills and experiment courses will make full use of the unearthed literature laboratory under the Language Science Experimental Center of Shandong University to train students to skillfully use various professional skills and experimental methods necessary for the study of ancient writing.

The Faculty of Liberal Arts of Shandong University still has courses related to ancient Chinese and the introduction of original classics as compulsory or elective courses, such as ancient Chinese, philology, phonology, exegesis, introduction to "dialects", introduction to "Erya", and three annotations to "Historical Records". Introduction, "Mao Shi Zhengyi" introduction and so on. This is very necessary to lay a solid professional foundation for the students in the strong foundation class. In addition, the two compulsory courses of Xia, Shang and Zhou archaeology and ancient Chinese history are an important measure to promote the combination of general and professional studies and expand knowledge.

For the strong basic class of "Paleographology", the School of Literary Arts of Shandong University has implemented a tutor responsibility system.

According to the above article, as soon as the students in the strong foundation class enter school, professional teachers will be in charge and act as tutors. Each tutor guides 2-3 students. Bi Yu, a class 2020 student, described it this way: "The tutor formulates study plans for us according to our own learning situation and hobbies, urges us to read and study, holds regular reading clubs, and guides our annual papers, paper reports, and scientific research. In addition, the tutor is also very concerned about our life, often leads us to go out in the spring, in-depth understanding of the students' learning status and future development in the relaxed chat, and often talks to us, for our study Make suggestions." This basically explains the role of tutors in students' learning and life.

In the next step, Shandong University’s College of Liberal Arts will explore the implementation of a dual-tutor system, that is, each student will be equipped with two tutors, one who will mainly guide ancient characters, and one who will be specially assigned according to the students’ learning interests, such as phonology, version direction, etc. This is of great benefit to students' deep learning.

The strong basic class implements the academic year paper report meeting system to motivate students' scientific research innovation and academic performance. Since the sophomore year, students in the strong foundation class have held a thesis report every year. The process is that students and tutors agree on the topic, write a thesis, report the thesis, and the evaluation panel will score the best. The dissertation requires strengthening the awareness of problems, and aims to solve practical problems such as text, phonology, exegesis, catalogue, version, and collation in unearthed documents and handed down documents. Don't talk in general, don't pile up words, don't talk about methods and theories. Expert review does not use the number of words in the paper as a criterion, but only focuses on whether the paper solves practical problems, or whether the research on related difficult problems has been advanced.

The Shandong University College of Liberal Arts stated that a report meeting has been successfully held in the second half of 2021 with excellent results. Through writing papers, students have basically mastered the norms of writing papers, and can also skillfully use basic learning skills for research. Everyone thinks that they have gained a lot. In the report meeting, some excellent papers were of a very high level, reaching the level of publication, such as Wang Yueyue's "Relationship between Duan Yucai's "Mao Poetry's Legend and Biography" and Ruan Yuan's "Mao's Poetry Annotations and Collation Notes"", Wei Yu's "On the Unusual Anecdotes of Historical Events Caused by the Polysemy of a Word——Taking Zuo Zhuan as an Example" is a representative paper that performed prominently in the report meeting.

"The above are the training models and methods we have explored. After two years of implementation, initial results have been achieved. Students in the strong foundation class have emerged in scientific research. Lin Caiwei and Xu Rundong, students in the strong foundation class of 2020, published in the professional journals "Guoxue Quarterly" and "Sichuan Library Journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has published tens of thousands of words of academic papers. Many other students have been accepted for publication by professional magazines, which is very gratifying for sophomore liberal arts students. We believe that with the passage of time, Shandong The university's strong basic class in paleography will get better and better." The above-mentioned article concluded at the end.

Editor in charge: Jiang Ziwen Picture editor: Chen Feiyan

Proofreading: Zhang Yan