LN821     
Mandarin: Level 5 (Legal Issues)

This information is for the 2018/19 session.

Teacher responsible

Dr Lijing Shi Pethick-Lawrence House, 6.01H

Ms Hongyi Xin Pethick-Lawrence House, 6.01G

Pre-requisites

Students must have completed Mandarin: Level 5 (Standard) (LN719).

Student should have successfully completed LSE Level 5 or have reached high proficiency level of Chinese. They are expected to be able to communicate on rather complicated non-routine topics and recognise around 3000 characters.

Course content

COURSE AIM:

The linguistic focus will continue to advance the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, meanwhile helping the students to gain substantial knowledge into vocabulary, syntactic structures and pragmatic usages widely used in legal discourse. It features the general introduction into China’s legal system and its legal professions, with particular emphasis on Chinese civil and commercial laws. Authentic legal documents will be introduced extensively.

The course will enhance the students’ Chinese skills in legal contexts so as to prepare them for successful participation in their future professional communication.

COMMUNICATIVE CONTENT: The course is focused on the following communicative functions:

 Participating in discussion

 Logical argument

 Interaction/Exchange specific information in legal context

 Communication in legal context

 Reading and summarizing complex legal texts

 Writing letters, report and documents with legal elements

 Using language strategies to cope with specialized topics: i.e. law, business, politics and current issues.

STRUCTURAL CONTENT: This course will focus on the following grammatical areas:

 Mandarin pronunciation: Pinyin and tones

 Simplified characters

 Chinese advanced grammar review

 Specific grammatical aspects of topical texts

 Relevant grammatical issues for advanced and specialized communication

 Attributives

 Adverbials

 Appositives

 Regular group or individual translation of legal works

 Reading and summarizing complex legal texts

 Advanced language tasks with reference to case studies

 Advanced language tasks with reference to Contemporary Chinese laws

 Reading comprehension

 Oral presentation

The course will introduce 350 words used in legal discourse.

It will bring students to level C2 of CEFR.

Teaching

8 hours of workshops in the MT. 11 hours of workshops in the LT. 1 hour of workshops in the ST.

Formative coursework

Students will be expected to produce 6 pieces of coursework in the MT and LT.

Indicative reading

中国法律专业汉语教程    北京大学出版社   第1版 (2007年2月1日)  ISBN: 7301116462

条形码: 9787301116463

法律汉语 -商事篇 张泰平 北京大学出版社  ISBN:978-7-301-13109-1

William C Jones "Basic Principles of Civil Law In China" published by ME Sharpe. Inc.

Websites:

www.civillaw.com.cn 中国民商法律网

http://www.88148.com/ 中国法律

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php?word=%E5%9A%B7&cache=21961

Dictionary on yellow bridge

Assessment

Continuous assessment (70%) in the MT, LT and ST.
Oral examination (30%) in the LT.

Key facts

Department: Language Studies

Total students 2017/18: 8

Average class size 2017/18: 7

Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Personal development skills

  • Self-management
  • Team working
  • Problem solving
  • Communication
  • Specialist skills