This course is designed to help students comprehend and produce discourse-level Chinese characterized by factual, as well as abstract, elaboration on most familiar and some unfamiliar topics. Authentic materials are used exclusively and the course is conducted in Mandarin Chinese. It is designed for students who have completed three years of training in all four skills.

In this course, students will read rigorously both literary and non-literary texts written in advanced shumianyu language on a wide range of topic areas related to current events, social sciences, history and literature. Students will be required to write extensively in the expository style, and their written work will be corrected and discussed in individual sessions.

Required texts: No textbook purchase needed. The students explore Chinese culture, society, politics, through discussions of texts and audio/visual materials available on the Internet. The texts vary from news reports on current events, commentaries, literary writings, to official documents such as government white books, etc. Video clips related to the discussion topics from YouTube and video-hosting websites based in China are also incorporated into learning.

Recommended Dictionaries: Deng, G., Ed., A New English-Chinese Dictionary, University of Washington Press; Deng, G., Ed., A New Chinese-English Dictionary, University of Washington Press.