本教材具有极高的原创性，梳理了中国文字与书法的成就与特征，传播了中国书法的史学文化，主要包括如下内容：1.对中国文字与书法进行了理论探索；2.在跨文化背景下探究中国文字。通过对教材的学习，帮助热衷于中国文字与书法的学习者初步实现用英语讲述本国文字与文明的目标，体现大学英语工具性、人文性和专业性的特点。

Preface
Acknowled.qements
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 An overview
1.2 The Spoken Word: The base of writing
1.3 Basic flow of ideas
1.4 Theoretical probing: The nature of Chinese characters
1.5 Limitations of the monograph
1.6 How to use the book
Part Ⅰ The Chinese Character: Theoretical Explorati0ns
Chapter 2 The Chinese Language as a Multi-Dimensional City
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Wittgenstein's metaphors about language studies
2.3 The first primitive start of the Chinese language cityscape
2.4 Approaching the Chinese language as multi-dimensional modes of existence
2.5 The four-borne discourses: A demographic characterization
2.6 The four-borne discourses and categorization of idiolects
2.7 Recap
Chapter 3 Chinese Writing in the Ancient City of the Chinese Language and Civilization
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Land-Borne Situated Discourse: Foundation and yardstick for writing
3.2.1 Situatedness of discourse
3.2.2 Human space-time movement and activity zone
3.2.3 Social Space-Time
3.2.4 Natural multimodality and total saturated experience
3.2.5 Sedimentation of discourse process
3.2.6 Accessibility and availability
3.3 WWBD, ABSD and WBSD: A contrastive study
3.3.1 The WWBD
3.3.2 The ABSD
3.3.3 The WBSD
3.4 The four-borne discourses: Maintenance, reproduction, and creativity
3.5 Literature review: Where does the present study stand?
3.5.1 Media studies
3.5.2 Media and a fundamental metaphor
3.5.3 Semiotic approach to media studies
3.5.4 The present study. Rethinking of "the extensions of man"
3.5.5 Discourse analysis and media
3.6 Final remarks
Chapter 4 The Written W0rd-B0me Discourse: An Ecological Model
4.1 Introduction
4.2 An ecological model
4.2.1 The operational environment
4.2.2 The source base: The Spoken Word
4.2.3 The social-political-economic-cultural system
4.3 The production system
4.3.1 Tools and media for writing
4.3.2 The writer and the emergence of shi 士 (gentry)
4.3.3 The court historian 史官: A special class of writer
4.4 The consumption system
4.5 The dissemination system
4.5.1 The invention of paper
4.5.2 Ce (冊): Primitive form of the book
4.5.3 Reproduction of ce-books
4.6 The Spoken Word as the base of the Chinese character
4.7 The Spoken Word and the mental word/lexicon
4.8 Syllabic nature of the character
4.9 The character: Type vs. token and the Written Word as a functional unit
Part Ⅱ The Chinese Character in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Chapter 5 Divination, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and Mechanism of Inscnbing
5.1 Introduction
5.2 From "dragon bones" to the discovery: Wang Yirong and Liu E
5.3 The significance of oracle bone inscriptions: The rebirth of the Shang Dynasty
5.4 The Shang Dynasty: A historical background
5.5 Divination ritual
5.6 The oracle bone inscription: Divinatory discourse structure
5.7 Mechanism of inscribing
5.8 Summary
Chapter 6 Chinese Orthography: Unification and Standardization
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Some terminologies explained
6.2.1 Character formation
6.2.2 Chinese morpheme
6.2.3 Syllable of Standard Chinese
6.2.4 Chinese phonology
6.2.5 Summary
6.3 Possibility dimension
6.4 Chinese characters: Further analysis
6.5 Uniformity dimension
6.6 Standardization dimension
6.7 Aesthetic dimension
6.8 The first unification and standardization of Chinese characters: A historical glance
6.8.1 The First Emperor's writing
6.8.2 Motives for writing, unity and standardization of the Written Word
6.8.3 Paradigm shifts in Chinese orthography
6.9 Recap
Chapter 7 The Chinese C