The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire field from a multi-disciplinary perspective. All chapters are contributed by leading scholars in their respective areas. This Handbook contains eight sections: history, languages and dialects, language contact, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, socio-cultural aspects and neuro-psychological aspects. It provides not only a diachronic view of how languages evolve, but also a synchronic view of how languages in contact enrich each other by borrowing new words, calquing loan translation and even developing new syntactic structures. It also accompanies traditional linguistic studies of grammar and phonology with empirical evidence from psychology and neurocognitive sciences. In addition to research on the Chinese language and its major dialect groups, this handbook covers studies on sign languages and non-Chinese languages, such as the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan.

More than any other treasure, Shijing contains the historical roots of China, from which much of modern culture grew. From a lovelorn young man to an aging woman spurned by her wedded husband, from an elder statesman admonishing a young sovereign, to footsoldiers facing the unspeakable fate of sacrificial burial, the love and war in Shijing serves as a key to unlock the myth of Ancient China. The book presents the reader with a fascinating glimpse of Ancient Chinese by analysing many poems in Shijing and discussing aspects of culture and events reflected in the poems from a wide range of disciplines, including archaeology, ethnography, history and linguistics. Reading this book will enhance the general reader's knowledge of Chinese culture as well as familiarity with the language as a "bare-bone". Minimalist English translation are used which enables readers getting closer to and gain a better sense and flavour of the original text.