Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 244-256).

This empirical study explores Chinese scholars’ conceptions of the characteristics of quality in research. It follows a phenomenology approach and uses four mixed qualitative methods (online survey, interview, focus groups and document analysis). Phenomenological coding strategies and Pierre Bourdieu’s field and cultural theory are utilised to analyse the data and achieve a theoretical understanding of the findings. It is found that the participants viewed quality via multifarious lenses and identified diverse actual criteria. They nominated many ‘normal’ criteria that were similar to the western standards of research quality, especially the methodological ones, and some ‘abnormal’ ones which were indigenous and contextual in nature (i.e., related to the particular context of educational research in China). The participants elaborated their criteria through 3 layers: methodology (technical quality criteria), contextualisation (i.e., criteria that were about the relationship between the research and the context), and criteria related to the impact of research. The contextual issues (e.g., job title evaluation system, research policy and administrative interference) generated “unscholarly” criteria, and hindered the academics’ good intention to consider and follow the conventional criteria in action. They influenced the academics’ opinions of quality and their ways of conducting research. In the participants’ eyes, doing research in China was tantamount to writing papers, and it was not about assuring quality but reflected the academics’ struggles to meet all sorts of requests at institutional and national levels. The participants looked for an impact of research at the practical level (e.g., teaching and learning), and suggested a combination of both theoretical and practical significance of research. Powerful academics have not created cultural and scholarly debates to consider and select the criteria nominated by other academics, and have not used them in the government and institutional documents. In Bourdieusian terms, quality as reflected in some aspects of the habitus of participants has been greatly influenced by the field, the capital and the symbolic power; but the habitus of most scholars has not yet managed to affect the field. There is much in the field that could be altered to enable the habitus to affect and develop the quality of educational research. This current study provides recommendations for educational research, university-teachers’ research and practice, researcher development, as well as research policy and management in the Chinese context, and/or abroad.

A presente tese aborda, enquanto importante conteúdo da pedagogia confucionista, a poesia clássica do Império do Centro, posteriormente denominado China, no Ocidente, em particular a primeira seção do Clássico dos Cantares, em dois aspectos: primeiro, as características estruturais do caractere chinês, o ideograma, e do texto em chinês clássico e arcaico como recurso estético a ser incorporado na tradução de poesias clássicas para o português, aqui chamada de Estudos, tendo como interlocutores teóricos os trabalhos de reimaginação ou transcriação da poesia clássica chinesa de Haroldo de Campos, inspirado pelas ideias seminais de Fenollosa; a teoria pictórica de Shitao (1642-1717), do pintor e erudito da dinastia Song, e os comentários de seu tradutor Pierre Ryckmans; o conceito de texto de Umberto Eco; e a análise da linguagem dos Cantares, de Dobson. O segundo aspecto refere-se à Natureza como principal temática dos poemas dos Cantares como representativa de um importante elemento constitutivo da educação dos eruditos, ou letrados, chineses, uma casta que governou o Império Chinês cerca de dois mil anos, evidenciando uma intensa abstração do mundo natural, seja na poesia ou na pintura. Essa educação estética pela qual os que exerceriam funções políticas deveriam passar é permeada por uma atitude ética em que a natureza e a simplicidade das relações humanas são sua principal utopia. O cancioneiro popular, compilado entre os séculos XI e VII a.C., simbolizavam um mundo natural, distante e almejado ao mesmo tempo, e que veio se tornar um valor implícito às grandes linhas do pensamento clássico chinês, como o confucionismo e o taoismo. Ambos os aspectos, o texto e o contexto, fundamentam e contextualizam os estudos de tradução apresentados. / The present thesis discusses, as an important content of Confucian pedagogy, the classical poetry of the Empire of the Center, later denominated \"China\", in the West, in particular the first section of the Classical of Songs, in two aspects: first, the structural characteristics of the character Chinese, the ideogram, and the classic and archaic Chinese text as an aesthetic resource to be incorporated into the translation of classical poetry into Portuguese, here called \"Studies\", having as theoretical interlocutors the works of \"reimagining\" or \"transcreation\" of classical Chinese poetry by Haroldo de Campos, inspired by the seminal ideas of Fenollosa; the pictorial theory of Shitao (1642-1717) by the Song Dynasty painter and scholar, and the comments of his translator Pierre Ryckmans; the concept of text by Umberto Eco; and Dobson\'s analysis of the language of the Songs. The second aspect refers to Nature as the main theme of the poems of the Songs as representative of an important constitutive element of the education of scholars, or literate, Chinese, a caste that ruled the Chinese Empire about two thousand years, evidencing an intense abstraction of the natural world, whether in poetry or painting. This \"aesthetic education\" by which those who exercise political functions should pass is permeated by an ethical attitude in which the nature and simplicity of human relations are their chief utopia. The popular songbook, compiled between the 11th and 7th centuries BC, symbolized a natural world, distant and longed for at the same time, and which became an implicit value to the main lines of classical Chinese thinking, such as Confucianism and Taoism. Both aspects, the text and the context, base and contextualize the presented translation studies.