Dr Derek Herforth

MA (University of British Columbia), PhD (University of California at Berkeley)
Lecturer
Room 642 Brennan MacCallum Building A18
derek.herforth@arts.usyd.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 9351 3555
Fax: +61 2 9351 2319

Years ago I set aside an undergraduate degree in Linguistics to specialize in Classical Chinese, a decision which helped me focus on questions that have preoccupied me ever since: the relation of language to culture, and the interplay of learning and unlearning in coming to understand an alien tradition. While facts about another culture are easily assimilated, becoming critically attuned to its concerns is a never-ending process.

• Classical Chinese language and philology
• Chinese historical linguistics
• Early Chinese texts

• Collaborating on an elementary textbook in Classical Chinese
• Book-length manuscript entitled Structuring Information in Classical Chinese

Monographs

• Tillemans, Tom J. F. and Derek D. Herforth. Actions and agents in Classical Tibetan:
  the indigenous grammarians on bdag, gžan and bya byed las gsum. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 21. Vienna: Arbeitskreis
  für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1989.

Articles and translations

• “A sketch of late Zhou Chinese grammar”. The Sino-Tibetan languages, edited by Graham Thurgood and Randy LaPolla. London: Routledge, 2002.
• “A propos de Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1995). Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.” Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale (CRLAO, EHESS, Paris) 30 (2001).2: 215-256.
• “An annotated draft translation of the Guoyu: II, Zhouyu B《國語》周語中.”
  Suzugamine Joshi Tanki Daigaku jinbun shakai kenkyū shūhō 鈴峯女子短期大
  学人文社会科学研究集報. 33 (1986).125-145.
• “An annotated draft translation of the Guoyu: I, Zhouyu A《國語》周語上.”
  Suzugamine Joshi Tanki Daigaku jinbun shakai kenkyū shūhō. 30 (1983).117-146.

Teaching

• Classical Chinese language and literature: ancient historiography and thought (4th c. BCE to 1st c. CE), fiction to the 9th century

Supervision

• Texts of the pre-Han period: text criticism, philology, translation
• Chinese historical linguistics: Sinitic languages (especially pre-Han Chinese, contemporary Cantonese)

Editorial Committee: Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale (Paris)