From Chinese Rap to the Chinese as a Foreign Language Classroom. A Corpus-Based Analysis and Pedagogical Proposals for Italian University Students

Analisi corpus-based e proposte didattiche per studenti universitari italiani

Abstract

This study analyzes the linguistic features of Chinese rap and explores the potential of this genre as authentic material for university-level language teaching in Italy. The analysis is based on a corpus built with the Sketch Engine platform, consisting of tracks by 73 rappers who participated in the program Rap of China. The first part, quantitative in nature, highlights lexical glocalization in Chinese rap, comparing it with findings from research on Italian rap (Martari 2024); it is followed by an examination of the types of code-mixing found in the corpus, along with a discussion of their functions in rap and possible pedagogical implications. The second part adopts a predominantly qualitative approach and offers a syntactic-textual analysis of features characteristic of colloquial Chinese, such as argument omission and topic–comment structures. In both sections, the linguistic analysis is accompanied by proposed exercises aimed at teaching Chinese grammar to Italian-speaking university students.