Bo Wang is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is the co-author of Lao She's Teahouse and Its Two English Translations (2020), Translating Tagore's Stray Birds into Chinese (2021), Systemic Functional Translation Studies (2021), Introducing M.A.K. Halliday (2022), Systemic Functional Insights on Language and Linguistics (2022), and Introducing Chinese Discourse (2025).

Tianqi Ma is a doctoral student in Linguistics at the University of Macau. She is an experienced song translator who has rendered over 50 songs into singable forms. Her research centres on Chinese-English singable song translation, with particular attention to the musicality of language and its integration with musical structures. Her broad research interests include sound symbolism, creativity in translation practice, human-centred augmented machine translation, and audiovisual translation.

Yuanyi Ma is currently a researcher at the Faculty of Education, Vancouver Island University, Canada. She is the co-editor of Key Themes and New Directions in Systemic Functional Translation Studies (2022) and Theorizing and Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics (2024). She and Bo Wang are translators of Modern Chinese Grammar (2023) and A History of Chinese Grammar (forthcoming) by Professor Wang Li.

Introduction

PART I: Wang Li's life
1 Childhood and early growth of Wang Li (1900- 1924)

2 From Tsinghua to Paris: Wang Li's pursuit of knowledge (1924- 1932)

3 Years of wandering and steadfast scholarship (1932-1953)

4 The fruitful years at Peking University (1954- 1965)

5 The ordeal of the Cultural Revolution (1966- 1976)

6 The road back and the hallmarks of a master (1977- 1984)

7 The final years and his last wishes (1983- 1986)

PART II: Wang Li's works

8 Chinese grammar

9 Phonology and phonetics

10 History of the Chinese language

11 History of Chinese linguistics

12 Learning and teaching ancient Chinese

13 Versification of Classical Chinese Poetry

14 Wang Li's essays

15 Wang Li's poems

16 Wang Li's translations

17 Epilogue: The legacy of Wang Li

Appendix 1: A chronicle of Wang Li's life

Appendix 2: A timeline of Chinese dynasties