John Defrancis
John Defrancis is a
Chinese language professor and researcher at the
University of Hawaii who wrote a number of Chinese instructional texts (in particular, his
Readers series is exceptional) in the
60's and
70's. Although some of his spoken language texts are now considered to be outdated, he remains a figurehead in Chinese language and linguistic research. His most famous work is arguably
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, in which the common misconceptions of the language are debunked and several other topics disseminated.