While Wang was devoted to promoting the transmission and advancement of the language of Chinese and its application, he continued his research in morphology, semantics, rhetoric, lexicography and experimental phonology, and the inheritance of traditional Chinese linguistics. Wang then started the study of Classical Chinese, believing that "in order to catch up with the world's advanced study in the science of language, one has to perform historical analysis on the linguistic phenomena and its development patterns." Per request of the Ministry of Education of China's objective of rehabilitating college students' abilities to read Classical Chinese and promoting the transmission of traditional Chinese literature, Wang took the responsibility and started to compile the four-volume textbook 古代漢語 "Ancient Chinese". He included selections of classical Chinese literature with detailed annotation, lessons on background knowledge, and a glossary of commonly used words, combining theory and practical usage as the method of instruction. This textbook, printed in Traditional Chinese, is still used by Chinese language and literature students at Peking University and other major language and literature departments in China. The glossary served as the starting point of the 古汉语常用字字典 "Dictionary of Commonly Used Characters in Ancient Chinese". With Wang as the original editor-in-chief, this dictionary has proven to be extremely popular, having undergone over 100 printings since its initial publication in 1980 (most recent revision, 5th ed. in 2018) and is by far the most widely used (and often required) reference work for Classical Chinese for secondary school students. As such, it is set in Simplified Chinese for accessibility by a general audience, although there are extensive usage notes to help readers distinguish between ancient variant forms, "tongjia" 'rebus borrowing' characters, and modern simplified forms.