The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Applied Linguistics

Chu-Ren Huang, Zhuo Jing-Schmidt, Barbara Meisterernst

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317231141
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Applied Linguistics is written for those wanting to acquire comprehensive knowledge of China, the diaspora and the Sino-sphere communities through Chinese language.

It examines how Chinese language is used in different contexts, and how the use of Chinese language affects culture, society, expression of self and persuasion of others; as well as how neurophysiological aspects of language disorder affect how we function and how the advance of technology changes the way the Chinese language is used and perceived. The Handbook concentrates on the cultural, societal and communicative characteristics of the Chinese language environment.

Focusing on language use in action, in context and in vivo, this book intends to lay empirical grounds for collaboration and synergy among different fields.

Part I

Language, culture and society

1
Chinese philosophy, religions and language

Friederike Assandri and Barbara Meisterernst

Chinese philosophers’ views on language

The pre-Qin philosophers’ preoccupation with language focused on the question of designations, 名 míng ‘names’, and their relation to referents as things in the world, 實 shí ‘actualities’. The issue was the pragmatic assertability and acceptability (Tanaka 2004: 192) of terms, rather than the question of whether language represents reality in a way that is “true”. Thus, the focus of philosophizing was on how to establish acceptable relations between names and actualities, with a view to the normative functions and the pedagogical and epistemological effectiveness of language.

Confucius (Kongzi 孔子) and Laozi 老子, both major reference points for later thinkers, developed two fundamentally different approaches to the relation of names and their referents, contingent with their respective direction of philosophical inquiry. Preoccupied with questions relating to social order, Confucius focused on the normative function of names in establishing and ordering social relations, while Laozi’s philosophical inquiry was directed at questions about the relation of humans to an ultimate reality he called Dao. Thus, Laozi focused on the epistemological question of whether language and names are a viable means to understand, or “grasp”, this ultimate reality.

Confucius and the normative function of names in establishing social relations

Confucius, believed to have lived 551–479 BCE in the State of Lu in Shandong, was arguably one of the most influential thinkers of the pre-Qin period. His philosophy has come down to us in a collection of conversations, 論語 Lunyu (Analects), compiled after his death. A key passage on language is found in a conversation with Zi Lu 子路 (Lunyu, 13/3): When the ruler of Wei wanted to employ Confucius in the government, Zi Lu asked Confucius what he would prioritize in governing. Confucius answered, “必也正名乎! It must be to make the names correct!” This answer perplexed Zi Lu, prompting Confucius to specify:

If names are not correct then what is said in words will not make sense, if what is said does not make sense, then the work (of government) will not be completed, if the works are not complete then rites and music cannot thrive, if rites and the music don’t thrive, then penalties and punishments will not be appropriate, if penalties and punishments are not appropriate, then the people have nothing to guide the doing of their hands and feet. Therefore, for the gentleman, names are something that must be possible to say with words, and what he says is something that must be possible to put into practice. The gentleman, with regard to what he says, is never careless.

(Makeham 1994: 35)

The focus of this passage is on the normative dimension of language. The narrative sets the question of correct names and their referents in the context of ruling. Names (míng) and words, or speech (言 yán), are distinguished, and both are causally connected with actions or performances. Correct designations (names) are understood as the fundament of intelligible speech, which leads to directed and productive action. The structure of the argument and the context of the passage suggest that speech – based on correct names and leading to action – is understood in a teleological sense of “ordering” – communicating orders and thereby producing a functioning society. Rectifying the names thus creates coherence of words and their referents with regard to actions – thus, orders can be clearly understood and executed. This is a cornerstone of good government.

Early commentators contextualized this passage in a specific historical context, which effectively narrowed down the possible referents of míng in the passage to social or political roles.¹ According to Makeham (1994: 45–46), in Confucius’s conception, the referents of the names he discussed were a small group of established role types, like ruler, father and son. To define these role types, Confucius passed judgement on well-known representatives of these role models. Thus, Confucius “did not regard names as labels but rather as social and hence political catalysts” (Makeham 1994: 46).

Laozi and epistemological enquiry into the relation of language and ultimate truth

Laozi, traditionally considered a contemporary of Confucius, serves, just like Confucius does today, as a point of reference and source of inspiration. Laozi is believed to be the author of a short text called 道德經 Daode jing (The Classic of the Way and the Virtue). There is some debate among scholars as to who Laozi was and whether he can be considered the author of the Daode jing (Baxter 1998; Liu 2015); however, the philosophical tradition in China for millennia has accepted him as the author of the text (cf. Liu 2015: 42–43). Laozi focused his philosophical inquiries on the question of how to reach a union with the ultimate, greatest force of being, which he called Dao. This also entailed an inquiry into the epistemological possibility of knowing Dao by means of language.

The first chapter of the Daode jing begins with the following sentence:

道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。

The Dao that can be spoken of as Dao is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be designated as a name is not the eternal name. Without a name it is the beginning of Heaven and Earth, with a name it is the mother of all beings.

(Daode jing, 1; translation, F. A.)

The referent of the name here is not, like in the passage in the Analects cited above, social or political roles, it is an ultimate reality, origin and rule of all that is. In this context, the relation between the name and its referent is asymmetric and the scope of the referent encompasses all that is, including language and names; thus, a correlation of a name and this referent is inherently impossible, because for any meaningful correlation the name needs to be separate from the referent. Yet Laozi at the same time recognized the human need to use language and names in the epistemological quest for the object of inquiry (Dao) – he solved this tension with the concept of 強名 qiáng míng, to provisionally name the referent. In Chapter 25, he stated, “吾不知其名字之曰道，強為之名曰大。I do not know its name, so I give it the epithet Dao, forced to name it, I say: great” (Daode jing, 25; translation, F. A.). This opened the possibility of using names to hint at or circumscribe the referent – all the while being conscious that this name will never be a direct correlate of the referent.²

The dialectic debate on names and actualities in the Warring States period

The Warring States period (475–221 BCE) saw a flourishing of different philosophies and intellectual debates. Philosophers oftentimes were itinerant, offering their advice and teachings to various rulers. The received texts from the period show intense interaction among philosophers; ideas circulated and were discussed from different perspectives, language and language-related questions were part and parcel of these discussions. The question of names and their referents went beyond the two positions of Laozi and Confucius described above to include all sorts of entities. The conception that correct names (正名 zhèngmíng) are foundational for a functioning social organization led naturally to the question of how correct names should be established.

Closest to Confucius’s time was Mo Di 墨翟 (fl. around 430 BCE), who was highly critical of Confucius’s teachings. Mo Di’s and his disciples’ writings were recorded in the book 墨子 Mozi, a compilation of texts from the fifth to the third century BCE. Its core teachings are ethical and political, and a major concern is the search for objective moral standards for society and rulers (Fraser 2009: 142f). Books 10 and 11 in the current version of the Mozi contain two Canons (經 Jīng), two chapters on the explanation of the Canons (經說 Jīngshuō), and two additional essays (大取 Dàqǔ and 小取 Xiǎoqǔ), which focus on language, logic and epistemology (Graham 1969/70: 55). Also called the Dialectical Chapters (默辯 Mòbiàn) of the Mozi, these notoriously difficult sections most likely represent a later stratum of the text from the third century BCE (cf. Fraser 2009: 140). Mohist thinking about language focused on the question of how to establish relations between names and actualities, proposing for the first time a formal definition of name and referent: “That by which something is called is its name (míng); what is so called is an actuality (shí)” (Mojing, A 81; 所以謂，名也；所謂，實也). Speaking words (yán) consisted of emitting a reference (Mojing, A 32; 言，出舉也) that was defined as presenting an analogue to an actuality (Mojing, A 31; 舉，擬實也). Fraser (2009: 159) argued that this notion of analogue representation is “part of a broader theory that language enables us to communicate by appeal to shared practices for distinguishing similar and different kinds of things”. Effective communication depends on pointing out things by names that refer to 類 lèi ‘kinds’, which have been previously learned. The work of the philosopher is then to decide – and discuss – whether things are the ‘same’ (tóng 同) in the sense that they belong to one kind:

1. 1 Bian [Dialectics] is about making clear the distinction between right and wrong, [true and false], investigating the pattern of order and disorder, accurately assigning sameness and difference, examining the principles of name and object [reality], determining what is beneficial and harmful and resolving what is doubtful and uncertain. Then there is enquiry into the true nature of the 10,000 things and analysis of the comparison of words and propositions. Ming [names, designations] are used to ‘pick out’ objects [reality] [shi]; Ci [words, propositions] are used to express concepts; Shuo [explanations, statements] are used to reveal reasons [causes]. Through lei [kinds, classes] selections are made; through lei [kinds, classes] inferences are drawn. What is in it for me cannot but be in it for others; what is not in it for me is not to be sought in it by others (Mozi, Xiaoqu; Johnston 2000: 385).

Mohist semantics are closely related to Mohist logic; accessible studies on the subject include Fraser (2009), Graham (1978[2003]) and others found in the “Chinese philosophy and the Chinese language” section.

Other philosophers, which Han Dynasty historian Sima Tan 司馬談 (?–110 BCE) in retrospect grouped together as the ‘School of Names’ (名家 Míngjiā),³ focused specifically on the question of how names relate to referents. The writings of most of these philosophers have survived only in short citations in the extant writings of philosophers like Zhuangzi, Xunzi and Mengzi. The noteworthy exception are five short essays by Gongsun Long 公孫龍 (third century BCE), collected with a foreword in Gongsun Long zi. This book features the famous so-called paradoxes, 白馬非馬 báimǎ fēi mǎ ‘a white horse is not a horse’ and the essay on 堅白 jiānbái ‘white and hard’. These paradoxes require detailed linguistic analysis, which will be presented in the “Chinese philosophy and the Chinese language” section below.

From dialectical debate to the regulation of political discourse

Thinkers that focused on the normative function of language often addressed the “hair-splitting” dialectics of philosophers like Gongsun Long with a negative attitude. The Confucian philosopher Xun Kuang 荀況 (also widely known as Xunzi 荀子, fl. third century BCE) dedicated a whole chapter to correct naming (Zhèngmíng, Xunzi, 22). Like Confucius and the Mohists, Xunzi assumed that the ancient sage kings had established names to create order, which was lost in his day, so he sought to counter the loss of ethical standards he perceived in his time by reconstructing order via making names correct: “Thus one must examine the reason for having names, the proper means for distinguishing like and unlike, and the essential points in establishing names” (Xunzi, 22; Hutton 2014: 237).

Xunzi’s view was that names were conventional, and thus the relation between a name and its object rested on consensus:

Names have no predetermined appropriateness. One forms agreement in order to name things. Once the agreement is set and has become custom, then they are called appropriate, and what differs from the agreed use is called inappropriate … Names have no predetermined...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction: language in action, language in context
• Part I Language, culture and society
• Part II Language: expression, communication and persuasion
• Part III Language, computers and new media
• Part IV Language, mind and body
• Part V The science of language
• Index