The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China

Jane Geaney

Description

The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China makes an innovative contribution to studies of language by historicizing the Chinese notion that words have "meaning" (content independent of instances of use). Rather than presuming that the concept of word-meaning had always existed, Jane Geaney explains how and why it arose in China. To account for why a normative term (yi, "duty, morality, appropriateness") came to be used for "meanings" found in dictionaries, Geaney examines interrelated patterns of word usage threading through and across a wide range of genres. These patterns show that by the first millennium, as textual production exploded—and as radically different writing forms (in Buddhist sutras) were encountered—yi already functioned as an externally accessible "model" for semantic interpretation of texts and sayings.

The book has far-reaching implications. Because the idea of word-meaning is fundamental to theorizing, the book illuminates not only semantic ideas and the normativity of language in Early China, but also aspects of early Chinese philosophy and intellectual history. As the internet supplants one form of media (print), thereby reducing knowledge to vast digital databases, so too, this book explains, two thousand years ago a culture that prized oral and visual balance became an "empire of the text."
Acknowledgments

Introduction: General Context

Part I: Key Metalinguistic Terms and Yi 義 as External

1. The Metalinguistic Implications of Words versus Names

2. Speech (Yan 言) from Within and Names (Ming 名) from Without

3. Yi 意 and the Heartmind's Activities

4. The Externality of Yi 義

5. The Resilience of the Externality of Yi 義

Part II: Yi 義 as Model

6. Yi 義 as Model: Stable, Accessible Standards

7. Yi 義 as Model in Diagrams, Genres, Figurative Language, and Names

8. A Framework Preceding the Shuowen's Metalinguistic Choices

9. Yi 義 Justifying with Models

10. Yi 義 in the Shuowen Jiezi

Conclusion

Appendix A: Why Translate Yi 義 as "Model"?

Appendix B: Yi 義's Externality in Dispute: The Mengzi and the Mo Bian

Appendix C: Glossary of Terms with Aural or Visual Associations

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie du langage
• HISTORY
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Linguistics
• Philosophy of language
• Sociolinguistics
• Language
• History of Asia
• Eastern
• Langage
• Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438488950
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE EMERGENCE OF WORD-MEANING IN EARLY CHINA
SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor
THE EMERGENCE OF WORD-MEANING IN EARLY CHINA
NORMATIVE MODELS FOR WORDS
JANE GEANEY
Credit: Qiu Ying 仇英 (Chinese, 1494–1552), Zhao Mengfu Writing the Heart (Hridaya) Sutra in Exchange for Tea (1542–43). Detail. Handscroll, ink and light color on paper. Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1963.102.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2022 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Geaney, Jane, author.
Title: The emergence of word-meaning in early China : normative models for words / Jane Geaney.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2022] | Series: SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003485 (print) | LCCN 2022003486 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438488936 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438488950 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Chinese language—Semantics, Historical.
Classification: LCC PL1291 .G43 2022 (print) | LCC PL1291 (ebook) | DDC 495.12—dc23/eng/20220202
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003485
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003486
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: General Context
P ART O NE K EY M ETALINGUISTIC T ERMS AND Y I 義 AS E XTERNAL
Chapter 1 The Metalinguistic Implications of Words versus Names
Chapter 2 Speech ( Yan 言) from Within and Names ( Ming 名) from Without
Chapter 3 Yi 意 and the Heartmind’s Activities
Chapter 4 The Externality of Yi 義
Chapter 5 The Resilience of the Externality of Yi 義
P ART T WO Y I 義 AS M ODEL
Chapter 6 Yi 義 as Model: Stable, Accessible Standards
Chapter 7 Yi 義 as Model in Diagrams, Genres, Figurative Language, and Names
Chapter 8 A Framework Preceding the Shuowen ’ s Metalinguistic Choices
Chapter 9 Yi 義 Justifying with Models
Chapter 10 Yi 義 in the Shuowen Jiezi
Conclusion
Appendix A Why Translate Yi 義 as “Model”?
Appendix B Yi 義’s Externality in Dispute: The Mengzi and the Mo Bian
Appendix C Glossary of Terms with Aural or Visual Associations
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
I wish to express my gratitude to the staff at SUNY Press, who guided me through many years and stages in completing this companion volume to Language as Bodily Practice: A Chinese Grammatology (SUNY 2018): the late Nancy Ellegate, Christopher Ahn, Chelsea Miller, Andrew Kenyon, James Peltz, Ryan Morris, Eileen Nizer, Brian Kuhl, and Michael Campochiaro.
A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship in 2012 helped me begin the project. The University of Richmond consistently provided summer research support, and in 2019, Patrice Rankine, Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Richmond, granted funding for preparation of the manuscript for publication.
I am deeply thankful to Lynn Rhoads for providing insightful commentary along with her excellent editing style. Her observations frequently prompted me to rethink and improve my ideas. I am delighted that Pierke Bosschieter has agreed to undertake the task of indexing the book.
Many friends and colleagues offered critical comments and useful suggestions that inspired me. Special thanks go to Alan Chan, who most graciously shared his expertise by contributing to the quality of my translations. I am indebted to Dan Robins and Jessica Chan for supplying crucial early reactions.
I am grateful for conversations with colleagues at several academic conferences. I benefitted from feedback at a graduate workshop organized by Martin Kern, Mercedes Valmisa, and Sara Vantournhout at Princeton University in 2014. At the invitation of Wolfgang Behr, Polina Lukicheva, and Rafael Suter, I was able to hone my arguments at the University of Zurich in 2016. I am thankful for reactions from colleagues at a conference organized by Shengqing Wu and Huang Xuelei at the University of Edinburg in 2018. I especially appreciate the generous comments from Wolfgang Berh and support from Carine Defoort. Early in the writing process, suggestions from Michael Nylan helped set me on the right track. At a workshop in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond, I received valuable responses from my colleagues: Stephanie Cobb, Scott Davis, Frank Eakin, Mimi Hanaoka, Miranda Shaw, and Doug Winiarski.
I dedicate this book to my mother, Julia S. Geaney.
Introduction
General Context
A s presently used in Modern Standard Chinese, the key normative term, yi 義, can be translated as “word-meaning.” Yi 義 is not, however, employed to signify “word-meaning” in the wide range of texts from Early China that form the sources for this book, even in the first-century Shuowen Jiezi , arguably the first “dictionary” to appear in China. My task in The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China is not to posit a date when yi 義 crossed some imaginary line—when it “emerged,” if you will—to assume the particular remit of lexical meaning but, rather, to ascertain what groundwork was laid and what conditions were met that allowed yi 義, at some unspecified time after the first century CE , to accrete that particular usage. 1 What was it about yi 義 that, in retrospect, we can identify as predisposing it to be a likely, or perhaps even the apparent, candidate to function as a word’s “meaning”?
Meaning, Sense, or Significance
It is easy to be misled by vocabulary related to meaning. In common English-language parlance, “mean” implies a muddle of different ideas, including: to indicate, inform, suggest, refer, show, reveal, warn, entail, require, prove, imply, be sincere, etc. Hence, as Jeffrey Stout notes, discussions of meaning are confused and confusing. 2 Meanings are things that float in a linguistic orbit, and it is a matter of debate whether “meanings of words” are individual entities at all. 3 The ontological status of “meanings” thus complicates the task of historicizing the adoption of yi 義 for semantic use.
The terms yi 義 (as used in early Chinese texts) and “meaning” resemble each other in their breadth of scope: just as yi 義 has semantic as well as normative applications, so too “meaning” has semantic and ethical uses. 4 Historical links between “meaning” and “sense,” however, reveal an important difference from yi 義. In ancient Greek, there was no overlap in terms used for “to signify” ( semainein ) and those used for sense perception. 5 But later Latin applications of a word related to “meaning” extended to uses for perception. That is, the church fathers translated the Greek word nous into Latin as sensus —a translation made possible by the understanding of sense as both physical and linguistic. In other words, as a consequence of the Latin translation of nous , the term sens also meant inner sense or “moral sense.” 6 By contrast, early Chinese texts employ no specific term linking perceptual processing with introspective linguistic or moral cogitation. 7 The term often translated as “the senses” ( guan 官) is a metaphor for the important bodily officers, rather than a term used to mean “to sense.” 8 Absent a term functioning like sensus , there is no reason to expect similarities between usage of “sense” or “meaning” and early Chinese uses of yi 義.
Dictionaries, Translation, and the Idea of Linguistic Abstractions
Along with unfamiliar approaches to meaning, texts from Early China offer no evidence of study of grammatical constructs, no clear term for “word,” and no explicit discussion of the ontology of semantic objects or abstract objects (such as propositions, properties, and numbers). We cannot even take for granted that early Chinese texts feature a single “folk theory of language.” 9 The monumental nature of the Shuowen Jiezi , the first-century “dictionary of graphic etymology” compiled by Xu Shen, tempts us to mistake it for an accurate reflection of “early Chinese thought.” But it is unlikely that the Shuowen embodies or reflects ideas about language belonging to inhabitants the Yellow River valley for the prior half millennium. Despite the rich ethnic diversity and probable presence of bilingualism in Early China, texts that have been taken to predate the first millennium make few references to oral interpretation and scarcely any to translation—activities that might foster new thinking about language. Subsequently, conceptions of language surely changed with increasing textualization and the rising prestige of “writing,” as well as reports of (sketchily understood) alphabetic scripts.
A term for “word-meaning” depends, of course, on a concept of “word.” As a semantic or grammatical feature of language, a “word” is a unit (or value) in a larger system. The system of language is often pictured as a structure or web with no direct connection to events and objects in the world “outside it.” 10 Not so with ming 名, a “name,” which paradigmatically points at something visible, say an object or event in the world. One might say a name has a “referent” or a “reference.” Its function differs, then, from that of a “word,” and so the presence of the term ming 名 in early Chinese texts does not constitute evidence of a concept of “word.” 11 Moreover, even the use of zi 字 as the standard term for a minimal unit of writing is insufficient proof of the existence of a concept of “word.” Before the Shuowen Jiezi (first century), it rema