A Study On The Germination Period Of Chinese And Western Linguistics From The 6～(th) Century B.C. To The 3～(rd) Century B.C.

The prosperity of Sinology presents a historical opportunity for the reconstruction of Chinese linguistics, which needs to get its support not only from Chinese language but also from the Chinese culture. And only in this way can the constructed linguistics be descriptive, compatible and independent. And this makes the study of linguistic views necessary thanks to its important role in linguistic reconstruction. In the process of linguistic reconstruction, the deep analysis of historical linguistic views and the sufficient knowledge of the cultural elements that influence the linguistic views may help to learn the development rules of language views. And, at the same time, the comparative study with different cultural linguistic views may also provide a new perspective for the study of Chinese linguistics.As far as the prosperity and profundity of Chinese linguistic views are concerned, the Pre-Qin culture and ancient Greek culture between the 6th century B.C. and the 3rd century B.C. is comparatively outstanding. The languages in the Pre-Qin period and ancient Greece have been relatively well developed by the 6th century B.C.. Though people were using and creating language continuously, language was just assumed as a part of the internal property of human being. The languages had not been thought of as independent objects by that time, which means they had been used without positive consciousness by then. The germination of linguistics, however, needs first of all to turn the language into an object of cognition rather than the attribute of human being. It was not until the 6th century B.C. that the language started to become an object of cognition thanks to the development of human rational thinking, and this laid down the foundation for the origin of linguistics.Before the full development of human rational thinking, language had been regarded as a part of human subjectivity instead of an external and independent system. The origin of language could be traced back directly to the soul, and the language was thought of the human ability capable of influencing both the soul and the world. Ration, as a new perspective of knowing the world, seldom occured between soul and language. In other words, this is a so-called "language---meaning" reference thinking period when people thought of language as a kind of mythical activity. With the changing of ideology gradually from mythical period to rational period, people began to reflect the world from new perspectives. And at the same time, language, as a human activity, began to be separated from human properties and turned into the object of cognition. And it was in this period that the linguistic views began to develop from the state of implicity to explicity. The explicit linguistic view, namely the expression of consciously studying, was accompanied with the continuous development of rational thinking. In this period people gradually realized the occurrence of ration between language and soul, and the following period is featuredby "language---image (or mind)-----meaning" reference cognition. The occurrence ofthe concept "image (or mind)" indicates that human being developed the imagery conception of the world, which marks the development and maturity of human's rational thinking.Rational thinking brought about the explicit linguistic view, which is illustratedby the proposal of two linguistic ontological words----"Tao" and "λoγo(?)". And thismeans that people began their reflection on language as an object. But the reflection on language only means the beginning of language studying rather than the formation of linguistics. There are a span of more than 400 years before the appearance of the first linguistic work of ancient Chinese and ancient Greek----"Er Ya" and "T(?)xvη (?)ραμματ(?)κ(?)" in around 1st century B.C. since the proposal of these two terms. During this period, due to the development of ideology, society and logic, the linguistic views in Pre-Qin China and ancient Greece experienced similar stages of development, namely ontological reference stage, social and moral stage, logical and abstract stage and the formation of linguistics. In these different stages, each linguistic view illustrated distinctively their cultural and linguistic features. These views later became the kernel of Western and Chinese linguistics. What is more, the similarity and regularity of human linguistic view can be found in this process of development.In fact, the linguistic views in these different stages reflect the steps of human beings' cognition, which involves mythical, natural, social, thinking and linguistic steps. There are several motivations behind the development of linguistic views, such as the changing of ideology, society, culture and language, which all feature the linguistic view as a studying object. This dissertation tries to take the germination of linguistics as the perspective to study linguistic view of Pre-Qin period and ancient Greek period. The study shall focuses on the period from the proposal of ontological linguistic words in 6th century B.C. to the formation of the 1st linguistic works in around 1st century B.C. and studies the developmental features of these linguistic views in two cultures. It is hoped that the outlined study of the linguistic views of this period may help restore the original map of Chinese and Western linguistic features.This dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 describes in general the developmental skeleton of linguistic views in Pre-Qin China and ancient Greece respectively, namely ontological reference stage, social and moral stage, logical and abstract stage, and the formation of linguistics. And the following 4 chapters compare in detail the linguistic views of the two cultures.Chapter 2 makes a comparative study on ontological linguistic words and ontological reference words in these two cultures. This chapter points out the difference of ontological words in the sense of meaning and context as well as their impact on linguistic views. What is more, this chapter analyzes the phenomenon of "singularity to multiplicity" in ancient Chinese and Greek ontological words.Chapter 3 makes a comparative study on social and linguistic view, which is the second stage in the developmental process. In this stage, the study mainly focused on the social, political and ethical perspective in linguistic views. The features of social agreement in linguistic reference were becoming more and more remarkable.Chapter 4 compares the features of logic and abstract in linguistic views. The development of ration made abstract thinking possible. This chapter mainly focuses on the linguistic views in Aristotle's and Mohists' logic. Compared with social and moral linguistic view, the logic thought viewed the linguistic concept from more abstract perspectives. And the logical linguistic views influenced Stoicism in Greece and the school of Mingjia in China respectively. These successors of logic developed the abstractness and practicality of linguistic views, which gradually fostered linguistics.And chapter 5 discusses the appearance of linguistics, which takes the Er Ya and T(?)xvη (?)ραμματ(?)κ(?) as their symbols. This chapter compares the linguistic views on the origin, the nature and the attribute of language in Pre-Qin and Ancient Greek period to analyze the foundation of linguistics.Chapter 6 studies the developmental motivation of linguistic views, which mainly involves three aspects: orality and literacy aspect, cognitive category aspect and social and cultural aspect. Through the comparative study on motivation, this dissertation holds that the development of linguistic views is influenced mainly by the changing of ideology. The cognition mode is changing continuously in the process of changing from mythical thinking ideology to rational thinking ideology. And languages were, at that time, viewed as an external and independent object of its own features rather than a kind of subjective attribute. And with the development of rational thinking, the knowledge of language also experienced such periods as ontological, referential, stipulating, abstract and linguistic. Social changing and cultural evolution are external factors influencing linguistics views. And among all these influential factors, social ideology is the most significant one.Chapter 7, as the summary, reviews the major points of this dissertation. And it points out that, besides the preparation of explicit linguistic views, implicit linguistic views in the using of language also deserves more attention in studying.