LiushuLüe (六书略) Researches

In Song Dynasty Zheng Qiao is the first person who suspected Xu Shen's theory. He examined Xu Shen's works Shuowen (说文) (it is a first ancient dictionary which was used to analyze the characters' forms, explain the characters' meanings and the characters' pronunciations), and he built his own theory. Zheng Qiao regarded the Liushu (六书) (six categories of characters' building) as the basis of the character study. He began to study Liushu (六书) thoroughly and completely. He began to search into the character theory systemically and ended the fact that the character theory was ruled by Shuowen (说文) to compile the characters or only the notes for explaining the single character. LiushuLUe (六书略) is the works of the character study based on Liushu (六书) theory and the characters' practical using. In each category there are systemic rules and examples. So the theory ofLiushu (六书) category came into being. This is the fist systemic research on the Liushu (六书) theory in the character study history.But in the academia. of Chinese character study's history, LiushuLue (书略) was ignored and valued improperly, Zheng Qiao's Liushu (六书) theory and the style characters for explaining the characters were seldom researched thoroughly and technically. This paper tries to explain the works LiushuLue (六书略) roundly, and reevaluate Zheng Qiao and his Liushu (六书) theory.This paper examines the style characters. According to the features of the style character, it classifies 2212 prefixes which explain the characters' meaning in LiushuLue(六书略). It arranges and concludes the Liushu (六书) theory in LiushuLue (六书略) which comes down to Zheng Qiao's views at nine aspects like the value of Liushu (六书), the relationship between the categories in Liushu (六书), pictograph, indicative character, the associative character, the morpheme-phonetic character, the mutually explanatory Chinese character, the borrows and the syllepsis. The paper confirms its value in Chinese character study history and points out its lacks on materials, argumentations and the style characters.