.18-19 Century Western Linguistics Brief Discussion Of Yangzhou School Language

In the 18-19 century, the world's most active linguistic research and the most significant achievements happened in Western Europe. At this point, the Western linguistics gradually formed an independent theoretical system. Happenning to coincide, Yangzhou School is at the height of the development of traditional Chinese linguistics. But why ancient Chinese Linguistics which has a long history had parted ways with the Western tradition in the 18-19 century which is the critical turning period of Language History? And why China hadn't formed Historical Linguistics which scientifically reveals the laws of Chinese evolution, but to push ancient phonetics and semantics study into the peak, and to take the final course of the traditional philology's worship of the ancient? Among these, which worth noting are deep-rooted historical and cultural connotations, and characteristics of Chinese and Western language, and so on.Except the introduction, the paper contains four chapters. In chapterⅠ, I compare background of Western linguistics and Yangzhou School's language study, which introduced the social situation, ideological background, the resulting birth of the educational and academic establishment respectively.In ChapterⅡ, I compare language study of the Western scholars and Yangzhou School scholars. First, there is an overview of the situation in Chinese and Western language study, and then I carry on horizontal comparison from the phonetics/phonology, semantics, philology, etymology, pragmatics and grammar of the Chinese and Western language study. And I has collected the studying situation of Chinese and Western scholars further.In ChapterⅢ, I compare theory and methods of the Western Linguistics and Yangzhou School's language study specifically. In language theory, the Chinese and Westerners show the same interest on the origin of language and character, the evolution of language, the discussions of phonetics laws. But I also point out the language theory differences between the two, such as the West focused on the ontology language, the general view of language, language and the internal unity of thinking, while Yangzhou School made initial exploration of the relationship between the standard language and the local language, language grammar features, language first and primary. In research methods, the West tended to form a system of comprehensive historical comparison, while the Chinese still used searching meanings through sounds, searching meanings through rules, analyzing sentence patterns which were influenced by textual research.In chapterⅣ, I sum up the features of Yangzhou School by quoting Hu Shi, Wang Li, Zhou Fagao and Lv Shuxiang's views, that are emphasis on experience and contempt of theroy, emphasis on character and contempt of grammar, emphasis on native language and contempt of mixed language.