The Comparison Of The Philosophy Of Language Of Ancient Chinese And Ancient Greek

Ancient China, especially in pre-Qin period, is the cultural source of eastern sociology, as ancient Geek for western sociology. Many cultures and academic theories we have today are traced back to that time period when they started to burgeon, so is our linguistic philosophy. Under the premise of language as a cultural phenomenon, the author raised the thought that it is the differences in social culture caused the differences in linguistic philosophy which was developed in social culture, and finally led to the differences in the overall linguistics system. Based on the headstream of both parties’ ideology from the perspective of the day, this article explores the influence of the entire social culture had on both eastern and western linguistic philosophy, and by comparing these two, overviews the impact of different ideology headstreams had on modern Chinese language.The article consists of seven chapters and a conclusion section. The first chapter explains how the theme is picked up, considering the western linguistic theories are not easily fused into the study of Chinese linguistics. So the author decided to cut through the topic by comparing the differences in cultural headstream of both parties. Though there are some articles of similar objective or theme as this, they do not dig from the perspective of the headstream of eastern and western ideologies. On the other hand, as for the existing writings which compare linguistic philosophy of ancient Geek and ancient China, they do not include the entire culture development process and the impact culture background had on modern linguistics study.Chapter 2 starts from the language itself and its background of ancient Greece and ancient China, and found that Chinese characters are ideographic expression mostly, and the reader can understand the word meaning from the graph images he or she received when reading the word, which help the reader associates his or her understanding to the real word. In regards to the sentence structure and phrase combination, Chinese language is focused on word to emphasize the ideographic effect of the expression understanding by sense, without considering the verb tension variance. As to the narration, Chinese language is rich of poetic flavor and people’s life experience and highlights analogy, which leads to the various comprehensions of the meaning. At the same time, ancient Greek developed its language in an opposite way. Grecian words are phonetic symbols, and this causes it hard to make any association but the sentence tension. Also its sentence structure is very rigid, mainly changing by tension, which brings the content more clearness and less ambiguity and good for debate. In the end, the chapter taps into the differences of both countries in political background.Chapter 3 and chapter 4 are comparison of a number of specific linguistic philosophies of both parties, by comparing the attitude of each philosophy school had on the languages and objective of giving it an official interpretation. As to the former, the author believes both parties have a passive attitude towards languages in general. Lao-tzu thinks "Tiandao", the rule of nature, is hard to be expressed by language, and language could only be used as a tool to convey the stable status concept to human, while the interaction between human and nature without any artificial instrument is the most perfect status. Chuang-tzu carries over and further promotes Lao-tzu’s thought, saying that only understanding by sense can reach the essence of things and goods, and encourages people to jump out of language box to achieve the status of "sense by experience" by his slogan "neither speech nor no silence". Coincidently, ancient Greek scholars have similar point of views, and make a series of radical conclusions about language. These conclusions can not be carried over and further developed because it denies usability of language thus any debate or verification of this theory failed since they can not be done through language. Meanwhile, Confucius and Mo-tse switched to positive side of language and promote using it for managing the country after realizing "Tiandao" should not be spoken out.In regards to officializing the interpretation of words, both parties have more significant differences. Ancient Greek pay more attention on how the official interpretation is given and they consider the authenticity of the interpretation source. However, scholars in pre-Qin period in China think more about the interpretation’s use in the society, especially in political scope. Even for the more pro-academic scholars, their objective is also for the goods of the society and politics.Chapter 5 and chapter 6 go through the linguistic philosophy and elaborate on the differences in humanism spirit and culture behind it. Chapter 5 mainly compares the "Cheng" (honesty) and "Shu"(tactic) in the rhetoric in these two languages. Deep down Chinese rhetoric essentially is to avoid abstraction, which is not good for academic theory development, while ancient Greek prefers reasoning and critical thinking. Human plays a crucial role in this phenomenon, and the differences of world view by different ethnic groups is the ultimate reflection of the impact human had on the language. Han ethnic group (the majority ethnic group of Chinese) see the world as "an integrated and organic space", which indicates their thought of the harmony of human’s interaction with the space. Ancient Greek pursues a view of world that aims to chase the origin, and identicalizes and popularizes everything in the world to accomplish a universal theory.Culture differences of both parties lay mainly in three areas. First is cultural value. Han ethnic group’s culture is a value system that is general and in lack of rigidity. It focuses on its application in the future, and the "Dao" (rule of nature) changes constantly and complements with the rest of world. In contrary, ancient Greek sought for the "logos"(the root of reason), and gradually segmented the things existed under this premise. The second difference is the goal of culture. Han ethnic group focus on understanding by sense, and consider "sense", instead of language as a tool, as their goal. Contrarily, Ancient Greek pursues certainty and want to achive the "logos" by studying language with logic and reason. The ultimate difference is the core of culture. Han culture is founded based on sociological moral principles and focuses on the goal; while ancient Greek established their culture based on the desire of seeking knowledge and concentrate on the reason.Chapter 7 takes comparison of both linguistic philosophies in their different burgeoning period, which is seldomly talked about in other writings. In the starting period, both western and eastern linguistic philosophies are mainly based on judgment, but not detailed study. Overall, this period is the time when both parities are most close to each other. After that ancient Greece started to embark on the road in which they externalize sporadic thoughts continuously and form a school of academics. Meanwhile, Han chose Confucian thought as dominant one among hundreds of theories, but this thought is always overlooked by linguistics studiers. We always pick up the mainstream culture which was sealed in the history by the current definition, but we barely evaluate core value of the Chinese language from a historical perspective. In fact, Confucian thought has been influenced China history for more than 2000 years and it has embedded in the Chinese culture, therefore the Chinese language development can not be isolated from it as well. However, the humanism spirit in Confucian thought was cast away in current linguistics studies.In the end, we found, through comparison of linguistic philosophies, that our predecessors in this regard had discussed most of issues over 2000 years ago. The diversion of these two linguistics did not happen for no reason, instead it occurred inevitably in different cultural backgrounds. Han ethic group advocates and aims for the language application, thus the linguistics should also be discussed from the perspective of its utility. Ancient Greek pursues the origin and reasons of the language, so their linguistics shows complicated analysis. Therefore we must prioritize the underlining meaning of humanism and structure interpretation ahead of function as a foundation to build up the grammar system of the Chinese language.