Historical Linguistic Study Of "XunLing"

This article adopts methods such as quantitative statistics and etymology verification,sorts out the evolution of the term "XunLing" from ancient China to modern times in terms of meaning,usage,the scope of application for first time,and demonstrates its modern meaning of "up-to-down official document" comes from Japanese.In ancient China,the word "XunLing" had two parts of speech,verbs and nouns.Among them,the meaning of nouns is similar to that of modern times,which means "the imperial edicts issued by rulers",but not universal in scope of application.In addition,the number of times used in ancient classics is very small.In the database of Guoxue Baodian of China National Knowledge Infrastructure and ancient Chinese literature database of Airusheng,the number of occurrences is 18 and 75 respectively.The Japanese language is derived from Chinese.After the word "XunLing" was introduced to Japan,it was expanded in terms of use.In addition to ruling the aristocracy,government agencies and public office staff can also use the clerical nouns "XunLing" when giving instructions to subordinates.After the Opium War,with the spread of western studies to the east,people began to learn from advanced countries.Because of the close connection between Chinese and Japanese,borrowing Japanese to learn advanced western scientific and cultural knowledge became the choice at the time.Under such a historical background,a large number of Japanese words have been incorporated into Chinese,"XunLing" is one of them.In the late Qing Dynasty,the use of "XunLing" in Chinese official documents increased,and the meaning of "up-to-down official documents" appeared.In the period of the Republic of China,"XunLing" became a model for down texts,which can be used by state agencies and village and town governments.This period became the golden age of the application of the term "XunLing".The People’s Republic of China was established,the people became the masters of the country,and government employees were the public servants of the broad masses of the people.Due to its strong "up-to-down" language,the word "XunLing" is no longer able to meet the needs of new social changes,so it has been replaced by other terms.Butwhat is special is that when the military issues major orders and issues absolute orders,it can still use "XunLing",but its frequency of use is far less than that of the Republic of China.This article uses the theories of linguistics,historical philology,and other related theories to sort out the historical origins of the word "XunLing" for the first time.It has great academic research value to improve the research system of document nouns and make up for the gaps in the research field of document nouns from Japanese.