A Language-philosophical Study Of The Sentence-final Mood Particle "Mē" In Chan Encounter Dialogues

This research is a language-philosophical study of the belief expressed by the mood particle “mē” in Chan encounter dialogues in Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp.Undoubtedly,in dialogic discourse,the speaker usually makes use of particles to deliver additional attitudes as well as the compositional meaning of the utterance.Meanwhile,the fact is fully justified that mood particles do not contribute to the truth-conditional content but are highly dependent on context,and this makes them distinct from content words.Therefore,this paper aims to factor in the speaker’s belief that characterizes the use of the particle “mē” in Chan encounter dialogues.This research endeavors to explore the mood particle “mē” and the belief it is used to express from the perspective of Searle’s intentionality theory and Saussure’s linguistic theory.Therefore,three questions are proposed as follows: 1)What beliefs do the speakers use the mood particle “mē” to convey in encounter dialogues from Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp? 2)How do the speakers employ“mē” to express these beliefs in encounter dialogues from Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp? 3)Why is the mood particle “mē” used by the speakers to express these beliefs in encounter dialogues from Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp? To answer the above questions,this research collected and analyzed 435 expressions with the particle “mē” attached to them in encounter dialogues.Findings proceed as follows.Firstly,three beliefs held by masters are identified.They are:(1)setting belief,the state that when masters speak they have infinite faith in core values shared in Chan community;(2)identity belief,the state that when masters speak they have a clear recognition of self-orientation and inspire that of disciples;(3)joint belief,the state that when masters speak they preconceive a shared assumption to introduce a topic.Secondly,within the framework of Searle’s intentionality theory and Saussure’s linguistic theory,the mood particle “mē” plays a pivotal role in manifesting and delivering the speaker’s belief.This will be detailed as follows.First of all,masters tend to convey their affirmative attitude towards what they’ve said and behaved right before mē-formulated questions,as is usually witnessed in the VP construction virtually acting as an assertion instead of a question conditioned by the speaker’s belief.Secondly,a contrasting relation between what is assumed by the disciples and what is actual answered by the masters is revealed through the use of the mood particle “mē” conveying the masters’ admonishment to their students which mostly occurs in the construction with the two modal adverbs “haí” and “mō” accompanied,partially because,if not largely,the modal particles themselves characterize a strengthening effect in their corresponding expressions.Thirdly,the mood particle“mē” is deemed a mitigating device from the masters’ point of view to reduce unwelcome effects like reducing the absolutism and imposition of their beliefs to their students and thereby to increase the possibility of belief acceptability.Last of all,the mood particle “mē”,regarded as a topic-inducer,is functioning in advancing the communicative process and promoting the successful communication.Lastly,beliefs infiltrate masters’ use of the mood particle “mē”,and this makes the mood particle “mē” add additional meaning and acquire its pragmatic value in discourse.Meanwhile,the distinct mental association resulted from the arbitrary nature of “mē” is more or less resolved in the masters’ rational activity.And the use of“mē” can be identified with one Chan spirit “not founded on words or letters”,which is in favor of narrowing or eliminating the information gap between masters and disciples for the construction of a shared belief file and achieving communication ends.