Lecture5theChineseCulturalSpiritinChineselanguage,LiteratureandArt中国文学精神

Lecture 5 the Chinese Cultural Spirit in Chinese language,Literature and Art本专题旨在使学生对中国文化精神生产中中国人文精神与语言、文学和艺术的关系有一个较全面的认识。

通过中西文化比较把握中国传统文化的独特性。

学生要通过对比对中国精神文化宏观特征有较详解得了解：人文传统与科学精神、群体认同与个人本位、天人合一与物我二分、关注此岸与关注彼岸等等。

本专题包括中西语言、思维比较，如意合语言与形合语言、场依附性语言与场独立性语言、悟性思维与理性思维、模糊思维与明细思维、直觉思维与逻辑思维、实践理性与思辨理性等等。

本专题通过中西文学艺术宏观比较，引导学生发现中国美学观念在艺术表现倾向的不同及文化意蕴上的差异，如中国神化与希腊神话、写意与写实、心物感应与模仿现实、重意境的抒情传统与重叙事的史诗传统、重视团圆和谐的审美与张扬奔放冲突的审美等等。

I. LanguageEvery very language has its special way to perceive the objective world and dissectthe world differently. Therefore, a language can be taken as a mirror of the culturethat demonstrates the character of the people who use the language. In many ways, Chinese are quite different from other languages in the way of combining form andmeaning. But most of the Chinese people do not really see themselves clearly in themirror as they do not consciously compare their language with others. Let's take Western languages as a comparative reference. We will focus on English as an epitome[i'pit?mi; e-] of the Western language as it is the most popularly spoken Westerntongue in the world at present time and embodies most the necessary elements fordiscussion.Chinese LanguageThere are at least two perspectives to look at languages, linguistic perspective andcultural perspective. From the surface, we find that Western languages have a sharedfeature, that is, a great number of inflectional variations to indicate time, aspect, gender,number and case of words, as well as structural relationships in word combination.Therefore, Western linguists take form as their central concern. In contrast, Chinese lacks inflectional variations which show clear grammatical categories and relations. AShuxiang(1988) once humorously remarked, "WeChinese linguist and translator LüChinese people have no admiration for the intertwined grammar. We find it extremely in- convenient to have these pigtails on our head; A bald head is much better." "A bald headis much better" means that the Han are accustomed to word combination based onmeaning, but not those based on inflectional form. Therefore, Chinese grammatical analysis should not start from form, but should take the expression of meaning asthe point of departure." In other word, to observe from cultural perspective is morehelpful to reveal the nature of Chinese language.Chinese language is different from the Western Languages in many aspects. This can betraced to its cultural roots such as world views, mode of thinking, aesthetic habits, etc. Gu Hongming explained, "As the Chinese lives a life of the heart, the Chinese language, I say,is also a language of the heart." "It is a well-known fact that children and uneducatedpersons among foreigners in China learn Chinese very easily, much more so thangrown-up and educated persons." What is the reason of this? He explains that childrenand uneducated persons think and speak with the language of the heart while educatedmen, especially men with the modern intellectual education of Europe, think and speakwith the language of the head and intellect. They cannot learn it well because they are too intelligently and scientifically educated. But Gu Hongming also admitted that Chinese isalso a difficult language to learn, especially when a learner wants to master classicalChinese written language.Chinese language is a monosyllabic language in nature, though it started obviousdisyllabic trend in the beginning of the last century. Chinese text with dominantdisyllabic words can be reduced to one full of monosyllabic words when necessary.The monosyllabic feature of Chinese is a critical factor that influences the development ofcertain peculiarities of Chinese literary style, such as Chinese poetry, traditional Chineseopera, and others. Lin Yutang said, " By comparison with the Western languages it ispossible to trace how much of the peculiarities of Chinese thought and literature are duesimply to their possession of a so-called monosyllabic language." What made him holdsuch a point of view? He observed the independent reality of written language based onthe monosyllabic words, not having to obey the laws of any spoken language, and in time,it had its own laws of structure and a store of idiom which accumulated by literaryaccidents of different dynasties(such as the essays of pre-Qin period, Han Fu[The writing of Pian Wen requires using antithesis, allusion, flowery words and so on], Tang poetry, Song ci [a type of classical Chinese poetry, originating in the Tang Dynasty and fullydeveloped in the Song Dynasty, Originally ci were written to be sung to a specific tune ofthat title, with set rhythm, rhyme, and tempo. However, over time the actual tunes seem tohave disappeared (similarly to the case of the English ballads], opera verses of YuanDynasty, Yuan drama's notable qu form was set to music). Traditional Chinese literatureand culture is based on Classical Chinese. Even modern Chinese people cannotcompletely part with classical Chinese because it has the root or spirit of Chineselanguage and culture. Chinese is much Westernized since the New Culture Movementstarted in 1910s when written vernacular Chinese was promoted, but it still maintains its distinctive features in contrast with Western languages. Regardless of the Westernization and borrowing of modern terms from other countries such as Japan,Chinese language stands in contrast with Western languages. Let's discuss someof the features:1. Form-govern-spirit language vs. Spirit-govern-form LanguageWhen we say that Chinese is characterized by meaning perception, we mean thatthe comprehension or production of Chinese does not depend on objectiveinflectional markers for structural definition; it lacks "objectivity". For instance, inEnglish, there should be a verb in a sentence and there must be an agreement ofsubject with the predicate. The predicate is just like a pivot of a scale. The subjectand predicate forms a framework of the sentence so that other elements may beadded to it as subordinates. English offer more possibilities to choose inanimatesubjects while in the same circumstances, Chinese tends to take animate agents assubjects ( as in the sentence "the remembrance of these will add zest to his life". Bycontrast, Chinese speakers would say, "Whenever recalling these, he more feels [in his]life pleasant and enthusiastic" or "[He]recalling these add [his]life's zest "). Even an action phrase in the sentence begins with the doer though it may not appear. In fact, Chinesesubject is the topic followed by comments，not corresponding to the predicate verb in the way English subject does. Besides, there is no necessity of formal markers as thesentence boundary. Sentence marking is determined by meaning fulfillment. Spirit manipulates meaning and meaning determines the choice of form. Different readersmay give different punctuations to the following utterance:下雨天留客天留人不留。