A study on the nature of Chinese characters : a semiotic approach = Fu hao xue jiao du : Han zi xing zhi yan jiu

Abstract

For centuries, a wide spectrum of opinions held by linguists on the nature of Chinese characters has long existed. The differences originate from the influence of western linguistic theories, which fail to take into account the uniqueness of Chinese characters and Chinese language. The main function of characters is to record the language, which contributes to the close relationship between the development of characters and the language it records. Different language systems have their own characteristics, and these characteristics affect their basic language structural unit, which determines the characters generated.

Western linguists hold the view that language is a system of symbol and that characters which are affiliated to language is a symbol of recording language. The features of phonography in Indo-European language are subject to the language, given that the notes are arranged to correspond to the phonemes of the phonetic language, which is arranged through characters to audible speech manifested. Therefore, the distance between the writing system and the language is not too large. However, Indo-European language and Chinese language differ distinctively in terms of their natures. In Chinese language, Chinese characters are the kind of symbols that serve more than to only recording language, but they also record ideology. The symbolic feature of Chinese characters contributes to the semantic structure of written Chinese study, so the true meaning of books can be realized through the study of Chinese Characters. The glyph of the Chinese characters is not subject to speech and orality and instead, emphasizes on the semantic function. However, given the lack of accuracy in phonetic function, distance is created between Chinese characters and Chinese language. Such distance between writing system and language allows people to have more space to understand its semantics when reading Chinese characters. When people recognize and read Chinese characters on a single word, based on the overall shape memory, the original meaning of the character may be represented by the shape. However, when people understand Chinese characters through sentences, meaning is established by the parataxis. The characters can be translated to the language after parataxis mental activity, which is affected by the extension of the Chinese characters and the grammatical function of the sentence.

In conclusion, with reference to Western linguistic theories, the relationship between the Chinese characters and Chinese language, also the independence of the Chinese characters should be considered as an important part of the nature of Chinese characters.