杨剑桥
教授 博士生导师
简历
杨剑桥，男，汉族，上海市人。1947年1月生于上海。复旦大学中文系教授，博士生导师，中国音韵学会理事。1977年考取上海师范大学中文系本科，1979年考取复旦大学中文系研究生，师从张世禄、周斌武教授，1982年毕业留校工作至今。
研究范围
主要是汉语史（语音史、词汇史、语法史），汉语音韵学，汉语训诂学，汉语文字学，汉藏比较语，中国语言学史，同时涉猎现代汉语语音、词汇、语法，对外汉教学，辞书学，少数民族语言等。论文关于语言与文化、思维的关系的几点思考获上海市哲学社会科学优秀成果（1986—1993）三等奖，著作中国学术名著语提要（语言文字卷）获上海市哲学社会科学优秀成果（1986─1993）三等奖，古代汉语教程获国家教委第三届普通高等学校优秀教材二等奖、上海市教委上海普通高等学校优秀教材二等奖，汉语现代音韵学获国家教委人文社会科学研究优秀成果三等奖，上海市哲学社会科学优秀成果（1996—1997）三等奖。
所开课程
本科生课程：古代汉语、汉语史、汉语音韵学、汉语训诂学、中国语文论著选读、高级汉语、语文现代化等。
研究生课程：音韵学专题、古汉语语法研究、汉藏比较语言学、语言学名著研究、汉语言文字规范化等。
科研成果
主要著作
音韵学入门（与张世禄合作），复旦大学出版社，1987。
汉语现代音韵学，复旦大学出版社，1996。
古代汉语教程（“通论”语法、音韵部分），复旦大学出版社，1991。
中国学术名著提要（副主编），复旦大学出版社，1992。
主要论文
1. 上古汉语的声调 (语文论丛(2) 上海教育出版社，1983)
2. 汉语轻重唇音的分化问题 (与张世禄合作 扬州师院学报，1986第2期)
3. 论上古带 r 复辅音声母 (与张世禄合作 复旦学报，1986第5期)
4. 论端、知、照三系声母的上古来源 (语言研究，1986第1期)
5. 古汉语词类活用研究综述 (语文导报，1987第5期)
6. 说文解字读若研究 (语言研究集刊(1) 复旦大学出版社，1987)
7. 汉藏比较语言学论略 (复旦学报，1987第5期)
8. 段玉裁古音学的评价问题 (温州师院学报，1988第2期)
9. 吴语“指示代词 + 量词”的省略式 (中国语文，1988第4期)
10. 同源词研究和同源词典 (辞书研究，1988第5期)
11. 关于语言与文化、思维的关系的几点思考 (南京社会科学，1991第4期)
12. 关于“平分阴阳”起始时代的质疑 (中国语文，1993第1期)
13. 论重纽 (语苑新论----纪念张世禄先生学术论文集 上海教育出版社，1994)
14. 近代汉语的唇音合口问题 (语言研究，1994增刊)
15. 神珙九弄图再释 (中国语文，1995第2期)
16. 陆德明音切中的重纽 (中西学术(1) 学林出版社，1995)
17. 建立语法系统，辅以其他设施 (中国语文，1996年第3期)
18. 汉语声母发展史 (中西学术(1) 复旦大学出版社，1996)
19. 广韵和关于广韵的研究 (研究论丛(48)，日本京都外国语大学，1997)
20. 闽方言来母 s 声字补论 (载李新魁教授纪念文集，中华书局，1998)
A PERSONAL VIEW OF THE CONNECTIONS

BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

0. What is the connection between language and culture? And what is the connection between language and thought? These questions have for a long time interested many native and overseas scholars, and yet to date they have not been satisfactorily answered. In recent years, Chinese academics have published hundreds of articles dealing with these two questions, dwelling in particular firstly on the connections between the Chinese language and traditional Chinese culture and secondly on the connections between the Chinese language and the Chinese way of thinking. Whereas these questions have been approached from many interesting angles, the conclusion reached in the majority of those articles has been that the connection between language and culture, and language and thought is that the one generates the other. This is especially so in the case of the Chinese language. Despite my limited knowledge, I have dared to venture a different opinion in this article, and I am prepared to be corrected if I am wrong.


1.1 The spoken languages of mankind have a very long history. Although these languages have undergone long-sustained development since they came into being, yet due to their continuity and stability, many ancient elements have been retained up to the present day through written records. These elements will inevitably reflect ancient cultural phenomena whilst the new elements of language cannot help but reflect the modern culture.

1.2 Language reflects culture not only in vocabulary, but also in grammar and pronunciation. For example a comparison of the histories of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Germanic languages revealed that words such as “father, mother, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, arrow, axe, boat, sowing the seed, village, pasture, barley, white birch, beech, salmon” each derive etymologically from a common root. People were thereby able to make deductions about the cultural level of ancient Indian and European home life, dwellings and productive activities. As a further example, let us consider the character ‘恒(heng)’ in ‘the Heng River’. In the original Sanskrit, the river was called the Ganges but in early Chinese translations, it was rendered by the character ‘恒’. This was superseded in later Chinese translations by ‘恒伽(Hengjia)’ or ‘强伽(Qiangjia)’. The reason for this is that the middle Eastern Tukhara language acted as an intermediary between Sanskrit and Chinese. This shows that the Tukhara people played an important part in Sino-Indian cultural exchange.

1.3 A writing system is a set of signs used to record a language. Languages reflect culture, and to some degree, so do the writing systems. For example, in the Oracle Bones inscriptions, the character ‘执(zhi, to hold)’ looks like a man with both wrists fettered; ‘刖(yue, to cut off the feet)’ illustrates the cutting off of a persons feet; and the character ‘劓(yi, to cut off the nose)’ is a drawing of a persons nose being cut off. The strong historical influence of Chinese culture on neighbouring countries is revealed in the Japanese Kana and the Vietnamese Zinan (字喃), both of which are based on Chinese characters.

2.1 Although we hold that languages can reflect culture and that the reflection in question is often both accurate and valuable, it is contended that this reflection is also extremely limited in scope, and most certainly cannot give complete information. In this context, I am using the word ‘language’ simply to mean the linguistic system comprising vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation (langue); I am not using it to reflect the systematic use of the language (parole). As langues forms are limited, it therefor has severe limitations in reflecting cultural and historical facts. On the other hand, parole is able to express unlimited content with its limited forms. It is therefore better able to reflect unlimited cultural and historical facts. Scholars of historical comparative linguistics have studied words which come from the same origin in Indo-European languages, and have given us a general picture of the cultures of ancient civilizations. However, this can by no means to be said to form a complete historical picture. Some people think that the English word ‘China’ was a transliteration of the Chinese word ‘秦(Qin)’, whilst others contend that it was a transliteration of ‘荆(Jing)’ or even ‘绮(qi)’. Basically, the reason for these arguments is not that the scholars in question are incompetent or that they just want to start new schools of thought: the fact is that the information revealed by the languages is extremely limited.


2.2 The reflections of culture contained in a language are not only very limited; they are also sometimes misleading or even wrong. This is primarily because the creation of a language is always influenced by the very strong subjective consciousness of mankind, and is not purely objective. In Russian the word for China is ΚИΤАЙ--- Kitai ‘契丹’, but geographically契丹was not the same as China. The Romans and the ancient Britons were under the misapprehension that the thread produced by silkworms raise by the Chinese came from a tree: they therefore talked of the ‘fleecy forests’ in China. Of course, such words do not truly reflect the historical facts. And without any textual research, these facts can be very misleading. Secondly, where the language has a very long history, a great number of words will have long since lost their original meanings. If we mistake the later meanings for the original meanings the picture of civilization drawn from our inferences will probably be wrong. Yu Di Zhi (舆地志) by Gu Yewang (顾野王) of the Southern Dynasty explained how Yuyao (余姚) county in Zhejiang Province came to be named: “The reason why it was called Yuyao is that (it was) the fief given to Monarch Shuns descendants”. Its doubtful whether such legendary characters as Yao (尧) and Shun (舜) actually ever existed. Moreover, Yuyao was such a place. In ancient times, the characters ‘夫 (fu), 无 (wu),余 (yu), 句 (ju) and虞 (yu) ’ were often used as names by the越 (Yue) nation. The reason why Yuyao was so named might actually stem from this latter fact and have nothing at all to do with Yao and Shun.

2.3 Reflections of a culture in its writing system can also be limited or even inaccurate. IN total, around 100,000 oracle bones were excavated from the Sites of Yin. Over 5,000 characters appear in oracle bone inscriptions, but the character ‘金 (Jin, gold)’ was nowhere to be seen, nor yet any character with the金radical. Some scholars therefore came to the conclusion that “hardly any metal was used in the Yin Dynasty”.①However, archaeological findings have revealed that copper-smelting look place on a large scale in Zhengzhou郑州and Anyang安阳: also iron knives and copper axes were found in the Shang Dynasty tombs discovered in Gao Town藁城 (Hebei Province) and Ping Gu平谷 (near Beijing). Therefore, despite the fact that no record of this appears in the Oracle Bone characters, metal production in the Yin and Shang Dynasties must have been widespread. In his Summary of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of the Ancient Sites of Yin (殷墟卜辞综述), Chen Mengjia (陈梦家) criticized Sun Yirangs (孙诒让) Some Examples of Engraved Characters (契文举例) in which Sun tried to reconstruct Yin institutions simply by using individual characters identified in the oracle bone inscriptions. Chen pointed out that the study of characters must be linked to the study of social history and culture in general. Only in this way can the two fields of study supplement each other. We submit that this is the correct approach.

3.1 Following from this is the connection between language type and culture type. When we talk about language type here, we refer to its formal characteristics rather than its family. The first reason for this is that the method of classifying languages by family concentrates on the study of historical origins and connections between languages, and not purely on language type. The second reason is that when languages belong to the same family, the closeness of the relationship between the languages will be determined by how recently they separated from one another, the more recently they separated, the more similar their cultural types will be. So when one studies the connections between language types and culture types by looking at family trees, it is very difficult to draw general conclusions. Studying the actual formal characteristics of a language allows one to classify the worlds languages in accordance with the features of their lexical and syntactic structures. This in turn allows one to build up systems of pure language types. Language types can then be compared with cultural types, and connections between the two can thus be established.


3.2 We believe that both language type and cultural type can change. World-wide, there are examples not only of the language type and the cultural type retaining their original shape --- like that of the Pueblo Indians in the South West part of America --- but also of both the language type and cultural type changing dramatically --- as in the case of the black people in North America. There are also examples of the language type being totally changed while cultural type remains intact, e.g. the Hui nationality of China. There are further examples in which the language type remains unchanged while the cultural type is completely altered, like Chuanqing nationality (穿青人) in northwest Guizhou (贵州). ② From this we can see that the connection between language type and cultural type is not very close. One does not produce the other. Therefore, using language type as evidence of cultural type and cultural type as evidence of language type, will lead one to wrong conclusions. It is as Sapir said in Language: “I dont believe that culture and language are causally related … in terms of language form, Plato and a shepherd from Macedonia are companions; and Confucius and a head-hunting savage from Assam are colleagues.”③


3.3 Of course, a nations psyche will affect its choice of language and cultural type. Chinese history has many examples of the ethnic minorities who ruled central China giving up their mother tongue and adopting Chinese. This is the result of these nations psychological propensity towards identification with Han culture. It is difficult to judge whether there is a connection between the creation of a language of a particular type and a nations psyche since both phenomena went too far back in time. Some people think that “Grammar is the cumulative result of the age-long abstract thought of mankind, and is the tool with which to think. At the same time, grammar also reflects and expresses a deeper layer of the cultures psyche.” ④This theory may explain why, for example, some languages have grammatical gender, and divide nouns such as sun, moon, desk and clothes etc into feminine and masculine. Perhaps it is a reflection of the ancient peoples psychological attitude towards nature. However, whether or not all grammatical categories can be explained in this way is difficult to say. For instance, some people have pointed out that the dynamic, concise and spiritual characteristics of the Chinese nation, which are reflected in Chinese painting, calligraphy, gardens, music and plays, also coincide with the type and features of the Chinese language. That is to say, the Chinese language type was determined by the Chinese nations psyche. But in fact, what Chinese painting, calligraphy and gardens actually express is the psyche of later generations. How can there be any connection with the Chinese language type when that language type had already come into being in ancient times? Although there is a style of Chinese painting which uses broad brush and emphasises capturing the spirit, there is also a realistic school characterized by fine brushwork and close attention to detail. What is more, the latter school came into being earlier. It is true that Chinese calligraphy emphasises romantic charm, but the characters which form the calligraphy are very complex in structure. Similarly, although Chinese poems may traditionally advocate the virtues of being concise and vivid, the many different and stringent rules and forms which have arisen since the Tang and Song Dynasties became too restrictive. Moving on to Chinese gardens, most are full of twists and turns, every step revealing new vistas and scenery: however, exceptions exist, ranging from the small, such as the Palace Museum and Yuanming Garden (圆明园) to the large, such as the cities of Beijing and Luoyang (洛阳). These latter examples both have a north south layout and are strictly regulated. All this tells us that there is an over-elaborate, neat and realistic side to our nations psyche, balancing the concise, dynamic and spiritual side. We therefore think that culture has one set of rules and language has another. The two cannot be compared.

4.1 When considering the connection between language and thought or writing systems and thought, many scholars have held the opinion that the broad and tangible nature of Chinese philosophical works has been due to modes of thinking imposed by the Chinese language. On the other hand, the abstract and deductive works produced by such philosophers as Kant and Hegel have been the result of the mode of thinking associated with an inflected language. In other words: “Languages help different nations form certain modes of thinking and ways of self-expression.” ⑤ We feel that this is incorrect. Chinese is not the only language used in the vast land of China; many national minorities have been using inflected or agglutinative types of languages for thousands of years, and yet they havent added any abstract or deductive works to the canon of Chinese philosophy. Similarly, in the West, not everybody who uses an inflected type of language can emulate Kant or Hegel. Kant and Hegel were the product of historical trends, sources of tradition and personal talent rather than of linguistic mechanism. It is true that there are not many abstract and deductive works in Chinese philosophy, but if we look at ancient astronomical manuals, calendars and books on mathematics, music etc, many such works do exist.


4.2 Some scholars feel that it is not only languages that dictate thought: the writing system con have an effect too: “The fact that the Chinese nations intuitive way of thinking is so well developed is, to a great extent, attributable to the figurative form of the Chinese vocabulary and Chinese characters.” ⑥ From a psychological angle, we can divide thought into three categories: imaginative, technological and abstract thinking. Artists, such as painters, sculptors and writers tend to think in images, whereas technicians, such as car mechanics think more in terms of technology. Neither of these types of thought is language-based. Abstract thought is a language-based way of thinking, but with the possible exception of people practising calligraphy, nobody thinks in terms of Chinese characters. There is therefore not necessarily a connection between the figurative nature of Chinese characters and the development of the Chinese way of thinking.

4.3 We should point out here that the so-called ‘languages determined by thought’ theory held by Chinese scholars is derived from the American ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’. The main viewpoint set out in this hypothesis did not receive the general endorsement of western scholars. On the contrary, thy believe that people speaking different languages can end up with similar outlooks on life, and arrive at similar definitions in respect of concepts such as ‘time, space, number, colour’ etc. On the other hand, people speaking the same language can hold contradictory interpretations of concepts such as ‘honesty, sin, honour’, etc. It seems to follow that language type cannot determine ways of thinking; groups speaking different languages may finally have different outlooks on the world, but that will be due more to differences in culture and cultural values.

____________________________

①Jiang Liangfu. 1963. ‘The Basic Features of the Structure of Chinese Characters’ in Zhejiang Journal. No. 1.

②Fei Xiaotong. 1981. Nation and Society. The people’s press.

③The original reads: “Nor can I believe that culture and language are in any true sense causally related.…When it comes to linguistic form, Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam.”(Sapir, E. 1970. Language pp. 218-219)

④Xiao Guozheng & Wu Zhenguo. 1989. ‘The Features of Chinese Grammar and the Chinese Psyche’ in Journal of teachers University of Central China. No. 4.

⑤Zhang Gongjin. 1989. ‘The Cultural Value of Language’ in Minzu Yuwen. No. 5.

⑥He Ming. 1990. ‘Discussion of the Connection Between the Chinese Language and Traditional Chinese Thought’ in Yunnan Sociology. No. 2.