Description

Book Synopsis

Challenges the idea held by many prominent twentieth-century Sinologists that early China experienced a "language crisis."

Jane Geaney argues that early Chinese conceptions of speech and naming cannot be properly understood if viewed through the dominant Western philosophical tradition in which language is framed through dualisms that are based on hierarchies of speech and writing, such as reality/appearance and one/many. Instead, early Chinese texts repeatedly create pairings of sounds and various visible things. This aural/visual polarity suggests that texts from early China treat speech as a bodily practice that is not detachable from its use in everyday experience. Firmly grounded in ideas about bodies from the early texts themselves, Geaney''s interpretation offers new insights into three key themes in these texts: the notion of speakers'' intentions (yi), the physical process of emulating exemplary people, and Confucius''s proposal to rectify names (zhengming).

Language as Bodily Practice in Early China A

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    A Paperback by Jane Geaney

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      Publisher: State University of New York Press
      Publication Date: 1/2/2019 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9781438468600, 978-1438468600
      ISBN10: 1438468601

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Challenges the idea held by many prominent twentieth-century Sinologists that early China experienced a "language crisis."

      Jane Geaney argues that early Chinese conceptions of speech and naming cannot be properly understood if viewed through the dominant Western philosophical tradition in which language is framed through dualisms that are based on hierarchies of speech and writing, such as reality/appearance and one/many. Instead, early Chinese texts repeatedly create pairings of sounds and various visible things. This aural/visual polarity suggests that texts from early China treat speech as a bodily practice that is not detachable from its use in everyday experience. Firmly grounded in ideas about bodies from the early texts themselves, Geaney''s interpretation offers new insights into three key themes in these texts: the notion of speakers'' intentions (yi), the physical process of emulating exemplary people, and Confucius''s proposal to rectify names (zhengming).

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