语言与思辨——西方思想家和汉学家对汉语结构的早期思考

Early Reflections of Western Thinkers and Sinologists on the Structure of the Chinese Language

欧洲人在明末清初对汉语的最初印象,是后来人考察汉语的起点,一些观点甚至延续了几个世纪,比如:汉语简略生动,但语焉不详;又如:汉字丰富多彩,却资源不足。之后,洪堡从其语言哲学理论出发,追究"汉语精神"亦即汉语与思辨的关系,认为汉语不追求语法上的精确概念,他的价值判断倾向于西方语言的精确性和逻辑性。洪堡之后的一个典型的西方观点是:汉语因为汉字结构而不太适合于抽象思维,更有利于直观的形象思维;中国思维较多地带有审美和伦理色彩,缺乏理论性和思辨性,汉语特性使哲学思考充满模糊性。而所谓欧化文法的精确性和逻辑性,在20世纪的中国得到不少新文化、新文体倡导者的认同。

The first impressions that Europeans had about Chinese language at the end of the Ming dynasty and the early Qing dynasty became the point of departure of later Western reflections on this subject.Some judgments have endured for centuries.For instance,the opinion that Chinese language is clear and concrete but on the other hand imprecise and fuzzy.Relying on his philosophy of language,Wilhelm von Humboldt later on searched for the'spirit of the Chinese language'(Geist der chinesischen Sprache).The pioneering considerations of Humboldt amount to a milestone,and thus his contribution remained that of a predecessor who could not be ignored by later scholars.It is a typical Western opinion later on that due to the structure of the Chinese written language,Chinese is less suitable for abstract thought and therefore more adapted to an intuitive and concrete way of thinking.According to this view,the Chinese way of thinking shows a fundamentally aesthetic and ethic trait while being a-theoretical and non-reflectiveone.Its peculiar characteristics are said to contribute to the vagueness of philosophic thought.In the 20th century,the reflections of Marcel Granet,Alfred Forke and Georges Margouliés on the relationship between the Chinese language and Chinese thinking are representative and significant.Their conceptions reveal that there still exist diverse opinions regarding the'spirit of the Chinese language'.