中国“体育”概念词汇的历史源流考析

Historical Origins on the Lexical Concept of "Physical Education" in China

概念是人们认识客体对象的思想结晶,是对客体事物一般属性和本质属性的概括总结。鸦片战争之后,中国形成的“体育”概念将人们对身体运动的认识带入全新的空间。采用文献资料法和词源法,回到19世纪下半叶以来的历史语境中,探究“体育”词汇的形成过程,追溯“体育”的意义嬗变。发现:作为在中国近代危难时刻引入的新概念,“体育”原初的语义就是“身体教育”,被定义为教育学名词;随着中国近代体育的多元化发展,“体育”概念的外延逐渐扩大,泛化为人类一切身体运动的总称,与体操、竞技、运动、运动会、运动家精神等下位概念共同构成近代中国体育的概念体系。虽因原初意义与泛化意义的差别不时出现概念使用一致性的危机,但这些历史文献的字里行间传导出中国人对体育活动的理性思考与价值判断。

Concept is the thought product of people's understanding of an object and also the summary of the general and essential attribute of the object.After the Opium War of 1840,the concept of"physical education"came into being in China,which brought people's comprehension to physical movement into a whole new dimension.By means of literature review and etymology,it goes back to the historical context since the second half of the 19th century to explore the formation process of the word"physical education"and trace its meaning evolution.It is revealed that the original semantic meaning of"physical education",a new concept introduced to modern China at the time of crisis,was"the education of the physical",defined as a pedagogical term.With the diversified development of modern sports in Chinese,"physical education"has gradually seen changes in the meaning of expansion,implying a general term of all human physical activities,forming a conceptual system of modern Chinese sports together with subordinate concepts such as gymnastics,athletics,sports,games,and sportsmanship.Although the difference between the original meaning and the generalized meaning has caused the crisis of consistency in the use of concepts from time to time,the rational thinking and value judgment of Chinese people on physical activities are conveyed by the words of these historical documents.