To a certain extent, it can be compared that China and the West are like the two poles in China's Taiji diagram, and only "China + West" will be a whole. Of course, the concept of the West should still be used with caution, for example, France, which also belongs to the Western world, is in fact very different from the United States.
Author: Sun Jiangeng.
Full Word Count: 2960
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes.
Chinese civilization has a long and profound history, and as an important element in shaping the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization, Chinese characters have fascinated countless foreigners. Jo L Bellessen, a sinologist who is a fan of Chinese characters and a leader in French Chinese education, believes that Chinese characters are the most representative elements of Chinese culture. To a large extent, it is because of the charm of Chinese characters that he has formed a love relationship with Chinese for more than 50 years. Recently, Bai Lesang was interviewed by China News Service's "East-West Question", interpreting Chinese culture and the cultural differences between China and Europe from the ideographic characteristics of Chinese characters, and further explaining the concept of "'China + West' is a whole".
Le Bessan, a well-known French sinologist and expert in Chinese language education. Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
The transcript of the interview is summarized below
China News Service: Unlike Western characters, Chinese characters are an important element of Chinese culture. As a fan of Chinese characters, how do you understand this cultural trait?
Bai Lesan: For me, the meaning of Chinese characters is extraordinary. Historically, it is precisely because of the charm of Chinese characters that many foreigners have begun to learn Chinese.
The father of modern linguistics, the Swiss Ferdinand de Saussure (also the founder of structuralism), once divided writing into two categories: ideographic and phonetic. Ideograms are represented by Chinese characters. Chinese characters are divided into characters and words, and both are the smallest linguistic units of Chinese. In most cases, each character is a separate linguistic unit; After forming words, characters form a new linguistic unit and give it a new meaning, which is the "duality" of Chinese characters in Chinese. This is completely different from Western pinyin scripts, including French, which have only one "word" as the smallest linguistic unit. For example, an analysis of the linguistic unit structure of the word "computer" in Chinese and the French word "ordinateur" can note this stark difference between Chinese and Western scripts. This difference is even more pronounced between the Chinese "I am French" and the French "je suis fran ais".
On 5 July 2018, the "Chinese Character Exhibition" hosted by PMQ Hong Kong was held at QUBE Smart Square in Central, where children could experience the charm of Chinese characters. Photo by Zhang Wei.
This uniqueness of Chinese characters has had a great impact on me. In my decades of career in Chinese teaching and research, "character standard" is the field that I pay the most attention to and study the most, and it is also an important achievement in my field of Chinese teaching and research. In the 90s of the 20th century, I published a French textbook based on the "word-based" teaching method, which had great repercussions in both France and China, and also triggered a great debate in the field of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, that is, the so-called "word-based" and "word-based" ("monism") controversy. A number of international conferences have also devoted discussions on this theme.
China News Service: In Chinese teaching, in order to highlight the uniqueness of Chinese characters, you have been advocating the "character standard" teaching method, what is its core?
Bai Lesan: The so-called "character standard", in short, is to abide by the unique characteristics of Chinese, that is, "Chinese teaching dualism", advocating that Chinese teaching is different from other languages, advocating that in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, not only new vocabulary lists should be provided, but also new vocabulary lists should be provided, and in the whole teaching process, attention should be paid to the frequency and recurrence rate of words and words at the same time.
With the theme of "inheritance and creation", the 2015 Cross-Strait College Students' Chinese Character Culture and Creativity Conference Exhibition was held at Nanjing University of the Arts. Photo by Yang Bo.
Mr. Lu Jianming, a Chinese Chinese scholar whom I respect very much, affirmed my "character-based" view. However, it is a pity that he did not openly and explicitly express his opposition to "monism". In fact, since the 50s of the 20th century, the mainstream view in teaching Chinese as a foreign language in China has been to advocate "word standard", that is, to take words as the smallest language teaching unit, and the teaching materials have always only had a list of new words without any other information, and more attention has been paid to the frequency of use and recurrence of words in teaching. This view ignores the unique characteristic of Chinese characters—ideographic. It is a problem of teaching ontology that Chinese characters cannot be used only as symbols to record language. Objectively speaking, there is no need to argue about the "word standard" view. The academic community of Chinese as a foreign language in China should advocate open and critical thinking, and academic education is to pursue the truth, especially when it comes to the promotion policy and future of Chinese as a foreign language.
As an important cultural event of the 2023 "United Nations Chinese Day", the "Thousands of Meanings - Chinese Character Culture Exhibition" opened at the Summer Palace Museum in Beijing. Photo by Yi Haifei.
China News Service: How do you understand your views on the differences between Chinese and Western cultures from the two aspects of Chinese ideograms and Western characters?
Bai Lesan: In terms of comparing Chinese and Western cultures, I once put forward the idea that Chinese culture is visual culture, while Western culture is auditory culture. For me, to compare the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, I still start with the language and writing. An authoritative brain science expert in France once pointed out that language is not only a tool for information transmission and communication between people, but also a deep imprint on the brain, while analyzing and sorting out external information, it is also shaping the thinking system of the human brain.
Objectively speaking, Chinese characters are the most representative elements of Chinese culture, which are very different from the characters in the Western language family. Chinese characters are ideographic symbols, most of which are combined characters (internal combinations formed by radicals), which contain rich visual informationIn contrast, Western language scripts are letters, which are relatively simple and limited in number. The basic property of letters, which are phonetic tools, is to mark the pronunciation, and naturally form sound information that belongs to the auditory category. Therefore, from a cognitive point of view, I think Chinese are more inclined to visual in cognitive thinking, while Westerners are more auditory. For example, when someone pronounces a surname with the pronunciation of "zhang", it is usually associated with "Gong Changzhang" or "Lizaozhang", and the process of processing this information stimulates the brain to make visual associations, which are directly related to the accumulated visual information. Westerners, on the other hand, think of the spelling of letters, which is completely different.
The Chinese character scene art exhibition held by Chongqing Erling No. 2 Factory attracted the public to visit. Photo by Zhou Yi.
China News Service: At other levels, what are the differences between Chinese and Western cultures?
Bai Lesan: Let's look at Chinese opera and Western opera. Whenever we talk about Western classical opera, the first thing that comes to mind is the score, the composer and the characteristics of the music, which is mainly auditory information. This is not the case with Chinese opera. For example, there is no Western-style musical score in Peking Opera, and there are relatively few types of musical instruments, mainly based on the visual touch on the stage, and the stage focuses on and cooperates with the actors' movements to serve the performance of the actors on the stage.
In addition, from the point of view of the language itself, French has the reputation of being the most beautiful language in the world, and French poetry is usually relatively long, at least 6-7 lines, rhythmic and logical, and the auditory technique is prominent. Chinese is also the most beautiful language, Chinese ancient poems are usually short, and they are also very rhythmic but not too logical, and their visual techniques are prominent, which can make people have endless reverie. This may have something to do with the characteristics of the Chinese Chinese language. I think Chinese characters are more suitable for poetry than **.
Of course, there is also the field of art, the biggest difference between China and the West is that China has calligraphy, while the West does not, that is to say, China has one more art than the West, and Chinese calligraphy is a visual art, a real art.
In July 2022, the Hong Kong Museum of Art held a press preview of "City Rhyme of Chinese Characters: Poetry, Dance and Painting in Calligraphy", and visitors enjoyed the calligraphy works. Photo by Li Zhihua.
China News Service: From these aspects, it can be said that the differences between the two cultures of China and the West are somewhat "unusual", and it can also be seen that the two cultures have strong complementarity. What do you think of this complementarity?
Bai Lesang: To a certain extent, we can use an analogy that China and the West are like the two poles in China's Taiji diagram, and only "China + West" will be a whole. Of course, the concept of the West should still be used with caution, for example, France, which also belongs to the Western world, is in fact very different from the United States.
We have just explained the visual and auditory aspects of the human senses, and the characteristics and complementarity of Chinese and Western cultures are very different. I've majored in philosophy, and I can also do it from a philosophical level. China has traditional philosophies and ideas, such as Confucianism and Lao Zhuang, but in the strict sense of philosophy, there are certain differences with the ideas and philosophical concepts that emerged in Europe. Westerners also have reservations about the expression of Chinese philosophy, because it is very different from the philosophical ideas of Hegel and Kant, which have become self-contained. Western philosophy (more precisely, European philosophy) was born on the foundations of logic and science, and was inseparable from the grammar and logic of ancient Greek. In Western classical philosophy, the most central concept is the French "être", but there is no such concept in the Chinese world, and the Chinese translation of it as "existence" does not in fact fully explain its true connotation in Western philosophy. The traditional way of thinking in the West is the dichotomy of subject and object, that is, "I" is the subject, and what is outside "me" is the object, and "I" must know and transform the object; On the contrary, in China, the "unity of heaven and man" is emphasized, and the subject and object are blended with each other.
Readers enjoy the poetry installation in the immersive "reading maze" of Jinan Library. Photo by Wang Caiyi.
In addition, in Asian civilizations, including China, the idea of collectivity dominates and the sense of individuality is diluted; On the contrary, in the West, especially in France, there is a sense of collectivity, but individualism prevails. It would be a blessing if the two could learn from each other and find a balance between collectivism and individualism.
In general, European civilization is dominated by auditory channels, so it is necessary to learn Chinese, Chinese characters and even opera to enrich themselves. As a Chinese educator, but also as a scholar, I strongly recommend that French children should learn a little Chinese, not all of them should become sinologists, but it is conducive to cultivating thinking skills, at least one year of learning Chinese, focusing on Chinese characters, to make up for the shortcomings in the thinking system. For Chinese students, foreign language education should be strengthened. In addition to being a communication tool, language is the best way to learn grammar. Taking a little foreign language class from an early age and starting to get in touch with the concept of grammar can better cultivate logical thinking skills.
Interviewee Profile:
Le Bessan, a well-known French sinologist and expert in Chinese language education.
Jo L Bellessen, a well-known French sinologist and expert in Chinese language education; Professor of the University of Oriental Languages and Cultures in Paris, the first Chief Inspector of Chinese Language of the French Ministry of Education, Vice President of the World Association for Teaching Chinese as a Language, President of the European Association for the Teaching of Chinese Language, and the founder and first president of the French Association of Teachers of Chinese Language. He has published more than 40 books and textbooks, including "Research on Chinese Language Education in France", "Cross-Cultural Chinese Education", "Snowball Learning Chinese" and "Enlightenment of Chinese and Chinese Languages", and published more than 100 academic articles. In 2003, he won the "China-Chinese Cultural Friendship Award" issued by China.
Editor: Li Mingyang.
This year's athletes are very "top" for Chengdu!
Playing mahjong with the audience at the beginning? **Plays made by international students are staged in the UK.
They built a "bridge" to China in Vanuatu