Bridging the Unbridgeable

1 A dilemma in Chinese linguistics study

For decades, the issue of comparability has kept haunting Chinese linguistics. There is an everlasting debate on the “Westernized” theoretical grounding of research undertakings, especially those adopting a comparative or contrastive framework. Despite the plentiful theories and methodologies, home researchers are often confronted with the dilemma as to whether or to what extent the established theories can be applied to the native tongue. The problem is further compounded by the globalization-fueled language contact and interaction, as well as an increasing need for home scholars to address a global academic audience with comparative findings, while doing justice to the unique workings of the native language. For one thing, the undeniable influence from Western languages on modern Chinese constitutes a substantial part of the history of the language, as Chao (1976: 185) readily admits, “Borrowing between Chinese and foreign languages is of course as old as history, or older,” and Wang (1943: 58) acknowledges that “the Europeanization of Chinese grammar has been an event of great consequence in the history of our language.” In modern times, however, it may not take a linguist to notice that the permeation of characteristics of foreign languages continues to exert a potent influence on Chinese and, more subtly perhaps, on the perception of the language by its native speakers. The overwhelming influence of Western languages on modern Chinese is dealt with mainly under a distinctive topic of “Westernized Chinese” in the literature, with conscious efforts made to distinguish it from exploration of the “un-Westernized” grammar, or the relatively more “natural” and “idiomatic” manifestations of the language.

Over the years, sporadic discussions (Gunn 1991; Guo 2005; He 2008; Peverelli 2015; Dai 2016, among others) have contributed to the thesis of a Westernized Chinese grammar. Despite the full range of registered noteworthy features of Westernization, some scholars remain skeptical about the idea of Chinese grammar succumbing to the contact-induced changes. For instance, while acknowledging the successful attempts made by intellectuals to “modernize” Chinese by massive borrowing, Peyraube (2000) argues against the Westernization of Chinese grammar, reducing contact-induced changes to unsystematic influences on various levels (lexical, stylistic, pragmatic, rhetorical, etc.), insisting that “[o]nly the grammar of the Chinese language remained remarkably stable amidst all these changes.” Likewise, there have been some serious attempts to depart from the Western linguistic line of thought to address the lack in “an indigenous grammatical tradition” (Peverelli 2015: 182). The whole debate seems to have risen from the rueful recognition that studies on the Chinese language have been following too closely the Western linguistics traditions to the degree that, as Shen (2017) cautions, we ought to stay alert to losing sight of the “original look” of our mother tongue.

There are elements of truth in arguments from both sides of the debate. On the one hand, the influences of foreign languages need to be dealt with as part of the linguistic “facts” in the evolution of modern Chinese, while on the other hand, we cannot be fully convinced by a grammar the development of which relies solely on borrowing and assimilation. While there is the recognized need for locally grounded theories tailored for the idiomaticness of Chinese, a comprehensive truthful picture of the language cannot be arrived at without a clear roadmap through the complexities in the operation and interaction of features across categories which, to a large extent, characterize the dynamism of modern languages.

Where an intense debate goes on over the characterizing features of modern Chinese, there is an enduring interest in comparative and contrastive analyses, most often with English, which has propelled a line of research with an overt focus on examining the similarities and differences between Chinese and other languages. However, as noted above, the powerful influence of the introduced models may lead to theoretically and/or methodologically lopsided comparisons which contaminate the results. As Shen (2012) has pointed out, the limitation in current findings of contrastive analyses between Chinese and English mainly results from “negligence of evidence from within the language,” “lack of systematic data,” and “absence of a typological perspective.” Most of the conclusive observations made so far lean toward a binary division, that is, the Chinese language is portrayed as the opposite to the Indo-European languages, English in particular, in some aspect that has been particularly highlighted. This separatist view would readily serve as a presupposition in empirical studies where the strong hypothesis may overshadow some interesting yet less expected findings. One of the best-known oppositions is Xinghe (形合) vs. Yihe (意合), which characterizes English as a language organized by form (Xing), while Chinese as one organized by meaning (Yi). This stereotypical portrait is representative of the binary view which foregrounds the unique characteristics of Chinese, so much so that the marked differences deserve a separate scheme of description, thus rendering the established models invalid. The crux of the comparative paradigm lies in seeking tertium comparationis, or the “common denominator” on which detailed observations shall be based and meaningful generalizations validated (Chesterman 1998). Thus it serves as the premise of a contrastive study which intends to reveal the differences against the shared ground. The separatist belief is grounded in the striking contrast between character-based Chinese grammar and that of alphabetic languages, typically, yet unexclusively, English. It is argued that the unique workings of Chinese defy a unitary description based on the generations from alphabetical languages. The obvious orthographic differences notwithstanding, we may need linguistically and cognitively attested proofs to support this general perception. Moreover, to deny the possibility of a negotiated view at the cost of generalizable observations may stand in the way of locating Chinese in the global landscape of languages, which may illuminate aspects of its idiosyncrasies in a typological light.

In this paper, I venture to propose an alternative approach to mitigate the seemingly “unbridgeable” divide between Chinese and Indo-European languages, and further discuss the possibilities of bridging the research paradigms and undertakings embedded in Chinese and Western contexts. Based on the shared semiotic insights with regard to the fundamental workings of language, I argue that reconciliation of the perceived differences is achievable on semiotic grounds, in the sense that it is possible to denounce the illusion of incomparable idiosyncrasies of the Chinese language with a better understanding of the shared semiotic significance of languages in general.

2 Semiotic insights on the philosophy of language and the “specificities” of Chinese

One would assume that the uniqueness of Chinese is motivated to a large extent by its writing system, as the syllable-based logography preconditions the prominent nominal characteristics of the language (He and Wang 2015). The co-selection between language and its writing system, as thus suggested, drives the fundamental divide between Chinese and English, as the former features “nominal” and “spatiality” traits, as opposed to the “verbal” and “temporality” traits of the latter. This most recent viewpoint, aside from strengthening the C–E divide, revisits some of the classical issues in the philosophy of language, especially the relationship between language, culture, and thought. Although on the surface of it, one may hold orthographical differences accountable for the manifested differences in the workings of the languages, it remains an unattested speculation as to how a language “shaped” as it is would be destined to perform in a reasonably argued corresponding manner. Such a grain of doubt leads us back to the primitive understanding of language as universally motivated by the communicative needs, the nature of which has been thoroughly investigated in the study of semiotics.

To probe into the semiotic underpinnings of language as a sign system, from which the divide probably arises, the treatment of “object as a synonym for significate” (signatum seu significatum), or as Deely succinctly puts it, “all objects are significates” (2009:15), becomes relevant.

The medieval development of the distinction between objects and things, as I say, was far from complete. At the time of Poinsot, Galileo’s contemporary and author of the first systematic Treatise on Signs to demonstrate the unified subject matter of semiotic inquiry, it was only beginning to emerge that “object” is a synonym for “significate” (signatum seu significatum), such that to say something is an “object” or to say that something is an “object signified” is to say the same thing... it becomes further clear that all objects are objects signified, or, to suppress the redundancy, all objects are significates. Not all things are significates, but all objects are. In other words, to say “significate” is to say clearly what “object” says obscurely and confusedly, and in the late modern habits of English usage, perhaps, not at all. (2009: 15, emphasis original)

Several observations are available from a careful examination of Deely’s stand. First of all, the meticulous choice of “significate” over perhaps the more popularly known “signified” is insightful. The distinction intended is meaningful in the sense that the notion of “significate” may serve literally better than “signified” in capturing the semiotic significance of the object in a linguistically relevant situation. That is, to acknowledge the “significatehood” of all objects has in some way endowed every object in existence with a semiotic potential, while leaving the activation of such potential subject to the circumstances in which the object is situated. This conceptualization recognizes the semiotic pertinence of an object to be recognized without mitigating its independent objecthood. By contrast, the description of the object as the “signified” may elicit a presupposed agent–patient relationship pre-existing the signifying practice. Moreover, the “signified” tends to foreground the signifying practice per se and the agentivity of the “signifier,” as against the passivity of the object whose symbolic relevance awaits being discovered. Aside from its aptness, the term “significate” also does justice to the plethora of semiotic representations in a generalizable sense, and allows opportunities for the nested symbiosis of the object and the symbolic system, which assumes a prominent role in human cognition. Despite its hard-fought entry into the dictionary of modern English, the notion bears such accuracy as not to be confused with the inherent fuzziness of the loosely defined “object.” In proposing a semiotic resolution to the problem of objectivity, Deely rightly observes, “Not all things exist as significates, but only known things, things cognized, what has entered into awareness. But all objects exist as significates, whether they are also things or not” (2009: 16). The thrust of the proposal illuminates the unfathomable distinction between thing and object, in that the two do not share the same scope. Only those things which happen to fall within our cognitive spectrum become ready candidates of objects, yet conversely, all objects are significates disregarding their thingness. Such asymmetry suggests a mismatch between the objects cognized and identified, with the linguistic labels attached, and those remaining unknown, with yet unavailable linguistic identity. The linguistic label, or name, as a triadic being involves the sign as the vehicle, significant as the object being cognized, and the interpretant as the bridging cognitive mechanism. This observation cannot be fully appreciated without taking into account the unique treatment of the well-established binary divide between objectivity and subjectivity – to regard them as reasonably related rather than diametrically opposed as maintained in modern philosophy. As Deely (2008: 486) explains: “‘Objectivity’ in semiotics is distinct from but hardly opposed to subjectivity. A subject, as just indicated, is simply an actually existing physical reality, with or without a psychological dimension. An object, by contrast, is anything which exists as known, regardless of whether it is a subjective reality or not.” This account of objectivity breaks away from the received binary cut and further provides us with a fresh look on the essence of human language. Linguistically speaking, the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity as such is pertinent to the perception of language signs in fulfilling the communicative needs. The semiotic recognition of language as one of the multiple systems to encode meaning, and specifically, as a cognitive salient means of meaning representation and articulation, is of note here, as it is a potential rather than a one-to-one definiteness that may better capture the workings of human language. In normal cases, an object is known by its name, or the linguistic identity bestowed on it in virtue of the available linguistic resources and degree of specificity. Since resources vary from language to language, the same object is rarely referred to using identical symbols in different languages. The degree of specificity has to do with the current epistemic status of the language user – whether the object to be cognized falls within the spectrum of the “known,” or deserves a new categorization. The object in this regard accords with the displacement feature of human language, given its expressiveness in the virtual and the realm of imagination.

Despite the distantly related theoretical underpinnings, the practice of associating an “object” with an “object signified” is by itself somewhat reminiscent of the long-lasting debate over ming and shi (名實之辯) in Chinese philosophy. Ming (name) is generally seen as the linguistic symbol, and shi (object) the object being directed at. Starting from the Warring States Period (475–221 BC), the debate is widely held to be initiated by Mo Di, the founder of the school of Mohism, a doctrine which departs from Confucianism in its defiance against fatalism and emphasis on authentic being. The “naming theory” proposed by Mo underlines the intrinsic connection between ming (name) and shi (object) in “所以謂，名也；所謂，實也” (Ming is with which the object is identified, and the object referred to is shi)(經說上, jing Shwo Shang, Expounding the Canons, part 1), and sees naming as an objectivity-based practice. The discussion was later joined by the “hundred schools of thought” (諸子百家) during the “Golden Age of Chinese philosophy,” and soon established itself as an independent branch of philosophical investigations, i.e., mingxue (名學, Study of Names), which is generally regarded as parallel to “language of philosophy” in the West (Wang 2014:195), with which mingjia (名家, the School of Names) was born. It should be noted that the issue of Names, i.e., the relationship between ming and shi, makes a substantial topic in Chinese philosophy (Feng 2013:79). The gist of Mo’s naming theory is captured in his famous quote “名，實名；實不必名” (大取 Daqu, Major Illustrations), which can be literally rendered as ‘a name is inspired by the object it refers to; whereas an object may exist in spite of a name,’ with its underlying belief against a one-to-one relationship between objects and the names attached. One may fail to recognize much resemblance between Mo’s stand and the objectivity argument contextualized in the West without searching further for the philosophical underpinnings. What sits at the center of the ancient debate is how connection is established between an object and a name, not merely that between the object and the name. That is to admit the obvious, that there are objects we are not yet aware of, hence which are not yet known or labeled. Mo’s argument emphasizes the fact that not all objects are yet known, and that names by themselves are meaningful only in relation to the objects they signify.

When examined closely, this line of argument seems to strike a chord with Deely’s interpretation, in the sense that language deals with only part of the semiotic realm of reality, consisting primarily of the cognized categories delineated by human knowledge. Language thus bridges the cognized world and human cognition by means of a sophisticated coding set. With regard to Chinese, the bridging between ming as the signifier and shi as the object signified, or the significate, to use Deely’s term, is enabled by yi (意), which points to the cognitive experiences (Dai 1996:142). In terms of semiotic significance, the functioning of Chinese does not seem to differ from other languages in serving as the vehicle for the object to be recognized as cognitively salient and accessible for communication. One may draw from the ancient debate that language is conceived as an enabling system for making cognitively available the objects to be recognized, such that users of a shared linguistic background may unanimously become aware of the referred entity without further efforts of specification. In fact, the remarkable coincidences between arguments born out of distinctive cultural and linguistic contexts suggests the shared semiotic underpinnings of Chinese and Western languages, a starting point from which resolution of the controversies surrounding idiosyncrasies can be expected.

Among the most influential home-born theories aiming to do justice to idiosyncrasies of the Chinese grammar is the “Super-Noun” theory by Shen (2016), who argues explicitly for the nominal nature of Chinese in contrast to Indo-European languages. According to his theory, all lexical categories in the Chinese language boil down to the inclusive nominal class, hence becoming “super,” given that virtually all verbs in Chinese can be used noun-like, for instance, the nominal laodong (manual labor) in laodong zui guangrong (manual labor is the most honorable) as opposed to its verbal usage in ta zai laodong (he is doing manual labor). Examples as such are numerous, and are supplemented by evidence in interlingual usages like return books need no cards (huanshu wuxu shuaka), where the motion-denoting verbal phrase huanshu (to return books) is placed sentence-initially to showcase its in-situ nominal status, which can be accounted for in terms of negative transfer from Chinese L1, in which lexical category of the meaningful unit is subject to change with word order. In fact, the switch between a verbal and nominal state is so readily available that it can be achieved in a natural and effortless manner, as compared with languages where morphological conversion is mostly obligatory (though conversion, or zero derivation, is also active in word formation in languages like English, it is not the default avenue of word class change as with Chinese). The theory is further developed in his latest account (Shen 2017), which proposes that Chinese grammar should be approached by what is termed as ming-shi ou (name-reality coupling), which is interpreted as the coupling of ming and shi. The idea is that the default focus of the sentence falls on the ming, which is formerly read as the topic in a typical topic – comment structure, while the shi is encoded in a natural manner with no clear demarcation between the two, as they are often found in a switchable position as in “一陰一陽之謂道” (one yin one yang is named dao, the combination of yin and yang makes dao) (易經・繫辭上, Yi Jing Xici Shang, The Book of Changes, Xici, part 1) and the reconstructed “道也者，一陰一陽之謂也” (dao is the name for one yin and one yang, dao is the combination of yin and yang). Such a “coupling” mechanism is argued to serve the basis of Chinese grammar and the governing rule for sentence structuring, and is taken as the fundamental cause for the idiosyncrasies hitherto underinterpreted.

It appears that Chinese does enjoy a high degree of flexibility in terms of lexical category conversion, and such observed distinctiveness seems to point to some semiotic concerns underlying its distinctive structuring and operation. To stress its nominal nature is, to some extent, laying emphasis on the referential metafunction of the language. Since nominal units are generally seen as the elemental referring devices within the language system, a noun-dominant language presumably foregrounds its referential potential in activating connections between the represented reality and the linguistic world of symbols. The referential function of language, according to Bühler (2011), is primary in the sense that all objects need to be referred to and identified before being described or commented on. Thus one may assume that with a noun-dominant lexical inventory, the Chinese language would enjoy proximity to the primary function of language. In other words, the Chinese language may naturally be in a unique position to fulfill the fundamental role of human language as an enabling tool for communication. Such a referential potential is manifested in its vaguely delimited lexical categories, and the readiness for almost all verbs to take on a nominal status when needed. We may attribute this trait to a specially defined symbolic nature of Chinese characters. As Chao (1968: 195) concludes, “[Thus] most of the Chinese characters used in historical times are symbolic in the general sense, but only a very few pictographs and ideographs are symbolic in the popular sense.” The trait of a character-based grammar is considered efficient for information encoding, as “it is possible, at the cost of having to know thousands of characters, to give the same amount of information in written Chinese with a shorter string of symbols than in most other systems of writing” (Chao 1968: 217–218). The inherent convenience in such an ingenious design of the language system manifests itself in the functioning of a single character as a self-contained meaning unit, or to adapt from Shen’s term, what might be named a “ming-shi unity.”

3 Toward a semiotic solution to the unbridgeability dilemma

The social and cultural grounding of language beyond its bodily nature further complicates our perception of language in relation to our own beings and to our physical surroundings. The fact that language is experienced both physically (production and construal by virtue of language faculty) and socially (language use as a social practice) constantly reminds us of its flexible and dynamic character. Our metalinguistic awareness, though intrinsically idiosyncratic and self-oriented, may hardly fend off the overwhelming influence from the social engagements which sustain and define our social subsistence. The modern truth about language, so far as the complexity of an increasingly interconnected and mobile world suggests, is that languages as signs may wander across cultural and linguistic boundaries more easily and readily than ever before. Such increased connection and mobility inevitably blends in a degree of fluidity to our modern semiotic consciousness in regard to language, especially with users of a language which has undergone extensive changes in its contact and interaction with other languages. Subtle and often dismissed adjustments over time may add up to systemic changes which, against the well-intended attempts to keep the language as it is, will provide better chances for the language to grow and become “fully fledged” so as to serve multiple purposes in a variety of settings.

It is against this changing landscape of modern languages that the “specificities” of Chinese may call for a reconsideration, above all, one may submit, in the light of Jakobson’s (1959) view that meaning is translatable across languages, despite the potentially more observable differences in some aspects of the language system than others. The Chinese coding of the message is special in more of a representational than a symbolic sense. While a character-based grammar enables a very different style of juxtaposition in organizing and presenting the meaning conveyed, it is fundamentally the connection built between the cognizer and the cognized that matters, disregarding the multiple possibilities of manifestations within and across languages. The nominal nature of Chinese grammar, as has been held as the drive for the fundamental divide, cannot be adequately addressed in isolation, since it sheds light on only aspects of the “facts” of the language, which should be re-contextualized in a modern semiotic network of languages. Many of the earlier observations which made sense in a conservative narrative may fade away in an updated interpretation of the stereotypes, and more importantly, in the attention given to the emerging trends which may shape the future of individual languages.

Thus a semiotics-inspired view of Chinese and the research endeavors toward revealing its intrinsic characteristics seems relevant. It tends to regard Chinese and the other members within the variety of human language as both a “unique” and “typical” case of sign systems subject to constant change as a result of the increasingly diversified and specified needs to encode and convey information, hence the semiotic common ground, or tertium comparationis, on which generalizable observations can be built. With the flourishing networking facilities and computer-mediated communication, the reality of language use has included evident changes which are not to be dismissed for a truthful depiction and better understanding of the language at work. The semiotics construal of the workings of language adds a dynamic dimension to the debated issue and the research undertakings previously defined by a static view of grammar. In this regard, the characteristics and evolution of individual languages are considered in relation to each other, rather than being treated in isolation, and the systemically defined uniqueness is considered and appreciated in comparison with analogical features of genetically related or cross-influencing languages.

4 Some afterthoughts

Both semiotics and linguistics see language and its complex cognitive, social, and cultural embedding as worthy topics, and the inherent link between the two disciplines, manifested most obviously in the shared theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. It therefore calls for combined efforts to be made toward a better understanding of the universals and idiosyncrasies of human language. Semioticians may reap insights from new findings in linguistic studies the same as linguists can benefit from their semiotic colleagues. Apart from cross-fertilization between the two fields, it is also possible that individuals in conducting everyday activities using the language may enjoy perhaps a most relevant semiotic experience. Language as crudely defined as a sign system fulfills our basic needs to convey, process, and store information which would otherwise remain a nebulous thought. The potential of language in articulating even the very distant, ephemeral, and abstruse ideas is remarkable, and the unique design of the system allows its constituents to be applied, combined, and circulated in an effective and efficient manner. That is, what we come to know as the mechanism of language might be seen as the myriad possibilities that a discrete sign within the language system can be joined with other signs to make sense in a specified context, hence its representative potential. In sum, a semiotics interpretation allows alternative views of the construct and function of human language and provides opportunities for mitigating differences across language varieties on grounds of similarities in functional and cognitive underpinnings, which merit further investigation as the driving forces for the development of the language as a changing and enabling system of signs. In regard to bridging the unbridgeable divide between Chinese and other seemingly opposing cases, the ultimate solution may reside in seeking cross-disciplinary and updated insights based on a comprehensive and dynamic picture of the language. Admittedly, to aim for a reliable and generalizable analysis of what characterizes our mother tongue, we may need to remain critical about and “think out of the box” toward Western linguistics, but what we may indeed want to stay alert to is the binary mindset.