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An Anatomy of Chinese - Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics (Hardcover, New)
Loot Price: R1,680
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An Anatomy of Chinese - Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics (Hardcover, New)
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During the Cultural Revolution, Mao exhorted the Chinese people to
"smash the four olds": old customs, old culture, old habits, and
old ideas. Yet when the Red Guards in Tiananmen Square chanted "We
want to see Chairman Mao," they unknowingly used a classical rhythm
that dates back to the Han period and is the very embodiment of the
four olds. An Anatomy of Chinese reveals how rhythms, conceptual
metaphors, and political language convey time-honored meanings of
which Chinese speakers themselves may not be consciously aware, and
contributes to the ongoing debate over whether language shapes
thought, or vice versa. Perry Link's inquiry into the workings of
Chinese reveals convergences and divergences with English, most
strikingly in the area of conceptual metaphor. Different spatial
metaphors for consciousness, for instance, mean that English
speakers wake up while speakers of Chinese wake across. Other
underlying metaphors in the two languages are similar, lending
support to theories that locate the origins of language in the
brain. The distinction between daily-life language and official
language has been unusually significant in contemporary China, and
Link explores how ordinary citizens learn to play language games,
artfully wielding officialese to advance their interests or defend
themselves from others. Particularly provocative is Link's
consideration of how Indo-European languages, with their preference
for abstract nouns, generate philosophical puzzles that Chinese,
with its preference for verbs, avoids. The mind-body problem that
has plagued Western culture may be fundamentally less problematic
for speakers of Chinese.
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