CARDINAL DIRECTIONS IN CHINESE LANGUAGE: THEIR CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC MEANINGS

Abstract

Introduction In his discussions of dominant Ndembu ritual symbols, Victor Turner points out that one major property of is polarization of meanings. That is to say possess two clearly different poles of meanings - physical and physiological (the sensory pole), and abstract and ideological (the ideological pole) (Turner, 1967, p.28). At sensory pole, meanings represent the natural and physiological phenomena and processes and arouse desires and feelings. At ideological pole, meanings represent components of moral and social orders, to principles of social organization, to kinds of corporate grouping, and to norms and values inherent in structural relationships (Turner, 1967, p.28). The same kind of polarization of meanings can be detected in cardinal directions of Chinese symbolic system. However, Turner did not focus his discussions on interrelations between sensory and ideological poles of symbolic meanings. Durkheim's and Mauss's Primitive Classification represented one school of thought on this issue. They argued that origin of logical classification was a result and an aspect of social classification (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963, p.84). In case of cardinal directions, more evidence has indicated that sensory pole of meanings determines ideological pole rather than other way around. In this article author first applies etymological method to study meanings of direction words in Chinese language. The author believes such analyses help to understand how directions have been perceived in history of written language. The latter part of article discusses how cardinal directions and other orientation concepts are used as part of traditional Chinese symbolic system. Following Jung's definitions of vs. symbols (Turner, 1963), we can say directional words are signs of known meanings of directions, whereas directions and other orientation concepts are of unknown universe. Etymological studies of directional words allow us to trace evolution of Chinese characters, whose hieroglyphic nature is particularly conservatory of ideological evolution of words. The etymological data are mostly collected from a variety of well-recognized dictionaries and online dictionary sites in both English and Chinese. The semantic units in Chinese language arc words and characters. However, graphemes and phonemes of characters have been studied in some cases in order to understand origin of meanings. In addition, idioms and phrases are also informational sources as it usually takes a long time for them to be established. Hence, they are used to trace ancient meanings of words as well. Space and time are two of most fundamental concepts in all cultures, essential reality of human life. Like air we breathe and water we drink every day, they are daily necessity we could never do without but usually take for granted. Perception of space and time defines essence of a culture's worldview, which differs in geography and in periods of history. It is especially so in Chinese culture, as cardinal directions have become an integrative part of its symbolic classification system that defines physical and social reality. Studying perception of space and time would allow us to tap into depth of a culture's worldview. The Chinese Characters Before starting discussions of direction words, author would like to give a brief introduction of some major etymological and linguistic principles of Chinese writing system. This will provide theoretical foundation for some later discussions. If we are to divide writing systems in world into three types: logographic system (in which minimal complete unit is a logogram), syllabic system (in which minimal complete unit is a syllable) and alphabetic system (in which minimal complete unit is an alphabet) (Writing system, Wikipedia), Chinese writing system is a typical logographic system. …

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