On The Terms Of Respect And Modesty In Ming And Qing

Terms of respect and modesty flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The terms are used frequently and in great number during that period. However, so far there has been no comprehensive systematic study of the terms of respect and modesty of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This paper attempts to study the terms from several angles: on the basis of dynastic history; macroscopic and microscopic; surviving, static and developing; linguistic and oral; verbal and nonverbal; semantic and practical; quantitative and qualitative; inductive and deductive.The major objective of the studying is initially to sketch the outline of the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing, while at the same time, offering complete and multi-angle illustration of the terms of respect and modesty language in Ming and Qing. It seeks to create a descriptive classification system of the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing Dynasties on the basis of the studying the fundamental theories of the terms; to investigate the semantic system of the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing; to study the concept more widely and draw comparisons with terms used in the Middle Ages and with modern terms. Then we can expound on the cultural origin of the terms, sources of such thinking and on cultural characteristics. Furthermore, the research provides the first step for the diachronical study of Chinese respect and modest terms, seeking also to furnish detailed materials for developing the systematic study of Chinese polite language, as part of the study of Chinese vocabulary history. At the same time, the macroscopic examination of the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing Dynasties from the viewpoints such as cultural science, sociology, psychology, and folklore will provide new points to the developing and study of fields such as linguistics, sociolinguistics, interactive linguistics, pragmatics, dialogue analysis, social intercourse.The thesis is divided into seven parts. Part I is introduction. The next five parts are the main content. The last part is concluding remarks. The introduction sets forth the significance of the study, current situation of research, the rationale and methods, and the theoretical basis.The main contents consist of five chapters in total. The first chapter is a summary. The first section defines the reasons for naming the object of study the "terms of respect and modesty". The second section we defines the terms of respect and modesty on the basis of the definitions used in domestic and foreign literature on the subject: definition on the main body of a book respecting: the language aspects of expressing respect towards others but being modest oneself in the environment of the wider linguistic and expressive fields (including verbal and nonverbal language. The study not only includes the language forms of fixed verbal vocabularies with fundamental meaning or extensive meaning (at the level of morpheme, word, phrase, and clause) but also deals with the nonverbal vocabularies of the posture terms and the written form. At the same time, the forms and aspects of verbal terms are also considered from the aspect of the common run of mankind or provision. It is to be noted that this is not simply a catalogue of the new respect and modest terms created during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but thorough research into the terms of respect and modesty used in that period (including verbal and nonverbal terms). The third section postulates four principles for discriminating effectively between the verbal terms: morpheme principle, sememe principle, context principle and custom principle. The first three principles are inherent in the definition of static state context, while the custom principle is the supplement of the other three principles; the context principle is a distinguishing principle of development in language use. The fourth section summarizes seven characteristics of the terms of respect and modesty: national, epochal character, spiritual, context directional, context dependent, substitute and unbalanced. The fifth section gives a brief classification of the four historical periods: period of germination, heyday period, period of decline and period of reappearance. The respect and modest terms studied here are drawn from the heyday period.The second chapter classifies and illustrates the system. The system of terms of respect and modesty of Ming Qing is then divided into two sub-systems according to the function of verbal terms of respect and modesty in the language: the appellation terms of respect and modesty in Ming Qing and the non-appellation terms of respect and modest in Ming Qing. The appellation terms of respect and modesty are actually respectful and modest forms of address. They are the forms of address which are used to express the attitude and emotion of respect and modesty, which consists not only the terms occurred in the interrelations such as those between relatives, teacher and student, friends, or master and servant, and the characteristic vocabulary terms of respect and modesty which appropriate for different personalities, professionals, positions, and ages, but also covers the different address methods which are used to express the attitudes of respect and modesty, the essential emotions. The system of terms of respect and modesty in Ming Qing is described according to the two aspects: the characteristic address vocabulary of respect and modesty and the address methods employed to show respect and modesty: the former consists of relatives address of respect and modesty, the close kinsfolk address of respect and modesty, the general communicative address of respect and modesty, the general address of respect and modest, the professional official address of respect and modesty, the address of respect and modesty related to the old, the distorted address of respect and modest, the "noun" address of respect and modesty and pronoun address of respect and modesty; the latter consists of "other's taboo fits" method, "self-address" method, "address title" method, "follow the 'son'" method and the general-relative means. The range of the latter is wider than the former, which consists of all the vocabularies that express the attitude of address characteristic terms of respect and modesty and the methods of expressing the terms of respect and modesty.The third chapter discusses the semantic system of the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing Dynasties. The main relations between semantic units are collocational relations and combination relations, which make the terms of respect and modest into a orderly and systemic unity. Therefore, we discussed the terms from the two angles: semantic collocation and semantic combination. The collocation system consists of classification collocation, the identical morpheme group collocation, synonym collocation, antonym collocation, ambiguity collocation, similar morpheme collocation. The combinational relations are mainly embodied in identical morpheme regulation, complementation regulation, order regulation, the same attitude regulation, and the same style regulation.The fourth chapter is a historical comparison of the system of terms of respect and modesty of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. From the first section, the comparison with the Middle Ages, we can obtains the conclusion that "delivery is more important than innovation". When we compare the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing Dynasties (which represents the terms of modern times) with the terms of respect and modesty of Song Yuan Dynasties, or even the earlier Warring States periods, the Ming Qing terms are found to be continuing and innovating (having an urge to replace, and also being separated by generational delivery), depositing and developing, while extending forward. The second section, is a comparison with current terms of respect and modesty. First from the two aspects of the general situation of the delivery and the delivery content, we set forth the delivery of the modern Chinese treatment of the terms from Ming and Qing Dynasties; then we discuss the terms of respect and modesty in modern Chinese as continuing the development of the terms of Ming Qing \from the aspects of obsolescent terms of respect and modesty of Ming Qing, transformed terms of Ming Qing current today, and newly developed terms.The fifth chapter gives a cultural exposition of the terms of respect and modesty. If looking upon culture as a concept of a flexible population of all-embracing human society, the language not only belongs to the culture, it is also serving, reflecting, and transmitting the culture. In the first section, we ascertain that the relation trajectory between the terms of respect and modesty and the etiquette culture during the last period of feudalist society from the angles of serving the culture, reflecting the culture, and transmitting the culture: developing because of serving the etiquette culture, flourishing because of reflecting the etiquette culture, decaying because of conveying the etiquette culture. In the second section: we discuss the power links of cultural thought within the terms of the respect and modesty: the inner and the external, big are small, old and young, excellent and bad. In the third section, we analyze and sum up the cultural characteristics of the terms of respect and modesty of Ming and Qing Dynasties: the non-individual cultural characteristics, the "shui luo shi chu " dyadic characteristics, the "jing yi qing er" dyadic characteristics, the "tian ren he yi, wu wo hun rong" characteristics.The innovation of the essay:1. The appraisal regulations of the terms of respect and modesty and the summing up of the characteristics spiritual terms and substitute terms.2. The brief classification of historical divisions of the terms of respect and modest.3. The classification of the terms of respect and modesty: the behavioral terms of respect and modesty and the written form terms of respect and modesty are accepted in the system of terms of respect and modesty. The behavioral terms of respect and modest and written form terms of respect and modesty.4. The classification of the terms of the respect and modesty: we have given the classification of vocabulary range and means range on both addressing and non-addressing terms of respect and modesty. The difference between the terms of the close relatives in vocabulary range and the terms of the general relatives in language use.5. The contents of the non-verbal terms of respect and modesty vocabulary and non-verbal terms of respect and modesty methods of language use.6. The comparison with the terms of respect and modesty of modern Chinese.7. The cultural exposition of the terms of respect and modesty of the Ming Qing Dynasties.