| The present study of ours, which is named A Study on the Evolution of the Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics, is designed to investigate the manifestation of the evolution of the metalanguage system in Contrastive Linguistics as it has been gone through different periods and stages in the process of development of the branch of learning since the very beginning of its birth. By asking all the time during the whole process of the study such fundamental questions as "What should Contrastive Linguistics do? What has it already done? and What it should do next?", the study aims to find out the specific pattern and trend of the discipline by means of observing the presence and absence, as well as the changes of certain metalanguage(s) in the system, which are considered as to show the status of development of the principle in such major aspects as the study’s objective and significance, its scope and objects, its approaches and procedures, and its value as well. In a word, the study of ours is to study the history of Contrastive Linguistics as an independent principle from the perspective of the evolution of its metalanguage system.This dissertation is made up of seven chapters.As an introduction of the whole dissertation, the first chapter copes with the necessity of the study, and the objective and significance of studying the history of Contrastive Linguistics from the perspective of the evolution of its metalanguage system. After three basic principles of extracting metalanguages from various works of contrastive linguistics being established as the historical principle, the hierarchical principle and the representative principle, a classification of metalanguages has been done by the author, in which the metalanguages have been classified into three major kinds as Core Metalanguages, Ordinary Metalanguages, and Auxiliary Conceptions and Expressions which are also considered as metalanguages in an broad sense simply for the convenience of conducting the study. Thus, an Ideal Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics has been constructed consisting of the three subsystems as the Core Metalanguage Subsystem, the Ordinary Metalanguage Subsystem and the Auxiliary Metalanguage Subsystem. An Ideal Frame of Contrastive Linguistics is also designed to consist of four major parts. A base of the frame was firstly established mainly dealing with the view on language, the theories (if any) of general linguistics, and the definition of Contrastive Linguistics (if any). Then on this Base, the three Metalanguage Subsystems referring respectively to subjects of the study, approaches or methods to perform linguistic contrasting, and values (both theoretical and practical, if any) are built, each composing of some metalanguages to form its own subsystem of metalanguages from the Ideal Metalanguage System. Both the Ideal Metalangauge System and the Ideal Frame of Contrastive Linguistics are used as references or "archaeological instruments" to retrospect the history of Contrastive Linguistics, so that the status of development of Contrastive Linguistics in different periods or stages could be observed clearly.The second chapter deals with the foundation and prospects of the study. A literature review is firstly presented in which the foregoing studies on the history of Contrastive Linguistics by the forefather scholars both from China and abroad are fully discussed, and then a large number of monographs, articles and books of collected papers are discussed in a reasonable classification, with an expectation to obtain some enlightments and to find some space for the study to carry out. On the base of the discussion, a new division of the history of Contrastive Linguistics is designed to accommodate both the western Contrastive Linguistics and that of the Chinese, in which the whole history of Contrastive Linguistics from Humboldt (1820) to today is divided into four major periods as the Period of Origination and Creation (1820-1955), the Period of Practical Turning and Declination (1956-1976), the Period of Resuscitation and Development (1977-1989) and the Period of Blooming and Expansion (1990---), serving as a plot for the body of the dissertation to develop as separate chapters.The third to the sixth chapters compose of the body of the dissertation.The third chapter deals with the evolution of the Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics in the Period of Origination and Creation (1820-1955). By recognizing Humboldt as the creator of Contrastive Linguistics, the process of the establishment of western Contrastive Linguistics from Humboldt to Jespersen to Whorf is discussed fully. A complete Metalanguage System in Contrastive had been established in the West. By recognizing Ma Jianzhong as the beginner of contrastive study in China, the efforts of the Chinese linguists from Ma to Li Jinxi, to Chen Chengze, Hu Yilu, Wang Li, Lu Shuxiang, and Gao Mingkai, etc. to establish Chinese Grammar in different ways has been fully discussed. However, their efforts were put to a large extent into the establishment of Chinese Grammatology or System of Chinese Grammar, and contrasting was simply considered as a method to realize the goal, a metalanguage system in Contrastive Linguistics was far from being established.The fourth Chapter discusses the evolution of the Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics in the Period of Practical Turning and Declination (1956-1976). There began a turning in the western Contrastive Linguistics from Lado (1957) who considered it the sole aim for Contrastive Linguistics to serve foreign/second language teaching and learning, so that the so-called "practical turning" began to degrade Contrastive Linguistics to Contrastive Analysis. Di Pietro (1971) met with the awkwardness of universal grammar in his pursuit for a support from the transformational-generative linguistic theory to his contrasting of language structures, making the situation of Contrastive Analysis even worse as to decline. Contrastive study in China in this period was also in its declination because of the publication of a somewhat official document with the name "A Temporarily-drafted Chinese Grammatical System for Teaching"(1956), and simply stopped because of the "Great Cultural Revolution"(1966).The fifth chapter deals with the evolution of the Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics during the Period of Resuscitation and Development (1977-1989). The center of Contrastive Linguistics moved from the USA to Europe in this period with the discipline itself transforming its focus from micro-contrasting to macro-contrasting. The idea of Contrastive Linguistic developed by Whorf began to regain its position in Contrastive Linguistics, which made the discipline to attach more importance to the constructing of its own theories. Contrastive study also regained its position and was becoming more and more popular in China owing to the need from the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language and foreign language teaching in the country. Contrastive study in China became to attach importance to theoretical constructing thanks to the meta-thinking on the discipline by some scholars with foresights. The gap of Contrastive Linguistics between China and the west was becoming narrower and smaller.The sixth chapter discusses the evolution of the Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics in the Period of Blooming and Expansion (1990---). Since1990, with the renaissance of Whorf’s idea of Contrastive Linguistics, the discipline began to take a new look on the whole in the world. Beginning with the constructing of a contrastive linguistics system, Contrastive Linguistics in the west has been moving on its way toward a much more inclusive discipline to embrace nearly all subjects such as cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics, contrastive rhetoric, contrastive textology, etc., broadening its scope of study and enhancing its theoretical foundation with cross-culture as the major perspective. In China, beginning with the publication of the first book of collected papers in Contrastive Linguistics by Yang Zijian and Li Ruihua in1990, Contrastive Linguistics also had been moving on its way to the real establishment as an independent discipline, which was almost realized when the first monograph in the world directly named "contrastive linguistics" by Xu Yulong in1992. Afterwards, various works including journal articles, books of collected papers, monographs have been bloomed dealing theoretically and practically with all kinds of relevant topics including system constructing, contrastive study and translation, pedagogical application of contrastive theories, cross-cultural communication, etc., making the Chinese Contrastive Linguistics progress ahead in the world. What really made things different was the publication oversea of the monograph Contrastive Linguistics:History, Philosophy, and Methodology by Pan Wenguo and Tham Wai Mun (2007), which drew great attention from linguists in the world and aroused their interests in the progress made by Chinese linguists in the field.As a conclusion of the whole dissertation, the seventh chapter makes it clear that the Ideal Metalanguage System in Contrastive Linguistics designed at the beginning of the study of ours has almost been established thanks to the efforts of generations of contrastive linguists during the nearly200years’development of the discipline. The world Contrastive Linguistics as a whole shows a tendency of "being a harmonious one" at the higher level of philosophical linguistics via its developing historically, methodologically and philosophically. |
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