A Contrastive Study Of Cultural Meaning Between Chinese Chess And International Chess

As an abstract picture of ancient battlefield and the wisdom of people in old ages,together with the most typical representative of ancient civilization and culture, chesshas been developing and famous for a long history. Up to now, the chess game hasbecome a competitive match and is increasingly popular with chess fans both in Chinaand overseas, at the same time, the chess has a great impact on every country where thechess covers.After proposing the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis which raised how languages affecthuman thought, the connection between the nationality of language and the nationalityof culture have become the final study intention for scholars. And that also proves theremust exist close connection between language and culture. Thus, if people want toacquaint one kind of national culture, they require to study its language in advance, viceversa.In this thesis, the research object Chinese chess or the international chess isactually one kind of representative of its own local culture. Perhaps, both of them havebeen invaded by other cultures, or have been affected by exchange of local varioussocieties and institutions, in some degree. And finally, only illustrating their languagephenomenon reflected by this kind of culture performance, its cultural connotation canbe found out. Nowadays, as for the academic research about Chinese chess and theinternational chess, foreign scholars pay their much attention to what are the exactorigins of those Chinese chess and international chess, how those chess pieces lay outon chessboard, and even how the chess players can be trained well, so do Chinesescholars. Otherwise, there are a few scholars whose research intentions are involved insocial institutions through comparison and analysis between the Chinese chess andinternational chess. However, these studies are relatively less and scattered.This thesis focuses the cultural meaning on the study of Chinese chess and theinternational chess, which includes the study of chess and chessboard’s origin, chesspiece terms meaning and the chess piece rule of metaphor from the point of combination between cultural view and meaning view.Only through comparing pieces’ superficial meaning,�'/兵and infantry,车andchariot,马and cavalry are the piece terms in both two kinds of chesses. But Chinesechess piece term象/相,将/帅,炮/炮,仕/士and international chess piece term Bishop,King, Queen have no superficial corresponding ones. When the piece terms’ innermeaning and the metaphor in rules between Chinese chess and the international chessare compared and analyzed, the author divide the Chinese and international chesspieces terms for a total of13pieces into7groups according to their meaning relevance.They are马and Knight,车and Rook,象/相and Bishop,将/帅and King,兵/�'andPawn,仕/士and Queen, and炮/炮. After categorizing every group of these chess pieceterm meanings, some of their expressions which have the same meaning with piece’ssymbolic meaning on chessboard will be written down in a subordinate category groupfor further characteristic analysis.At last, these metaphor phenomena in the rules of13chess pieces will becombined with the corresponding piece term meanings which stand for the symbolicmeanings on the chessboard. They will also be analyzed deeply to achieve the finalreason why these rules come out. After combining it with previous analysis discoveredfrom cultural aspects, the thesis can successfully acquire the similarity and difference ofsocial backgrounds, cultures and institutions from Chinese chess and the internationalchess. There are four findings in total as follows:1.Most types of Chinese chess piece terms and the international chess piece termsare similar as well as their piece rules, but it is no clear evidence to prove that these twokinds of chesses come from the same origin or either of them derives from the other one.And the only conclusion is that both of them actually have close connections.2.Speaking of the comparison between the Chinese chess chessboard and theinternational chess chessboard (on the Chinese chess chessboard, both two sides of theChinese chessboards are the same and symmetric while the international chesschessboard is laid out with alternate black and white squares whose quantity iscompletely identical). In this case with relevant research, the author can acquire that theancient Chinese people incline towards the theory of Great Unification from ideologist Lao Zi while the thought and lives of ancient international people are dominated bythese two opposite religions deeply, namely Catholicism (represented by white square)and Orthodox Christianity (represented by black square), and no matter who is the rulerof the country where these two religions are always there and can not be wiped out.3.In comparison between the Chinese chess piece term meanings and theinternational chess piece term meanings, what is concluded is that for most Chinesechess piece meanings, each piece term always has more than one meaning, and only oneof them can fit the “concept” which should be used on chessboard. So the author shouldpick up the appropriate one from those meanings and do further analysis. In addition, afew piece terms’ appropriate meanings are derived from verbs initially, and there is onlyone piece term that can directly express the proper “concept” which stands for itssymbolic meaning on chessboard. But different from the meaning of Chinese chesspiece term, the meaning of every international chess piece term can directly express itssymbolic meaning on chessboard by its original meaning. From what is discussed, ingeneral, the meaning of the Chinese chess piece terms are not as direct and concrete asthe meaning of the international chess piece terms to describe or express the “concept”which stands for its symbolic meaning on chessboard. Here, Chinese chess piece termsare always polysemies while international chess piece terms are with one singlemeaning.4.In both of the Chinese chess and the international chess, the cause of formingrules of pieces moving on chessboard actually can be illustrated by the view of theconceptual metaphor. It appears to be that a salient characteristic of a piece termmeaning is mapping to the chessboard. Then, it can also be supposed that the process offorming a piece rule seems to be a process of forming a metaphor. For example, In theChinese chess, the rule of the piece马is“马走日”. The moving route of piece马can beseen as a shape as similar as “L”, which is fictive step of piece马. And in fact, the routeof it can also be regarded as diagonal,“/”or “\”in the structure of “日”.From these basicelements, there are two causes of moving diagonally: the first one, the symbolicmeaning or image of the piece term马on chessboard is cavalry which is specialized inattacking with quick fix and unpredictable route. This kind of characteristic of the piece 马is salient, which is called as the source domain. Meanwhile, the fictive step shape“L” on chessboard indicates unusual and unpredictable characteristics of the cavalrymarch’s route, which is addressed as the target domain. Thus, the metaphor of rule“马走日”consists of two parts, one is the quick fix and unpredictable route reflected bycavalry, the other is the unpredictable march line. The characteristic of the cavalry ismapping to the chessboard, and the characteristic of fictive step “L” just can embodycavalry’s unpredictable march. On the other hand, now that the piece马stands forcavalry, and the direction for cavalry is usually stabbing or chopping diagonally, so thischaracteristic of attack direction for cavalry is salient, which is called as the sourcedomain. Meanwhile, the moving route of the piece马can also seen as “\”or “/”which isidentical to the attack direction. Right here, the metaphor in “马走日” highlights thedirection of attack. To sum up, these two causes all arise from the characteristics of thepiece马mapping to the chessboard, and the similarity inside piece term meaning andthe moving route make up the foundation of metaphor. Through the relevant researchabove, piece rules of the Chinese chess and the international chess all own similar ordifferent metaphor phenomena, and their primary causes lie in the different and similarcultures between China and western counties.