The Relationship between Chinese Characters and China Culture

On Chinese Characters and China Culture

Culture, in a broad sense, is the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human society in historical practice. In a narrow sense, it only pays attention to the spiritual level, referring to social ideology, values, aesthetic taste, national mentality, lifestyle, customs and habits, and so on. The culture involved here is widely understood.

Mr. He Jiuying pointed out in "The Culturology of Chinese Characters": "Writing is the product of culture, which serves and promotes the development of culture, and it is itself a part of culture." Chinese characters, as self-source characters, were created by Han ancestors in long-term social practice and are the product of Chinese culture. China culture appeared before Chinese characters, but it also served China culture and greatly promoted the development of China culture.

We illustrate the close relationship between Chinese characters and China culture from two aspects: "seeing the cultural connotation of Chinese characters from the motivation of Chinese character configuration" and "seeing the cultural phenomenon produced by Chinese characters from the ontology of Chinese character configuration".

First of all, look at the cultural connotation of Chinese characters from the motivation of their configuration.

Mr. Chen Yinque, a master of Chinese studies, once said: "According to today's training and selling standards, every sentence explained is a cultural history." As a morpheme, Chinese characters are the unity of form, sound and meaning, and there are undoubtedly rich cultural factors in their own structure. Exploring the motivation of word formation of Chinese characters can reveal many cultural characteristics of the Han nationality.

At present, words related to coins, such as wealth, commodities, tributes, poverty, relief, expenses, rewards, gifts, greed, loans, credit and bribery, all belong to shells. A shell is just a shell. Why can it be used to express the meaning of coins? Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty explained in Shuowen: "The ancients regarded shellfish as precious turtles, and ... went to the Qin Dynasty to waste shellfish for money." It can be seen that seashells were used as the trading medium in ancient China, and it was only after the Qin Dynasty that banknotes were abolished. However, this ancient monetary system still preserves its deformation in the form of words.

According to Shuowen, the Bamboo Book Department has 147 Chinese characters * *. Why? This is because China is rich in bamboo. There are more than 370 kinds of bamboo in China, accounting for about one third of the world's bamboo. Because the climate in the north of Qin and Han dynasties was milder than now, bamboo was also produced in the area north of the Yellow River. Rich bamboo resources made China enter the era of bamboo civilization in Shang Dynasty. Bamboo slips, which were born in the Yin and Shang Dynasties alone, lasted for more than two thousand years and constructed the bamboo culture of the Chinese nation. From the ancient myth that Nu Wa used bamboo as a spring and China used a bow and arrow to shoot for nine days, people in began to plant, love and use bamboo. The clothing, food, shelter and transportation of the Han nationality are closely related to bamboo, which has left a distinct imprint of bamboo culture in Chinese characters.

In Chinese, the organs of thoughts, thoughts and feelings are all expressed by the heart (or the deformation of the heart), such as thinking, forgetting, loyalty, forgiveness, resentment, sadness, memory, worry, joy, fear, embarrassment, respect and admiration. This is a reflection of the ancients' understanding of objective things. Our ancestors thought that the heart was an organ of thinking, and the heart was an organ of thinking. "Mencius Gaozi Shang" said: "The official of the heart thinks." This is proof. In view of this cultural understanding of our ancestors, when we created Chinese characters, we left a batch of Chinese characters that expressed our thoughts and feelings from the heart.

Nowadays, paper is made of bamboo bark, but why did paper characters come out systematically when they were first made? It can be inferred that before Cai Lun invented the new methods and materials of papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, China had already used silk wadding to make paper.

From the structure of "chop", it can be proved that there was a kind of torture in ancient times. Shuowen said: "Cut from the car and the car will crack." A Qing's Duan Yucai pointed out: "This means following the car. Gaigu used a car to crack, and later generations used iron cymbals to crack, so the word was also from the car, and it was heavy for iron cymbals. " Obviously, this ancient "barbaric legacy" does not need modern people to repent.

Mr. Yang Chengneng thinks in the article Cultural Relics of Ancestors Originated from Philology that from Shuowen, we can see whether a thing is closely related to the culture of ancestors. It can be inferred from the word "earth" in 130 years and the word "gold" in 195 years that the relationship between metal and ancient culture is complicated. From the horse word, five percent, from the cow word, five over forty. It can be seen that the relationship between Equus and ancestors' culture is more important than cattle. "This comparison is also reasonable.

In addition, we can also see some changes in cultural factors from the emergence of new words and the disappearance of old words. The appearance of neologisms is closely related to the development of social production, social life and cultural science. The word "gold" appeared in large numbers only after two weeks, but the word "iron" was not found in the two-week inscription, so the word "gold" appeared in large numbers only after the bronze ware was highly developed. The word "iron" can only be created if it can produce "iron". For example, from the advice of bamboo to the needle of metal (traditional Chinese characters are "gold" on the left and "salty" on the right), there is also a historical process from bamboo needle to metal needle. It was in modern times that many new chemical elements were discovered due to the rapid development of chemistry. Therefore, there are 56 new Chinese characters * * * representing new chemical elements, such as oxygen, chlorine, fluorine, neon and carbon.

There are many words from "horse", "cow" and "sheep" in Shuowen, which are related to gender, age, shape, color and action personality. For example, the male horse is called "Zhi", the red and yellow horse is called "Zhi" (xοng), the hairy one is called "Plow" (máo), and the castrated sheep is called "Jie", and so on. These words can only appear after the animal husbandry is highly developed. Similarly, with the transition from a society dominated by animal husbandry to a society dominated by agriculture, the things represented by these words have not disappeared, but the words that can represent them have gradually disappeared, and some have simply become "dead words". Mr. Zhang Shilu's View of Ancient Society in Words tries to prove that "the evolution of human society is mostly from fishing and hunting to animal husbandry, and from animal husbandry to farming".

In a word, Chinese characters have extremely rich cultural connotations, reflecting ancient social life, social consciousness and national customs, and are excellent historical materials for studying ancient China society.

Second, look at cultural phenomena from the perspective of Chinese characters.

After the appearance of Chinese characters, based on the shape of Chinese characters, many unique cultural phenomena of the Han nationality have emerged, which are listed as follows:

1, dual and couplet

Duality is a figure of speech, which uses a pair of sentences with the same length, structure and semantic association together to make the expression even and symmetrical. The writing form of Chinese characters is square characters, and each syllable occupies the same space on the paper. Duality is unique in Chinese rhetoric, and it is a rhetorical device with the most national characteristics of China. It is deeply rooted in China culture. For example, five-character metrical poems, couplets (three or four sentences) and necklaces (five or six sentences) of seven-character metrical poems all require strict antithesis, such as "there is moonlight in the pine forest and crystal stone in the stream". Bamboo whispers that the laundry girl returns, and the lotus leaves bend before the fishing boat "(Wang Wei's Autumn Night in the Deep Mountains)" Leaves are like waterfalls, and I see the long river rolling. I came from three thousand miles away. Sad this autumn, sad for a hundred years, climbing this high alone "(Du Fu's Ascending the Mountain). The titles of each chapter in classical novels are mostly dual, which concisely summarizes the center of this chapter, such as "Lin stabbed Cangzhou Road, Lu made a scene in the wild pig forest" (Water Margin) and "Zhen Meng was psychic and dusty woman" (A Dream of Red Mansions).

Couplets are a special form of antithesis, which are written on paper, cloth or engraved on bamboo, wood and columns. Spring Festival couplets have become an indispensable part of China culture. Spring Festival couplets, wedding couplets, elegiac couplets, shop couplets and couplets are all great books, each with its own merits. Here, we take couplet advertisements as an example.

The use of couplets in advertisements has a long history. It is said that Ji Xiaolan, known as the first gifted scholar in Qing Dynasty, was a master of pairing. He wrote a couplet for a barber shop in Dashilan: "Although he has no skill at all, he is a master of kung fu". In 1930s, there was a kind of wine called "Samsung Brandy", and the market was always depressed. So the factory owner came up with a unique trick and published a pair of top-down in the newspaper. The recharge is "Huangmeitian in May", and there are many people signing up. Of course, the best bottom-up is "Samsung Brandy". With this pair of couplets, "Samsung Brandy" gained great fame and prospered its business. Shanghai's "Kuanding Leather Clothing" also specially collected the advertising slogan of couplets, and chose: "Let's split the profits three times and innovate one product". Other advertising couplets include: "Being with time and space is like the sun and the moon shining constantly" (radar watch), "Less noise and more tranquility" (double deer refrigerator), "Department store asks more questions, and thousands of customers never tire of taking thousands of things" (department store), "Safety comes from long-term vigilance, and accidents come from instant paralysis" (traffic safety public service advertisement) and "Accept life with a normal heart"

2. Analyzing words, borrowing words and linking edges

Word analysis is a figure of speech, which divides a Chinese character into several independent words that can express meaning. For example:

"yes! Find him! Today, I broke with the' working class'! " The union chairman will not "break up" with them. Bye-bye? -Break up? No way! The chairman of the trade union shook hands with them affectionately (Liang's Before the Break)

The word "bye-bye" here is divided into "hand", "minute" and "hand", which is a kind of personality analysis.

The phenomenon of monosyllabic and homonymic Chinese characters is serious, and they are often confused in spoken language, so the surnames of Han people often have synonyms for analyzing Chinese characters, such as Eighteen, Zhang Gongchang, Li, Koutianwu and Gu. Again, for the sake of meaning, we analyze "fen" as "eight knives" ("hitting eight knives" means breaking off the engagement), "madam" as "seventy birds" and "thank you" as "words". Another example is the analysis of the text: "The sun and the moon are divided into five hills", "The freezing rain showers the window, and it is two o'clock in the east and three o'clock in the west; Chop the guests, seven knives, eight knives "; Analysis of the poem: "The sun and the moon are bright and faint, and the mountain wind rises." The skin of the stone is still strong, but the old wood will not die. Where can people come from? If the meaning is a thousand miles. Yan Yong Yong Huang Ho's ambition is not over. "(In the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Yi stopped writing" In the mountains, Jiang Zi and I were sent to be doctors ",and the variant of" Yong "was left" Yan "and right" Yong ". )

Borrowing words is a figure of speech that borrows one word to replace many descriptive words. For example:

She went to a table, took out a piece of paper folded into the word "you" from under a big medicine bottle, looked at the name written on it and asked me in surprise, "What's your last name?" ? Is there anyone with a surname of' You'? "(Liu" Silver Ingot View Mountain ")

Here, the Chinese character "you" is used to describe how the note is folded, which is a kind of loan word.

Another example: using the Chinese character "big" to describe someone's special sleeping position ("putting a short body into the word" big "); The Chinese character "needle" is used to describe the battle position ("the needle battle position was laid between Jiang, Huai, He and Han"); The Chinese character "chuan" is used to describe the muscles between the eyebrows ("the muscles between the eyebrows are twisted into a" chuan "); Use the Chinese character "Lu" to describe kissing ("only one word" Lu "was created); Wait a minute.

Continuous change is a figure of speech, which deliberately selects several words with the same radical to connect in series to create momentum. For example:

/kloc-in the winter of 0/945, Li Dequan (the wife of General Feng Yuxiang) presented a neat elegy for the female student killed by the reactionaries in the "December 1st" tragedy in Kunming, publicly protesting against Chiang Kai-shek's plot to instigate the civil war, and was extremely indignant at the reactionaries' killing of the students. Couplets are:

There are ghosts and remnants, and there are leaks from HowNet;

Harp pit, ask why civil rights exist!

(Excerpted from "Abstract" No.64)

Here, the four words next to the word "ghost" are used in the upper part, and the four words next to the word "king" are used in the lower part, which is justified. This is the joint edge.

Others are like the couplets in the carriage shop: "Welcome to the road near and far, advance and retreat moderately, and go quickly." There is 14 next to the word "go" in the upper and lower couplets, which means that cars come and go, which fully reflects the characteristics of the industry and is quite ingenious.

Another example is the old "Temple of the Sea" couplet: "The vast Wang Yang River is full of waves, clouds and thunder." In the first part, 1 1 characters next to "three-point water" are selected, and in the second part, 1 1 characters with the prefix "rain" are selected (the traditional characters of "cloud" are "rain above" and "cloud below"), which highlights "water"

It is said that Ye, the prime minister of the first year of the Ming Dynasty's apocalypse, passed by Fuzhou to visit Minhou people and new scholars. Ye Gao Xiang said with a smile, "I'm afraid I can't enter the West Gate tonight." Weng knew that he was going to stay here tonight, so he said, "I spoil Sue, but I'm lonely in a poor window." Ye Jian's words used in the conversation were all "treasure hijab". At first, he was surprised, and then he said to him, "The guest official lives in an official palace, and the rich room is generous." This kind of confrontation is really elegant and interesting.

3. Crossword puzzles and argots

A riddle is a game in which things or words are suggested to people to guess. Crossword puzzle is a kind of riddle, which takes words as the answer. For example, the following crossword puzzle:

Can't get rid of it (the answer is "together")

You and I are 50/50 (the answer is "cutting")

Almost independent (the answer is "now")

There is an apostrophe in the wooden word (the answer is "shift")

You can eat more and use less (the answer is "art")

Another long crossword puzzle goes like this:

Come downstairs, and the money will fall.

Ask heaven, where is the "person"?

I hate "Wang" Sun, who has been there.

Hating an enemy is hard to keep a word.

I'm sorry that "I" slipped out.

There is an upper cross, but there is no lower cross.

Why ask "soap"?

You don't need a knife to split.

From now on, don't rely on "hate" and "people".

Acacia disappeared in the "thousand".

Its answer is ten words, namely: one two three four five six seven eight nine Ten.

Argot is a kind of discourse that is popular in social groups and kept secret from the outside world. For example, the digital pronouns of buyers and sellers are: 1 (Dandi), 2 (Gonggong), 3 (Hengchuan), 4 (Looking horizontally), 5 (Lacking ugliness), 6 (Breaking big), 7 (Tiger dike), 8 (separately), 9 (not Pilled) and/kloc-. Another example is a nursery rhyme in the history of the Five Elements of the Later Han Dynasty: "A thousand miles, He Qingqing, ten days, can't be born." Here, "a thousand miles" is an analysis of Dong, and "Ten Days Cloth" is an analysis of Zhuo, which means "Dong Zhuo will die". However, because of his power, he dare not say it clearly, so expressing it in this way is not only an analysis of the text, but also a code word.

As can be seen from the above analysis, most riddles and argots are formed by attaching to Chinese characters.

4. Palindrome and Pagoda Poems

Palindrome is a poem that can be read backwards or repeatedly. For example, in the Southern Dynasties, Wang Rong wrote a palindrome poem in the backyard:

Reading:

The oblique peak winds around the path, and the rock belt connects the mountains.

Flowers play with birds and trees sing cicadas.

Read backwards:

Cicada sings in the secret tree and birds play in the flowers.

The mountain is connected with the stone cluster, and the winding path slants around the peak.

Whether looking forward or backward, it is a fresh and meaningful poem.

Another example is that Li Yu and his wife shared palindromes in the Song Dynasty:

Reading is a husband's wife;

Looking at the distant mountain across the water with dry eyes, how many times have you met?

An empty pot is afraid of drinking a glass of wine, and harmony is difficult to write a poem.

The way to stop people from leaving for a long time, the news is sent back late.

Lonely lights kept a long silence at night, and husbands remembered their wives, fathers and children.

Reading backwards is a wife and husband;

A child remembers his father, his wife and her husband, and a lonely night watchman is lonely.

There is no news of sending geese, so I have been away from people for a long time.

Poetry is difficult to write, but a glass is afraid of an empty pot.

I met several times, but my eyes dried up when I looked at the water from a distance.

Baota poem, as its name implies, looks like a pagoda. For example, Bai Juyi wrote such a pagoda poem in the Tang Dynasty:

poetic sentiment

Beautiful and wonderful.

On a moonlit night, when the flowers fall.

Can help laughter, but also hurt parting.

Clear stone resentment, sing ghosts and gods bitter.

The king should only love me, and only you know it in the world.

Since captain Zhang said goodbye to Sue's words, he has never said goodbye to anything.

Hu Shi's article "Remembering Hu Mingfu" also leads to two pagoda poems:

At that time, I was beginning to write vernacular poems and often discussed literature with my friends. Mingfu suddenly sent two limerick poems one day, not only in the vernacular, but also in the vernacular. ..... The second song is a "pagoda poem":

Idiot!

Fit it!

Don't read!

A cigarette!

Only do vernacular poems!

Speak quickly, but do it late!

When you did it, you had been three hours!

I also answer him a poem "Fautu Poetry":

Hey!

Strange!

Huge,

I write poetry!

Needless to say.

I write poetry quickly,

It never takes three hours,

Why bother to lift a pen,

The pen tip is flying in front,

No matter how many layers the pagoda poem has!

This friend's fun in the game is pitiful, and now it has become a history that will never return!

Judging from palindromes and Baota poems, they are firmly attached to the special ideographic features or physical structure of Chinese characters, and most of them belong to the nature of word games.

In addition, calligraphy is an art based on Chinese characters, which expresses certain emotions and meanings through stippling. Seal cutting is a kind of seal cutting with artistic value in China, which is named after the seal script was printed on the ancient seal. It goes without saying that these two special art categories also depend on Chinese characters.

Here, I would like to add that some words enter Chinese vocabulary through Chinese characters, such as: Jing Tian family, herringbone, Chinese character face, zigzag, pyramid, Tian Zige; Idioms, such as: crossing the street, not fighting, leaning on a knife, making something out of nothing, fish and tiger, facing the sea (the first three are mainly loanwords or words; The latter three are all descriptions of many mistakes in the text, provided that there are similar words in Chinese characters); Two-part allegorical sayings, such as: more pride-smelly, less horizontal-a little rustic, grandma Wang and grandma Yu-similar; Proverbs, such as: the field raises pigs, pigs raise fields, people bully the land, others bully others; Wait a minute.

To sum up, it is not difficult for us to have a deeper understanding of the close relationship between Chinese characters and China culture. In view of the close relationship between them, Chinese character culturology came into being. One of the tasks of this new discipline is to explore the relationship between Chinese characters and China culture. That is, study China culture from the perspective of Chinese characters, and study Chinese characters from the perspective of culturology (Preface of Chinese Characters in China, edited by He Jiuying, etc.). We believe that with the efforts of a generation of scholars, the study of Chinese characters and China culture will surely achieve more fruitful results.

Note: The materials cited in this paper mainly come from the following documents:

Chinese Character Culture, He Jiuying, Liaoning People's Publishing House, 2000, 1 version;

Language and Culture, Luo Changpei, Chinese Publishing House, September,1989;

Rhetoric and advertising language, Ni Baoyuan, Zhejiang Education Press, June 2006, 5438+0 edition;

Perspective of Advertising Language Creation, Shao Jingmin, Beijing Language Institute Press, 1996 1 version;

"Agent? Strange body? Hybrids-Poetry and Songs, Bai Huanran, Inner Mongolia University Press, 199 1 year 1 edition.