Yu The Chinese HEART in a Cognitive Perspective

Culture, Body, and Language
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-3-11-021334-8
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 12, 453 Seiten, Gewicht: 10 g

Reihe: Applications of Cognitive Linguistics [ACL]

This book is a cognitive semantic study of the Chinese conceptualization of the heart, traditionally seen as the central faculty of cognition. The Chinese word , which primarily denotes the heart organ, covers the meanings of both "heart" and "mind" as understood in English, which upholds a heart-head dichotomy. In contrast to the Western dualist view, Chinese takes on a more holistic view that sees the heart as the center of both emotions and thought. The contrast characterizes two cultural traditions that have developed different conceptualizations of person, self, and agent of cognition.

The concept of "heart" lies at the core of Chinese thought and medicine, and its importance to Chinese culture is extensively manifested in the Chinese language. Diachronically, this book traces the roots of its conception in ancient Chinese philosophy and traditional Chinese medicine. Along the synchronic dimension, it not only makes a systematic analysis of conventionalized expressions that reflect the underlying cultural models and conceptualizations, as well as underlying conceptual metaphors and metonymies, but also attempts a textual analysis of an essay and a number of poems for their metaphoric and metonymic images and imports contributing to the cultural models and conceptualizations. It also takes up a comparative perspective that sheds light on similarities and differences between Western and Chinese cultures in the understanding of the heart, brain, body, mind, self, and person.

The book contributes to the understanding of the embodied nature of human cognition situated in its cultural context, and the relationship between language, culture, and cognition.

Zielgruppe

Scholars and Graduate Students in the Fields of Cognitive Linguis

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yu, Ning

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Einzelne Sprachen & Sprachfamilien
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Semantik & Pragmatik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Preface;5
2;Table of contents;7
3;Chapter 1 Introduction: Heart, body and mind;12
3.1;1.1. Object and goal: Chinese concept of xin ‘heart’;12
3.2;1.2. Heart, culture, and cognition;18
3.3;1.3. Body, society, and cognition;25
3.4;1.4. Body, mind, and culture;33
3.5;1.5. Cognitive semantic study of metaphor: Embodiment;43
3.6;1.6. Structure of the book;50
4;Chapter 2 The HEART in ancient Chinese philosophy;53
4.1;2.1. Introduction: Basic philosophical notions and constructs;53
4.2;2.2. The heart as the locus of the “mind”;62
4.3;2.3. The heart as the locus of moral sense;81
4.4;2.4. The heart as the locus of societal governance;101
4.5;2.5. Summary and discussion;108
5;Chapter 3 The HEART in traditional Chinese medicine;125
5.1;3.1. Introduction: Basic theories of traditional Chinese medicine;125
5.2;3.2. The heart as the ruler of the body;133
5.3;3.3. The heart as the grand master of the internal organs;145
5.4;3.4. The heart or brain: Which one governs the spiritual light?;155
5.5;3.5. Summary and discussion;161
6;Chapter 4 The HEART in present-day Chinese language;174
6.1;4.1. Introduction: A cognitive semantic study;174
6.2;4.2. The heart as a physical entity;182
6.3;4.3. The heart as the locus of one’s inner self;207
6.4;4.4. The heart as the locus of mental life;236
6.5;4.5. The heart as the locus of emotional life;266
6.6;4.6. Summary and discussion;305
7;Chapter 5 The HEART in present-day Chinese discourse;324
7.1;5.1. Introduction: Textual analysis;324
7.2;5.2. The heart in an essay on the “heart”;327
7.3;5.3. The heart in some poems on the “heart”;342
7.4;5.4. Summary and discussion;363
8;Chapter 6 The HEART in cross-cultural comparison;368
8.1;6.1. Introduction: An external viewpoint;368
8.2;6.2. Conceptions of the heart and brain in the West;370
8.3;6.3. A comparative perspective from English;386
8.4;6.4. Four humors and five elements;395
8.5;6.5. Summary and discussion;402
9;Chapter 7 Conclusion;407
9.1;7.1. Looking back in perspective: Some highlights;407
9.2;7.2. Bringing into focus: Holism and dualism, heart and head;416
9.3;7.3. Looking beyond: Methodological issues;423
9.4;7.4. Emerging from it: Afterword;429
10;Appendix 1 Additional idiomatic expressions involving xin ‘heart’ ;430
11;Appendix 2 The Chinese original of “On ‘Heart’ for the New Year”;451
12;References;453
13;Author index;480
14;Subject index;484

Leseproben

(S. 19-20)

For the overall goal of this study, it is relevant to explore the conceptions of the body not only because the heart is a critical organ and a central part of the body, but also because there seems to be a broad spectrum of diverse conceptualizations of how the “mind” (or “soul”) is related to the body across cultures or within cultures over history. More generally, there exist different “ethnotheories of the person” across cultures in the world (see, e.g., Goddard 2003, Wierzbicka 1992, 2005) As mentioned previously, the conceptualization of the heart in the body has to do with the understanding of “mind”, which, including perceptual, emotional and intellectual operations in its broad sense (Robinson 1998) and generally conceived in metaphorical terms (Sternberg 1990, see also Robinson 1998),10 figures prominently in the concepts of self and person.

The person consists of both social and corporeal entities (Fajans 1985). Certain parts of the physical body are socially and culturally elevated to stand for the person. For instance, the human face, which is the most distinctive part of the body, is socially accepted as the focus of interpersonal interaction and relationship and even culturally constructed as the locus of dignity and prestige of a person (Yu 2001).

Therefore, the face stands for the person as a social being. While the reason for the face standing for the person in social life seems obvious (see Yu 2001), the part of the body that takes the central role in a person’s mental life has been historically less so. Thus, there is need to “look for the mind inside the body” across various cultures, which vary with the location of emotionality, mentality, rationality, and morality in certain parts of the body (Sharifian et al. 2008b).

The central aim of Sharifian et al. (2008a) is “to contribute to the knowledge of various cultures’ conceptualizations of the heart and other internal body organs, and in particular how feeling, thinking and knowing are related to internal body organs in different cultures, as they are reflected in the respective languages” (Sharifian et al. 2008b: 3). The volume studies “the synchronic variation and the diachronic development of ‘heart’ conceptions in various languages” including Kuuk Thaayorre, Indonesian, Malay, Basque, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Northeastern Neo- Aramaic, English, Dutch, and Tunisian Arabic. The articles of the volume are divided into three sections depending on whether the languages they study show abdomen-centering, heart-centering, and/or head-centering conceptualizations of the mind.

Über Autor(innen)

Ning Yu, University of Oklahoma, USA.