Comparative Linguistics: Historical and Philosophical Reflections

Author: Pan Wenguo, Tan Huimin / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: For the first time, this book systematically summarizes the history of Western contrastive linguistics on an international scale. It re-examines the development process of Western contrastive linguistics, pushing its origins back by over a century. It also analyzes and introduces the important figures and works in the history of contrastive linguistics and their influences. The book proposes the view that "the history of modern Chinese linguistics is essentially the history of Chinese-foreign contrastive linguistics," re-examining the development of Chinese in the 20th century from the perspective of contrastive linguistics and re-dividing the history of Chinese grammar. Especially in the period between 1955 and 1956, it makes a "cut," providing a historical evaluation of the "provisional system," which gives readers a sense of "fresh perspectives." For the first time, it focuses on some basic theoretical issues of contrastive linguistics, such as the philosophical foundation of contrastive research, linguistic perspectives, the nature of the discipline, its goals and scope, and its definition. Building on the review and summary of previous research, it clearly proposes its own stance. Methodological issues have been a blank spot in the development of contrastive linguistics as a discipline, and this book innovatively fills this gap. The book is suitable for a wide range of readers and can serve as a textbook or reference material for graduate and doctoral students in the fields of Chinese-foreign contrastive linguistics, Chinese studies, foreign language studies, teaching Chinese as a second language, theoretical linguistics, translation studies, and linguistic philosophy. It can also be used as a reference for teachers, advanced students, and researchers in the aforementioned fields.