Anthropocentrism in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary: A Synergic Perspective of Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics

IF 0.8 2区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
Wenge Chen
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Abstract

Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies (CLDS) view the dictionary as a discourse and emphasize an ideological, ethico-political dimension to the lexicographical process. Combining CLDS with Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper looks into how anthropocentrism is manifested linguistically in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Seventh Edition), the most influential authoritative general-purpose Chinese dictionary, by examining the transitivity and appraisal patterns in the definition texts concerning animals and plants. The analysis shows that animals and plants are seldom assigned agency in their own right and that the animals and plants are evaluated either positively or negatively according to whether they are useful to the human beings while their intrinsic value is ignored. In particular, animals are highlighted for their agricultural and medicinal use and plants for their medicinal and ornamental value. However, compared with its previous editions, the dictionary has shown an enhanced awareness of environmental protection by deleting the encyclopaedic information that describes the use of some rare animals’ meat, bones and fur. It is argued that, although modern general-purpose dictionaries are increasingly corpus-based and descriptive, their role in shaping social values and stances cannot be disregarded. Dictionary makers need to balance what words mean with what they can be said to mean or be allowed to mean (Moon, 2014). The study contributes to unmasking and denaturalizing the hidden ideology in colony texts such as the dictionary, enhances a critical use of dictionaries and helps develop the theory of critical lexicography and emerging ecolexicography.
当代汉语词典中的人类中心主义:批判词典学话语研究与系统功能语言学的协同视角
批判词典学话语研究(CLDS)将词典视为一种话语,强调词典编纂过程中的意识形态和伦理政治维度。本文将批判词典学话语研究与系统功能语言学相结合,通过考察《当代汉语词典》(第七版)这一最具影响力的权威性通用汉语词典中有关动物和植物的释义文本中的转义和评价模式,探讨人类中心主义在《当代汉语词典》(第七版)中的语言表现。分析表明,动物和植物很少被赋予自身的权利,而动物和植物的评价是根据其对人类是否有用来进行正面或负面评价的,其内在价值被忽视。特别是,动物因其农业和药用价值而受到重视,植物因其药用和观赏价值而受到重视。不过,与之前的版本相比,《辞海》删除了介绍一些珍稀动物肉、骨和毛皮用途的百科信息,体现了环保意识的增强。有观点认为,尽管现代通用词典越来越多地以语料库和描述性为基础,但其在塑造社会价值观和立场方面的作用不容忽视。词典编纂者需要在词语的含义与它们可以被说成或允许被说成的含义之间取得平衡(Moon,2014 年)。本研究有助于揭开词典等聚落文本中隐藏的意识形态的面纱并使之非自然化,加强对词典的批判性使用,并有助于发展批判词典学和新兴生态词典学理论。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.90
自引率
20.00%
发文量
16
期刊介绍: The International Journal of Lexicography was launched in 1988. Interdisciplinary as well as international, it is concerned with all aspects of lexicography, including issues of design, compilation and use, and with dictionaries of all languages, though the chief focus is on dictionaries of the major European languages - monolingual and bilingual, synchronic and diachronic, pedagogical and encyclopedic. The Journal recognizes the vital role of lexicographical theory and research, and of developments in related fields such as computational linguistics, and welcomes contributions in these areas.
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