『海國四説』の意味

Abstract

The Haiguosishuo is a work introducing the West written by Liang Tingnan 梁廷枏, a local literate at Canton, soon after the Opium War. The section that introduces the United States (Heshengguoshuo『合省國説』) has often been mentioned as demonstrating Liang's high degree of understanding. The Heshengguoshuo is based almost entirely on E.C. Bridgman's work in Chinese introducing the United States, and in that sense it can be said that the account in the Heshengguoshuo takes Bridegman's account alone as evidence and unfolds Liang's own interpretation on top of it. At that time, it was extremely difficult for Christian missionaries to translate Western concepts directly into Chinese without falling into the trap of 'cultural translation.' One can get a glimpse of the difficulty involved and the extraordinary care required to deal with them from the linguistic theories of R. Morrison, who compiled the A Dictionary of Chinese Language. Contrary to Morrison's care, Liang paid attention only to whether a given Western concept owed its origin to a Chinese one or not, and as a result, expounded his own views without distinguishing between Western concepts and Chinese ones, and described his own image of the United States. It is probable that Liang's work can be used as a clue in understanding the characteristics and significance in late Qing thoughts.