皆川淇園の言語研究 : その言語観を中心に

Abstract

Kien Minagawa (1734-1807) is known as a Japanese Sinologist of the Edo period. The present author would like to argue that Minagawa's linguistic inquiry is worth noticing for the following four points: 1) Studying psychological processes of the speaker and the hearer by observing language in use, he considered that language functions as a means of communication and that it does so as a system. 2) He clearly recognized that meaning is loaded onto linguistic expressions through the human, subjective mental activities of coding. Not only did Minagawa differentiate the meaning existing in the mind of the speaker both prior to and subsequent to the encoding process, but he also understood that the essential function of language is that of communication between the speaker and the hearer. 3) Minagawa identified the relation between the phonetic aspects of linguistic signs and the meanings carried by them with the relation between something signifying and something signified. 4) He seems to have been aware of the necessity of distinguishing between synchronic and diachronic aspects of language. Kien Minagawa's view of language can be summarized as follows: Language is the product of human mental activities. More precisely, language is to be regarded as a fundamentally subjective mental process, one which effects the transference of meaning from the speaker to the hearer. ("mei(名)", "bu-tsu(物)", "sei(聲)", "shou(象)", and "sin-ki(神気)") Spoken language (speech) works as a necessary substitute for the act of pointing when the speaker and the hearer are yet to establish a common ground of mutual understanding concerning a thing or an event. Demonstratives are employed as the subtitutes for the act of pointing, and they themselves are replaced by substantives. Written language (characters) are utilized to inform someone at a great distance of states of affairs, so that they serve as the substitutes for spoken words. ("sei-tou-mu-mei (正當無名)")