Дескриптивізм і прескриптивізм у китайській традиції кодифікації мов веньян і байхуа

Abstract

This article analyzes in detail the mechanisms and concepts of the codification of the language norms of the ancient Chinese language in the historical perspective in the light of the problem of coexistence, interaction, development of several immanent linguistic categories. The ratio of descriptive and prescriptive approaches in the processes of codification of the ancient Chinese language, the study of dominant and peripheral approaches to the fixation of linguistic phenomena, the analysis of extralinguistic factors influencing the formation of the language, allow us to understand and explain the linguistic phenomena of the modern Chinese language. The formation of a speech norm through codification processes was caused by a whole range of factors: a political factor (the need for the consolidation of society, the formation of statehood and national identity); socio-economic (urbanization, communication and, as a result, social mobility of the population); cultural (correspondence of the processes of formation and selection of language norms to the ideas of the ruling ethical and philosophical trends, linguistic ideology and the aesthetic canon of their time). In this article, the terms “prescription”, “language codification” are considered in the context of the Chinese philological tradition, primarily in their relationship with the term’s “description”, as well as “language norm”. The codifiers of the ancient Chinese language are represented by various types of dictionaries, and most linguistic studies were carried out to reveal the original meaning of a certain hieroglyph, and not to establish the role of the processes of description and prescription in the selection of linguistic phenomena for the formation of a speech norm. In particular, the study carried out in this article aims to fill this gap and offer answers to questions about the factors of influence and methods for selecting the language norm in the Old Chinese language.