Abstract：The character is far more than a visual means for recording spoken languages. It has its own value. Different script systems and ways of writing manifest different national psyches and cultures. In comparison with alphabetic scripts, the Chinese characters, as the most widely used writing system based on ideography that survives history, is especially unique and significant in standing for its own value and meaning. According to the latest research, when reading the Chinese characters, the natives would produce a unique effect in electroencephalogram called the centro-parietal N200, which shows a possibility that the ideography-based script and the phonemic script are based on the different sensory mechanisms, and the former in nature is closer to the “scheme” proposed by Kant. This can be considered as a merit of the Chinese character users. In this study, I argue that the Chinese characters should be seen as “the living schema”, and as the result, the Chinese way of perceiving reality is associated with imagery and concrete visual thinking, but this should not be considered as the primitive cognition pointed by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. On the contrary, this type of cognitive process can be metaphorically called “the mental dictionary” of Chinese people, which manifests itself in Chinese culture, art, philosophy, religion even science, and permeates every faculty of Chinese society, forming unique ways of perceiving the world.
章启群. 汉字与中国式思维——作为一个哲学问题的断想[J]. 语言战略研究, 2023, 8(2): 5-19.
Zhang Qiqun. Chinese Characters and Chinese People’s Mindset: Assumption of Research of Chinese Characters as a Philosophical Issue. , 2023, 8(2): 5-19.
