Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing (original) (raw)
Related papers
京都大學文學部研究紀要, 2012
The majority of Middle English texts are anonymous, and they do not provide information as to when and where they were produced. It is, therefore, often necessary for Middle English text editors to date and localize the language by analyzing its various features. Fortunately, for late Middle English, the existence of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME) (see McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin 1986) is now a great help. By using the "fit-technique" of LALME, one can reach a fairly accurate localization of the language of the scribe at issue. 2 The dating of language, by contrast, is not an easy task, unless some reliable external pieces of evidence are available. In relation to medieval works in general, Damian-Grint(1996: 280) states: "Philological evidence will give a rough approximation of the period in which a work was composed but can rarely indicate a possible date of composition to within even half a century". When a particular manuscript is concerned, the nature of the script together with codicological information can suggest the approximate date of its production, but I have long wondered how linguistic analyses can make a further contribution to this area than they do now. The aim of the present study is to see if some linguistic features can function as linguistic scales to make the "chronological fit" possible. I will analyze for this purpose two different versions of a single text: MS Cotton Tiberius D. VII(MS １ This research was in part supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grantin-Aid for Scientific Research. ２ Iyeiri(forthcoming)illustrates the use of LALME by analyzing the language of the parchment section of MS Pepys 2125, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and shows that there are some caveats to be taken into consideration in LALME's "fit-technique". For details of the "fit-technique" of LALME, see Benskin(1991)among others.
Classical Japanese in linguistic and cross-cultural perspective
慶應義塾大学日吉紀要. 英語英米文学, 2020
In the preface to his famous A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Samuel Johnson notes: "When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation." I cite this not only to show that, though no modern linguist, Johnson was quite aware that "mutability" applies to human language as well as all else that is "sublunary," but also to note that, as learned as he was, Johnson knew far less about the history of the English language than anyone with curiosity and access to Wikipedia can learn, in a matter of minutes or at most hours. Johnson was surely unable to read Anglo-Saxon, also known as Old 70 English. Johnson died in 1784, two years before the first transcription of the manuscript that includes Beowulf, the epic poem that, until recently, even American high-school students read, albeit in translation. Though he was aware of the English tongue's relationship to the Germanic languages (to which he refers as "Teutonick"), his knowledge was at best superficial. By way of contrast, the linguistic discoveries regarding Old Japanese and Classical Japanese 2) by the famous Edo-period philologist Motoori Norinaga (本居宣長), whose life overlaps with that of Johnson, had an enormous impact on the understanding of old texts, notably the Kojiki and Genji Monogatari. These are reflected in all linguistic descriptions even today. It is obviously wrong to think that our interest in the past, specifically our linguistic past, is reliably ongoing-or that a decline thereof is predictable from an absorption in things modern. Here I should like to suggest two seemingly contradictory factors that make for serious study of old texts and old languages: (1) the appeal of academic convention and prestige, (2) the exercise of peculiar talents mixed with eccentricity.
Renaissance Quarterly, 2007
Avicenna, Abelard, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. All these are indeed examined in the present book, but Knuuttila also gives plenty of space to the ancient medical tradition, especially Galen, and to a whole range of church fathers (such as Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cassian, Gregory the Great) and late-twelfth-and early-thirteenth-century thinkers (Peter of Poitiers, Peter of Capua, Stephen Langton) whom the more analytically minded historians have tended to ignore. The outcome of Knuuttila's examination shows very clearly that he is right to draw such writers fully into the ambit of the history of philosophy: not only would the historical development of medieval treatments of emotion be obscure without considering, for instance, the role of Gregory the Great, but some of the minor early Scholastics are shown to have treated the subject with great subtlety and originality. When he sets out early Christian and medieval views of the emotions, Knuuttila goes quite fully into the issues of Christian doctrine and moral teaching with which they were connected. And, although where he finds it necessary-as in his treatment of the logic of the will and emotions in the twelfth century-Knuuttila will use a minimal amount of symbolism, in general he avoids imposing his own terminology and sticks quite closely to the lines of the ancient and medieval authors' arguments, more so than in his earlier work on modality, although that, too, pays close respect to the texts. This approach is very different from what many historians of medieval philosophy in philosophy departments in the United States would favor, but is it less philosophical? Rather, Knuuttila has accommodated himself to a subject that is less amenable than modal logic to being reformulated in contemporary terms. He retains all his accustomed perceptiveness and precision, but he has adapted himself to the demands of his theme, and for the careful reader he provides his own philosophical commentary, more than ever, through hints, suggestions, and understatement.
The subject of this paper -architextuality -has little to do with Gérard Gennette's definition of architextuality as part of a larger scheme of 'transtextuality'. In his book, translated in 1997 as P a l i m p s e s t s, architextuality is perceived as the specification of a text as part of a genre or genres. 1 His careful scrutiny of the subdivisions of text is tremendously useful, but here, by 'architextuality' I seek to engage with architectural metaphors in the interpretation of 'text' in its broadest sense, and especially to question the methods employed in editing texts -whether in print or in electronic form. Effectively, my view is that we need a new frame of discourse as we move into the postprint and hypermedia era, a discourse that allows us to think freely about the possibilities of a more realistic electronic replication of 'text' that reflects the cohesion of a building despite its separate parts. 'Architextuality' thus might provide a different model for thinking about text, its representation and interpretation, though, as will become apparent, any hypothetical model requires solving many more issues, and asking many more questions, than this paper can do; indeed, this model is anything but a solid construct at the moment.