During the Cultural Revolution, Mao exhorted the Chinese people to “smash the four olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. Yet when the Red Guards in Tiananmen Square chanted “We want to see Chairman Mao,” they unknowingly used a classical rhythm that dates back to the Han period and is the very embodiment of the four olds. An Anatomy of Chinese reveals how rhythms, conceptual metaphors, and political language convey time-honored meanings of which Chinese speakers themselves may not be consciously aware, and contributes to the ongoing debate over whether language shapes thought, or vice versa.

Perry Link’s inquiry into the workings of Chinese reveals convergences and divergences with English, most strikingly in the area of conceptual metaphor. Different spatial metaphors for consciousness, for instance, mean that English speakers wake up while speakers of Chinese wake across. Other underlying metaphors in the two languages are similar, lending support to theories that locate the origins of language in the brain. The distinction between daily-life language and official language has been unusually significant in contemporary China, and Link explores how ordinary citizens learn to play language games, artfully wielding officialese to advance their interests or defend themselves from others.

Particularly provocative is Link’s consideration of how Indo-European languages, with their preference for abstract nouns, generate philosophical puzzles that Chinese, with its preference for verbs, avoids. The mind-body problem that has plagued Western culture may be fundamentally less problematic for speakers of Chinese.

The second edition of An Introduction to Literary Chinese incorporates recent developments in linguistics and has been expanded to include a lesson on Buddhist texts. Beginning with an overview of literary Chinese—its phonology, morphology, and syntax, as well as a short account of the nature of the writing system—the textbook then presents thirty-six lessons of increasing difficulty designed to introduce students to the basic patterns of the language and give them practice in reading a variety of texts.

Part I presents eight lessons on the basic syntactic components in literary Chinese. Each lesson begins with an overview of its topic, introduces an exemplary text, and provides a glossary, notes, and practice exercises. The sixteen lessons in Part II use increasingly long and complex texts to introduce styles of narrative and argumentation in literary Chinese and, at the same time, solidify students’ grasp of the syntax. The advanced texts in the six lessons in Part III introduce students to central authors and philosophical traditions in premodern China and broaden the process of reading to include elements of cultural and historical interpretation. Part IV has six lessons comprising important Tang and Song dynasty prose and poetic texts.

This investigation, based on a sufficient number and variety of modern texts, conducted on sound principles and with scrupulous care, aside from its obvious utility for shorthand and for instruction in reading, is of value to phoneticians in that it affords abundant choice material for the study of the adjustment of sound to sound in the syllable. To the linguist it furnishes also a starting point for comparison of one language with another, in respect either to acoustic effect or to the characteristic operations of the vocal organs; and it provides, in its word list, a foundation for comparative estimates of current vocabulary as an index of national civilization. To one interested in the history of speech, or the history of thought, it suggests and facilitates a series of comparisons of present and past aspects of English, whether one consider the language as an aggregate of sound-patterns or as a medium of expression. Multiple are the uses to which these tables may be put. It is to be hoped that many scholars, in many fields, will avail themselves of them.

[Note accompanying the Original Edition © 1923, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University:]

The text of this investigation is speld in accord with the recommendations of the Simplified Spelling Board. In the material investigated the conventional spelling, as found, has been adhered to strictly thruout.

The fonetist and filologist has always been among the first to recognize the immense importance of the movement for reform of English spelling, which commands the united support of the leading language scolars both of England and America. He should be willing to bear his share of the prejudice which some must endure in the course of progress toward a rational orthografy.

Simpler Spelling Association, Lake Placid Club, N.Y., wil send ful information concerning this important movement on request.