Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia

David C.S. Li (Editor), Reijiro Aoyama (Editor), Wong Tak-Sum (Editor)

Research output: Authored / edited bookEdited book (as editor)Academic researchpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

For hundreds of years until the 1900s, in today’s China, Japan, North and South Korea, and Vietnam, literati of Classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic (wényán) could communicate in writing interactively, despite not speaking each other’s languages. This book outlines the historical background of, and the material conditions that led to, widespread literacy development in premodern and early modern East Asia, where reading and writing for formal purposes was conducted in Literary Sinitic. To exemplify how ‘silent conversation’ or ‘brush-assisted conversation’ is possible through writing-mediated brushed interaction, synchronously face-to-face, this book presents contextualized examples from recurrent contexts involving (i) boat drifters; (ii) traveling literati; and (iii) diplo- matic envoys. Where profound knowledge of classical canons and literary works in Sinitic was a shared attribute of the brush-talkers concerned, their brush-talk would characteristically be intertwined with poetic improvisation. Being the first monograph in English to address this fascinating lingua-cultural practice and cross-border communication phenomenon, which was possibly sui generis in Sinographic East Asia, it will be of interest to students of not only East Asian languages and linguistics, history, international relations, and diplomacy, but also (historical) pragmatics, sociolinguistics, sociology of language, scripts and writing systems, and cultural and linguistic anthropology.

Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationLondon & New York
PublisherTaylor and Francis Ltd.
Number of pages360
ISBN (Electronic)9781000579864
ISBN (Print)9780367499402
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Apr 2022
Event東亞漢字文化圈中的語言文化交流國際研討會 Two-day International Symposium at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University: Cultural and Linguistic Interactions Across Sinographic East Asia - The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Duration: 6 Jun 20197 Jun 2019
http://Http://wongtaksum.no-ip.info:81/brushtalksymposium.htm

Publication series

NameRoutledge Studies in the Early History of Asia
PublisherRoutledge

Keywords

  • Sinosphere
  • Sinographic cosmopolis
  • Early Modern East Asia
  • Sinitic brushtalk
  • Brush conversation
  • Scripta franca/written lingua franca
  • Classical Chinese
  • Literary Sinitic
  • Modality of communication
  • alphabetic script
  • morphographic script
  • logographic script

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Arts and Humanities
  • General Social Sciences

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