From Pattern to ‘Culture’?: Emergence and Transformations of Metacultural Wén.

Abstract

In this dissertation I trace (i) the emergence and different stages of the use of the term wén in pre-Qín texts to refer to language-specific conceptualizations of ‘conventionalized behavior’ and (ii) the emergence of the use of the English term culture as a translation of the term wén and as an analytical concept in discussions of ‘cultural identity’ in early China. I do so by proposing a linguistic anthropological approach to the study of historical changes in collectively shared conceptualizations of ‘conventionalized behavior’ through lexical changes in text corpora. Combining theories of metaculture with theories of lexicalization enables me to analyze pre-Qín concepts of ‘tradition’ or ‘culture’ as language-specific metacultural concepts which are anchored in particular historical contexts. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the term wén in three ways. First, I argue that metacultural uses of wén did not exist in the pre-Zhànguó period. At that time when wén was used to refer to positive attributes of individuals of noble rank, it meant ‘awe-inspiringly beautiful.’ This use of wén derived from more the basic meaning ‘decorative pattern’ through processes of metaphorical extension and abstraction. This dissertation thereby offers new insight into the social importance of externally visible beauty in early Zhōu society by proposing that pre-Zhànguó uses of wén referred to physical appearance rather than acquired moral traits (as proposed in the Chinese commentarial tradition). Second, I argue that metacultural uses of wén referring to the abstract concept of ‘(patterns in) conventionalized behavior’ developed in the Zhànguó period (481-221 BCE) from the earlier meaning of ‘awe-inspiringly beautiful.’ By providing a chronology of these changes, I avoid the anachronistic interpretations of wén which originated in the Chinese commentarial tradition and which have continued to influence the way scholars translate the term to the present day. Third, I show that the wide-spread assumption that wén means ‘culture’ is a relatively recent phenomenon that owes more to the increasing popularity of the term culture in the English language over the last two centuries than to a deepening of our understanding of the pre-Qín metacultural concept referred to by the term wén.