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margaretatwoodIn her 2003 novel Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood describes a future after humanity had been almost entirely wiped out by a plague. Jimmy, aka Snowman, lives... Continue »
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Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning

by J Marshall Unger

Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning Cover

ISBN13: 9780824827601
ISBN10: 0824827600
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Synopses & Reviews

Book News Annotation:

Unger (East Asian languages and literature, Ohio State U.) dispels the myth that Chinese characters directly convey meaning without any reference to specific languages and cultural contexts. Written for students of an East Asian language fascinated by the characters, each of the chapters "takes up a different aspect of the lore of the so-called ideogram and raises questions that will...transform mere enchantment into deeper understanding" of the historical, scientific, cultural, and practical flaws in the widespread misconceptions about the Chinese characters.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis:

Exposes the historical, scientific, cultural, and practical flaws accompanying the widespread belief that Chinese characters embody pure, language-less meaning.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Greg, November 14, 2006 (view all comments by Greg)
Compelling erudition, incisive wit, and relentlessly critical sensibilities combine to produce a tour de force work of scholarship. Unger draws on both the familiar and the obscure as he dismantles both pedestrian superficialities and egregiously romantic fantasies and fetishizations attached to writing in general and the Chinese writing system in particular. While there is clearly a demythologizing agenda here, Unger has a positive, grounded contribution to philosophy of language to make as well. That the appreciation of this vision comes only with the pleasure of taking Unger's eclectic tour of conceptions of writing from Renaissance to post-modern is the reader's good fortune.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780824827601
Subtitle:
Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning
Author:
Unger, J Marshall
Author:
Unger, J. Marshall
Publisher:
University of Hawaii Press
Location:
Honolulu
Subject:
Chinese
Subject:
Linguistics
Subject:
Semantics
Subject:
Chinese characters
Series Volume:
GTR-550
Publication Date:
November 2003
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
216
Dimensions:
9.24x5.90x.57 in. .78 lbs.
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