You are cordially invited to join us for the upcoming FHSS Research Conversations on Friday, October 16. Dr. Jianing Chen, from Chinese Culture and Global Communication, FHSS, will be presenting his research on the topic: The Core Essence of Phonological Reconstruction in Historical Linguistics: Phonemic Classification over Phonetic Restitution.
Details of the event:
Speaker: Dr. Jianing Chen, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Topic: The Core Essence of Phonological Reconstruction in Historical Linguistics: Phonemic Classification over Phonetic Restitution
Venue: T2-301
Date: Friday, October 16
Time: 12:00–12:50 PM
Language: English
Please register for this event by following this https://mis.bnbu.edu.cn/survey/index.do before 4:00 p.m. on October 15, so we can make suitable arrangements for lunch.
Abstract:
This speech addresses a foundational question in historical linguistics: when we reconstruct Old or Middle Chinese, do we recover actual pronunciation, or something more abstract? Drawing on the historical-comparative method and Prague School phonology, it argues that phonological reconstruction is a logical science of structural correspondence, not an auditory-recovery project. What is genuinely reconstructable — falsifiable, cumulative, stable — is the system of phonemic oppositions (the Chinese yinlei); phonetic values are auxiliary hypotheses that can be narrowed but never uniquely verified.
The argument proceeds from the comparative method (Grimm's Law, the laryngeal theory) through the phoneme–phone distinction, to a century of Chinese phonology — from Karlgren and Wang Li to Baxter and Sagart — showing stable categories with drifting phonetics across Middle Chinese, Old Chinese rhyme groups, clusters, tones, and excavated texts. Three intrinsic limits — writing system, foreign transcriptions, and speech variation — explain why absolute phonetics cannot be verified. Three criteria for evaluation are proposed: regularity, typological plausibility, and compatibility with evidence.
About the Speaker:
Dr Jianing Chen is a faculty member in CCGC and its current program coordinator. He has extensive teaching and research experience, including a research stint at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Chen’s research areas encompass Chinese linguistics, literature, and cross-cultural communication as well as Sinology translation. Dr. Chen is the recipient of several grants, including Rushing to the Top and the Guangdong Provincial "RMS" Grant - F1 project: Curriculum Development.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Warm regards,
Arina, Michal, Siuhan & Aileen
FHSS Research Conversations Series
