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A Study on the Phonetic system of Collected Annotations on the Four Chinese Books of Daejeonbon – Focused on the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean

이규필 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the phonetic features (音注) of Daejeonbon(大全本), a variorum edition of the Four Chinese Books(四書音注), via examining how the study of its phonetic characteristics consists of a significant part of comprehension and explication of the Four Chinese Books, particularly for the purpose of teaching the text at Chinese language training institutes or in the college classroom. Learning the Four Chinese Books in the Joseon Dynasty was rendered entirely through the collected annotations of Daejeonbon. And the current education of the Chinese classics is still performed with the particular edition because many of the specialized training institutions and departments of chinese literature and language in the universities of South Korea are still in use of the annotated collections of the Four Chinese Books as the primary text to learn it. Granted that the arrangement for the phonetic study should be done for the entire Four Chinese Books, the main discussion of this article is converged around the Great Learning(大學) and the Doctrine of the Mean(中庸). Hence, this essay is primarily focused on the phonetic subject of the two classic texts in order to clarify my argument. The phonetics features of the edition can be divided into six parts: Tones(聲調), Ruzi(如字), Reading(讀), Sound(音), Fanqie(反·切), and combinations of the two or more. Based on the classification and the explication of those different types, this article deals with 'the problems in establishing the Neo-Confucius view of the Chinese classics,' 'the problems of Neo-Confucious scholars' interpretation of the classical texts', and 'the close reading and new interpretation of Zhu Xi's Annotation (章句集注)'. In addition, I examine such phonetic dimensions as 'the precise phonetic values and the pronunciation system of the Chinese in Joseon Dynasty', also investigating the 'literary device and musicality of the Chinese classics' together. Throughout the discussion, this study reasons the purpose of attaching the phonetic annotations to the variorum edition of the Four Chinese Books. In so doing, I come to conclude that the understanding and utilization of the phonetic features of the Confucius classics comprises a significant part of the research and education of the Four Chinese Books, especially in our time.

Citation status

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