A r t i c l e s

KRUPA, Viktor: Life and Health, Disease and Death. A Cognitive Analysis of the Conceptual Domain, p. 3
KRUPA, Viktor: Nature in Maori Metaphor, p. 14.
DROZDÍK, Ladislav: The Impact of Honorific Stratification on the Identification of the Elided Subject in Korean, p. 28.
BEST, Karl-Heinz – SONG, Hea-Yean: Wortlängen im Koreanischen, p.39.
GÁLIK, Marián: Melancholy in Europe and in China: Some Observations of a Student of Intercultural Process, p. 50.
ZANON, Paolo: The Opposition of the Literati to the Game Weiqi in Ancient China, p. 70.
GÁLIK, Marián: Gu Cheng‘ s Novel Ying‘ er and the Bible, p. 83.
LEE, Mabel: Walking Out of Other People’s Prisons: Liu Yaifu and Gao Xingjian on Chinese Literature in the 1990s, p. 98.

ABSTRACTS

LIFE AND HEALTH, DISEASE AND DEATH.
A COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN

Viktor KRUPA
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

It has been observed before that the semantic characteristics of the concept of life in some Polynesian languages is so fuzzy as to be hardly delimitable from the concept of health just as sometimes no clear line can be drawn between the concepts of death and disease. Average Europeans are inclined to believe that life is separated from health and even more so death from disease by a sufficiently wide and safe gap, but in a society that has (or had, at least in the not so distant past) at its disposal no very effective therapeutic methods, the transition between these adjacent concepts need not be as difficult as all that.

NATURE IN MAORI METAPHOR

Viktor KRUPA
Institute of Oriental African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

Metaphor is known to occur in all languages of the world and its appearance in speech is stimulated by factors inherent in the so-called problem situations, in the activity known as problem solution. Therefore we can distinguish poetic and cognitive metaphors. A predominantly cognitive basis, for example, gives birth to metaphors in the speech of children, in terminology (especially at the forefront of science) and in the early phases of the existence of pidgins. Here we have to do with lexical metaphors that on the whole serve practical purposes of communication and their basis is chiefly cognitive, perhaps with the exception of stylistically marked expressions where emotional factors are in the foreground.

THE IMPACT OF HONORIFIC STRATIFICATION ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE ELIDED SUBJECT IN KOREAN

Ladislav DROZDÍK
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

Elision of the subject is a self-regulating linguistic process that aims at reducing the sentence depth in regressively shaped languages, like Korean. The loss is partly compensated by the honorific and speech-level stratification. Its impact upon the identification of the omitted subject is limited by several factors some of which will shortly be examined in what follows.

WORTLÄNGEN IM KOREANISCHEN

Karl-Heinz BEST and Hea-Yean SONG
Seminar für deutsche Philologie der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Humboldtallee 13, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Aufgabe dieser Untersuchung ist es, am Beispiel des Koreanischen die generelle Hypothese zu überprüfen, daß die Häufigkeit, mit der Wörter verschiedener Länge in Texten verwendet werden, durch Gesetze geregelt ist. Es wird gezeigt, daß mit der Dacey-Poisson-Verteilung und mit der Hyperpoisson-Verteilung gute Ergebnisse bei koreanischen Texten erzielt werden.

MELANCHOLY IN EUROPE AND IN CHINA:
SOME OBSERVATIONS OF A STUDENT OF INTERCULTURAL PROCESS

Marián GÁLIK
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The aim of this paper is to characterize the different modes of melancholy in the West and in China during the ages beginning with the 8th cent. B.C. in Greece and 3rd cent. B.C. in China up to the beginning of the 20th cent. within the framework of intercultural process.

THE OPPOSITION OF THE LITERATI TO THE GAME OF WEIQI IN ANCIENT CHINA

Paolo ZANON
Via Leonardo Bruni 10, 35124 Padova, Italy

With the development of Neo-Confucianism during the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD), the orthodoxy of Chinese society was gradually redefined. However, as board games, which have often been considered as of secondary importance, do have their place in social studies, we may now ask ourselves how this redefinition of epistemological values influenced the attitude of the cultivated Chinese élite towards games.

GU CHENG'S NOVEL YING'ER AND THE BIBLE

Marián GÁLIK
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The aim of this study is to show some important and less known facts from the last year of the contemporary writer Gu Cheng and to analyse the relations between Bible and his novel Ying'er from comparative point of view.

WALKING OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S PRISONS: LIU ZAIFU AND GAO XINGJIAN ON CHINESE LITERATURE IN THE 1990s

Mabel LEE
University of Sydney, School of Asian Studies
Sydney, N.S.W. Australia 2006

In the early 1980s the names of Habermas, Derrida, Foucault were suddenly familiar to Chinese intellectuals, along with those of other Western writers and thinkers who had been banned for half a century. Western creative works and literary theories played an important role in subverting the authority of the literary principles of Mao Zedong which had been progressively implemented until they became cast iron orthodoxy during the Cultural Revolution. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, in Chinese literature and criticism, the writer, reader and the works had been ideologically "sanitized" of human odour: criticism, harassment, imprisonment and even the threat of loss of life were effective deodorants. The rigid conformity imposed upon minds during that period, created symptoms of spiritual deprivation. The response was a voracious appetite for the rations of personal freedom which allowed for a modicum of individual diversity and difference: this diversity and difference was to be found both in foreign literature and art, and in China's pre-Marxist cultural heritage. As liberalization was promoted by the Party primarily as a means to achieve economic modernization, it was the culture of the modernized West which was accorded official sanction; at the same time, the marketing of Western capitalism was highly attractive to a society weary of conformity. For reflective minds in society, the appeal of Western literature was equally attractive.