One opinion of traditional Chinese Philology is that Character is a shape, or a concrete image in one’s mind. But in modern Chinese linguistics and Philology quoted from linguistics in Europe and America, character is considered as the symbol of language. The same of these two ideologies is that character is seemed as a symbol. But the difference is that character equals meaning in the former one, on the contrary the latter considers character equals language. In the former theory, they are the same status between character and language, but in the latter theory, character is seemed as the dependency of language. This difference was originated from different research objects, different standing, and different theoretical basis.

• 連登崗(中國 南通大學) | Denggang LIAN