戴震“由字通词、由词通道”思想的现代语言学阐释

A Modern Linguistic Interpretation of Dai Zhen’s Thought of “Understanding Words through Characters and Grasping the Dao through Words”

摘要: 戴震是清代乾嘉学术的重要代表，其学术研究涉及经学、训诂学、音韵学、天文历算及哲学等多个领域。近年来，也有学者从典籍翻译、概念解释和语言理解路径等角度重新讨论戴震思想，提示其训诂方法与现代语言研究之间具有一定的对话空间。本文在吸收相关研究成果的基础上，以“由字通词、由词通道”为核心线索，借助语义学、历史语言学、语用学及语言哲学等视角，对戴震语言思想作现代阐释。文章指出，戴震并不只是从事文字校勘与训诂的学者，而是将语言看作理解经典、形成知识以及把握义理的关键路径。他注重字词意义在历史中的变化和具体语境的作用，讲求语言材料的实证基础，反思脱离文本依据和语言实际的义理阐发。其“由字通词、由词通义”的方法，不仅体现了戴震重实证、求确诂的学术精神，也表现出他的准语言本位倾向与语义分析倾向。对戴震语言思想的现代阐释，有助于重新认识中国传统语言研究中的理论资源及其思想价值。

Abstract: Dai Zhen was a pivotal figure of the Qianjia School of scholarship in the Qing Dynasty, whose academic inquiries spanned multiple disciplines including Confucian classics, exegetics, phonology, astronomy, calendrical mathematics, and philosophy. In recent years, scholars have revisited Dai Zhen’s thought from perspectives such as classical text translation, conceptual interpretation, and linguistic comprehension frameworks, revealing potential avenues for dialogue between his exegetical methodologies and contemporary linguistic research. Drawing on existing scholarship, this paper undertakes a modern reinterpretation of Dai Zhen’s linguistic thought centered on his core maxim “comprehend phrases through individual characters, and attain moral principles through phrases,” deploying analytical lenses from semantics, historical linguistics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of language. The paper argues that Dai Zhen was far more than a textual collator and exegete: he regarded language as the fundamental medium for interpreting canonical texts, constructing knowledge, and grasping moral principles. Attentive to the historical shifts in lexical meaning and the significance of specific contextual constraints, he insisted on empirical grounding for linguistic evidence and criticized moral reasoning untethered from textual foundations and real linguistic usage. His methodology of “accessing phrases via characters and accessing meaning via phrases” not only embodies Dai Zhen’s academic ethos of prioritizing empirical evidence and pursuing definitive lexical glosses, but also manifests his proto-linguistic orientation and his inclination toward semantic analysis. A modern re-evaluation of Dai Zhen’s linguistic thought facilitates a renewed appreciation of the theoretical resources and intellectual value embedded within traditional Chinese linguistic scholarship.