On April 15th, “The Source of Text Meaning” International Workshop was held at Shanghai Academy. The workshop was jointly sponsored by Shanghai Academy, the Chinese Literary Criticism Research Society and Social Science Front magazine, and organized by the Contemporary Literary Theory Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Zhang Jiang, Vice President of CASS, attended the meeting and delivered a keynote speech. Executive Vice President of Shanghai Academy, Wen Xueguo, also attended the meeting. Zhang Zhengwen, Secretary of the Party Committee of CASS Graduate School, chaired the meeting.

Zhang Jiang, Vice President of CASS and Shao Hanming, President of Jilin Academy of Social Sciences and President of Social Science Front, delivered speeches respectively. Mr. Zhang offered warm welcome and sincere thanks to domestic and foreign experts present at the workshop and hoped experts could take this opportunity to share their academic views and achievements. Mr. Shao made a general introduction of the magazine Social Science Front and pointed out that discussion of the “source of text meaning” in a new historical context will surely realize regeneration of text meaning and achieve a new height in theoretical study.

Mr. Zhang Jiang pointed out in his keynote speech that, since ancient Greece, there have been two points of view about the "source of textual meaning". First, the meaning of text is inherent, as it is given by the author. In understanding or interpreting the text, we should grasp the inherent meaning of the text. Second, as languages cannot accurately express the intention of authors, naturally they cannot fully express the meaning of the text. In contemporary times, especially in the Western literary theory circle in the twentieth century, there was a dominant view that the meaning of text is shaped by readers and critics, while the text itself does not have any meaning. Such a thought also has an impact on the study of Chinese literary theory today. Mr. Zhang has a different view on this point. He stressed that given the origin of meaning, text comes before interpretation. No matter how you interpret, the meaning must be built on the text. The meaning is interpretable. But first of all, we must make sure what the text is. Interpretation is based on text. We cannot impose our personal will and intentions on the text and call it the meaning of the text.

Experts from domestic and foreign research institutes and institutions of higher learning were invited to attend the workshop, including Fudan University, University of Turin, Bordeaux School of Politics, Shanghai University, Tsinghua University, University of Exeter, Beijing Normal University, South China Normal University, Northwestern University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Graduate School, and all aired their views on the source of text meaning. Professor Zhu Liyuan from Fudan University’s Department of Chinese Language and Literature discussed the meaning of text from the perspective of Hermeneutics. He believed that the meaning of text has three major sources, namely, the meaning of the author, the meaning of readers, and that generated in the process of interaction between the text, the author, and readers. Professor Massimo Leone from the University of Turin’s Department of Philosophy argued that interpretation of text meaning is subject to the context, time, space, ideas, languages, and other factors. In addition, text interpretation is not isolated. Only through interaction between many critics or interpreters can we reach an accurate interpretation. Professor Abel Kouvouama from the Bordeaux School of Politics interpreted text meaning from many aspects, including the status of literary criticism, the relationship between the identity of literary works and the identity of the author, the relationship between the intentionality of literary works, and trans-regional literature. He argued that the interpretation must be based on the original meaning of the text. And he paid more attention to the relationship between language users and text interpretation. In his view, text meaning stems from the language itself, and is given by the language user. Professor Zeng Jun from the College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University aired his own views about multiple sources of text meaning, meaning symbiosis of multi-source text, the literary value of multiple source symbiosis of text meaning. Professor Wang Ning from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Tsinghua University believed that text meaning is the result of joint efforts of three parties, namely, the author, the critics and readers, and critics have an important role in this. Prof. Corrina Wanger from the University of Exeter put forward the idea that understanding of the text, including that of the author’s intention, may be beyond the text itself. Our understanding of the text is influenced by the times we are in. In a sense, it is an expression about a particular era. Professor Li Chunqing from Beijing Normal University’s School of Chinese Language and Literature, put forward two important points of view on the interpretation of Mencius' "Yi YiNi Zhi": First, the meaning of text is important, even more important than the author's intention; second, the meaning outside the text should be the very thing that critics and readers should try to explore. Professor Lu Yang from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Fudan University held that different contexts actually restrict the interpretation of text meaning and he proved that with concrete literary works. Professor Duan Jifang from the School of Literature, South China Normal University emphasized that text has a function of connection. This connection function results in four forms of openness, while such openness is limited, not unlimited. Professor Duan Jianjun, from Northwestern University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts, believed that if the intention of a text is not continuous, it is easy to be seen as a one-time intention, hence likely to cause mandatory interpretation. At the same time, he put forward that the meaning of a text is shaped by the needs of the author, life and art. Professor Yang Mingming from the Institute of Arts and Humanities, Shanghai Jiaotong University, introduced in detail the research of Petersburg School on text meaning. Professor Gu Pengfei from the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Northwest University gave his own opinions on the connotation of the source of text meaning. Professor Zhang Zhengwen of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences believed that text meaning stems from the text intention of the author, critics, and readers. The three together constitute the meaning of the text. Each of the three intentions is clear, but the combined one is vague. That is worth studying.

At the end of the workshop, Chen Yumei, chief editor of the Social Science Front, made a concluding speech. She said that the workshop was a complete success, as the theme was accurately designed and the discussion was rich in content and involved multiple disciplines.

Yang Huijun, Director of the Secretariat of Shanghai Academy, Xiong Hou, Director of the Research Division and relevant personnel from various departments were also present at the meeting.

(By Lu Wenting and Xiang Jinmei)