Can Words Produce Order?

Abstract

This article presents and evaluates a dominant traditional Chinese trust in language as an efficient tool to promote social and political order. It focuses on the term shi(regicide or parricide) in the Annals (Chunqiu).This is not only the oldest text (from 722–481 BCE) regularly using this term, but its choice of words has also been considered the oldest and most exemplary instance of the normative power of language. A close study of its uses of ‘ regicide’ leads to a position between the traditional ‘praise and blame’ theory and its extreme negation. Later commentaries on the Annals and reflection on regicide in other texts, in different ways, attest to a growing reliance or belief in the power of words in the political realm.