The article “Soulstealing” takes the academic practice of Wang Renqiang, Vice-President of Sichuan International Studies University, as a case study in analysing his scholarly orientation in the course of the autonomization of Chinese linguistics. What follows is a summary of its main points.
I. The Core Judgement
This article takes the academic practice of Wang Renqiang, Vice-President of Sichuan International Studies University, as a case study in analysing his scholarly orientation in the course of the autonomization of Chinese linguistics. The core judgement is this: Wang Renqiang’s entire academic practice is in essence the systematic reproduction, within China’s own academic system, of the cognitive authority of Western theory; by way of “soulstealing” he seeks to summon back Western theory that is already retreating, and to prolong the discursive dominance of Anglo-American theory over the study of Chinese. This practice stands in structural dislocation with the century-long historical trend of autonomization in Chinese linguistics.
II. Academic Pedigree: Theoretical Resources All Come from the West
A bibliometric analysis of the 57 papers by Wang Renqiang indexed in CNKI shows that the core components of his theoretical framework — Saussure’s dichotomy, Croft’s expressive function and propositional speech-act function, Bybee’s usage-based theory, and Nicolescu’s transdisciplinary methodology — all derive from the Western academic tradition, none from China. His “two-level word-class categorisation theory” is in essence a systematic combination of the existing concepts of those Western scholars: it is conceptual synthesis, not theoretical innovation. His academic legitimacy depends heavily on introducing and affirming the authority of Western theory — in 2011 he characterised Bybee’s theory as a “milestone,” yet Bybee herself gave no positive confirmation of this evaluation.
III. Three Operations
First, in the name of “quantum,” the substance of “exporting Western learning eastward.” His “Newtonian thinking versus quantum thinking” polemic is in essence a dispute among branches of the Western intellectual tradition, yet he packages this dispute among schools within Anglo-American linguistics as “Chinese autonomous innovation.” All the core concepts of his theory come from the West, and the objective effect is to reproduce the cognitive authority of Western theory within China’s academic system.
Second, in the name of “proofreading,” the substance of “English standards.” He uses the conversion-labelling norms of English dictionaries as a “normal standard” by which to measure and “correct” Chinese dictionaries; on the grounds that the conversion-labelling ratio of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (5.29%) is lower than that of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (10.48%), he judges that Chinese dictionaries “under-label” and argues that Chinese dictionaries should be “more like English dictionaries.” This judgement presupposes that the English standard is “normal”; in substance, it places the categorial standards of Western grammar above the definition-centred tradition of Chinese lexicography.
Third, boundary-crossing conduct in the name of academic criticism. He criticises Lü Shuxiang, Zhu Dexi, Shen Jiaxuan, Guo Rui and other representative scholars of Chinese linguistics, yet his own academic training is in English lexicography and all his scholarly tools come from Anglo-American functional-cognitive linguistics — an objective disciplinary distance from theoretical research on Chinese. His critical articles rarely receive responses or citations in the Chinese-language scholarly world — in using Western tools to “criticise” indigenous Chinese scholars, he is not within the same academic discourse system to begin with.
IV. Theoretical Disguise
His “quantum linguistics” exhibits evident hollowing at the scholarly level: his “theory” lacks mathematical argument; his “innovation” is terminology substitution (renaming “conversion” as “wave-particle duality,” “polysemy” as “superposition state,” and “contextual disambiguation” as “quantum collapse”); and his “framework” is conceptual synthesis. The genuine quantum-linguistics research in the international scholarly world, represented by Coecke’s team at Oxford, employs mathematical tools such as category theory and linear algebra, and its papers are grounded in rigorous mathematical derivation. Yet in Wang Renqiang’s 57 papers no substantive mathematical argument is to be found. The character of his academic practice should be defined as terminology substitution and conceptual borrowing under the name of “quantum linguistics,” rather than theoretical innovation in any genuine sense.
V. Institutional Mechanism
The reason Wang Renqiang’s academic practice can produce substantive influence lies not in the explanatory power of the theory itself but in the institutional power he holds. The stacking of identities — vice-president, doctoral supervisor, academic leader — forms an academic power structure combining the power of resource allocation, the power of academic evaluation and the power of talent cultivation. The student theses he supervised take the supervisor’s theory as their sole framework; in one case 7 of the 9 references are works published by him; what is produced is not creators of Chinese scholarship but verifiers of the Western linguistic paradigm. Within China’s academic system, this training model systematically, institutionally and across generations reproduces the cognitive authority of Western theory.
VI. Conclusion
The analysis shows that Wang Renqiang’s academic practice may be characterised along three dimensions. “Worshipping at the wrong shrine” — the dependence of theoretical sources: his theoretical tools and theoretical allegiances all come from the West, and not one core component originates in China. “Summoning the wrong soul” — the historical dislocation of academic direction: with Western theory as his analytical tool, English dictionaries as his normative standard and “making Chinese more like English” as his goal of correction, he stands in structural dislocation with the century-long trend of autonomization in Chinese linguistics. “Guarding the wrong post” — the institutional construction of academic legitimacy: taking Western theory as resource, China’s academic establishment as platform and the Chinese-language scholarly world as object, he completes within the academic evaluation system the accumulation of symbolic capital and the consolidation of cognitive authority. The three form a complete causal chain: the dependence of theoretical sources determines the historical dislocation of academic direction, and that dislocation is in turn solidified through institutional construction. Chinese needs no soul-summoning — what truly calls for reflection are those academic practices that seek to prescribe permanently the direction of Chinese-language research by means of Western theoretical frameworks.
The full text is available on the research report page: “Soulstealing”: A Chinese Scholar’s English “Soul-Summoning” in the Autonomization of Chinese