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I AM very sorry to announce that Professor Mieczysław Jerzy Künstler, 金斯德, died on December 27th 2007. For the last few weeks I have been contemplating the loss of not only my personal tutor and mentor but most of all of a dedicated academic and a great Polish sinologist.
Professor Mieczysław Jerzy Künstler was born in Słupca, Poland, on March 26th 1933. He studied sinology at the University of Warsaw where he obtained a Master’s Degree (magister) in linguistics in 1956, followed by a PhD title (in 1962) with the thesis entitled “Les formations adverbiales à quasi-suffixe en Chinois archaique et dans la langue de l’epoque des Han” and a post-doctoral degree with the book, Ma Jong–vie et oeuvre” (1969). In the course of his studies he was a student of Professor Witold Jabłoński and Professor Janusz Chmielewski, renown Polish sinologists. Künstler’s doctoral and post-doctoral theses were reviewed by Professor Paul Demiéville (Collège de France, Paris), Professor Alexis Rygaloff (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris), Professor dr Olgierd Wojtasiewicz (niversity of Warsaw), Professor Paul Demiéville, Professor Lionello Lanciotti (University of Rome) and Professor Janusz Chmielewski (University of Warsaw). Professor Mieczysław Jerzy Künstler spent a few years on internships in China (1956-58 and 1984-85, Beijing) and in France (1960 and 1966-67, Paris) where the French sinologists and linguists (Demiéville, Gernet, Rygaloff, Martinet and others) exerted a profound influence on his scientific approach to linguistics and on his research directions. Professor Künstler joined the Department of Chinese Studies, Warsaw University in January 1956 first as an assistant teacher, then he worked as an assistant professor (since 1962), in 1978 he became a university professor (profesor extraordinarius) and finally since 1986 he was tenured as a full professor (profesor ordinarius). In the last decades of the twentieth century he was the Head of the Department.
Professor Künstler was a member of many Polish and international scholarly societies: Polskie Towarzystwo Orientalistyczne (since 1955) [Polish Oriental Society], Polskie Towarzystwo Językoznawcze (since 1958) [Polish Linguistics Society], Société de Linguistique de Paris (since 1960), European Association of Chinese Studies and International Society for Chinese Language Teaching as well as Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie [Warsaw Scientific Society]. On various occasions he was invited to give speeches at conferences and meetings around the world (in Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Graz, Innsbruck, Vienna, Mainz, Kassel, Bonn, Paris, Barcelona, Zurich, Bern, Thessaloniki).
Professor Mieczysław Jerzy Künstler published in German, English, Russian and Chinese, both in Poland and abroad Professor Mieczysław Jerzy Künstler published in German, English, Russian and Chinese, both in Poland and abroad. He wrote over two hundred papers and works, including about 30 books, many translations, not only about Chinese but also about other related issues (N.B. for reasons of brevity only a selection of publications has been included in the present obituary). Working in the field of historical linguistics he focused on phonological processes and tones as a suprasegmental element in the Chinese language. He reported on these linguistic investigations in the following papers :
“Toward a Phonologic Interpretation of Tonematic Systems”, in Biuletyn PTJ, t. XXVI, pp. 17-28.
“Two Kinds of Scale Opposition of Tonemes”, in Archiv Orientalni, Vol. 38, Praha, 1970,
pp. 473-488.
“O nieobchodimosti utocznienija opisanija tonal’nych sistiem” (About the Necessity of a More Accurate Description of Tonal Systems), in Tieoreticzeskije problemy wostocznowo jazykoznanija (in Russian: Teoretic Problems of Eastern Linguistics), Moscow, 1982, pp. 63-69.
“The Neutralisation of Phonologic Oppositions in Unstressed Syllables in Modern Pekinese”,in Orientalia Varsoviensa, Vol. 3, Warsaw, 1990, pp. 5-16.
Since he thoroughly understood the relations between Chinese dialects and languages, he was able to use both the historical and the structural approach in order to analyze the form and the meaning convoyed in Chinese lexemes, syntax and discourse...
[ End of sample | Please purchase the magazine for full articles ]
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Professor Ewa Zajdler, PhD, specializes in Chinese linguistics and currently
teaches Chinese Language and culture at the Department of Chinese Studies,
University of Warsaw, Poland. |
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| Issue 5.4 |
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A Voice to
Be Remembered
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