Honte à toi ! Honte à toi ! A propos du caractère chi "honte, avoir honte"

Yau Shun-chiu - « Honte a toi ! honte a toi ! A propos du caractère chi " honte, avoir honte" ». The article is an illustration of a kinetics approach to the Chinese ancient picto-ideogram chi "shame" in connection with certain conventional gestures or corporal behaviors, some of them still practiced today. It is probably the first article entirely devoted to this theme. It will be shown that the formation of this character was motivated by gestures and thus reveals that the history of these gestural behaviors goes back to ancient times. This provides us with some hints about the conception of the gesturo-oral dichotomy in ancient China. Supporting evidence has been drawn from gestures observed in cultural areas other than China. This study has been made accessible to readers who are unfamiliar with sinology but ready to go beyond the boundaries of traditional linguistics.