sinology

Sinology is the scholarly study of China and Chinese civilization, encompassing the Chinese language, literature, history, philosophy, religion, art, politics, society, and archaeology, as well as related linguistic and cultural studies of China and its wider historical world. The term traditionally refers to work conducted by Western and other non-Chinese scholars, but it is also used within East Asian contexts to designate Chinese studies broadly. The aim is to understand China’s past and present in a comparative, critical, and interdisciplinary way.

Historically, sinology emerged in Europe during the early modern period through missionaries, traders, and scholars who produced translations and commentaries on classical texts. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the field broadened to include philology, archaeology, history, and translation studies, aided by universities and archives. From the late 20th century onward, greater access to Chinese sources and collaboration with Chinese scholars have made the field more diverse and globally integrated. Today, sinology spans traditional philology of early texts as well as contemporary sociopolitical analysis and cultural studies.

Key methods include philology and paleography for ancient texts, linguistic analysis of Classical and modern Chinese, archival research, fieldwork in cultural and religious contexts, and textual criticism. Subfields cover language and linguistics, classical and modern literature, history and archaeology, philosophy and religion, art and film, and contemporary politics and society. Notable figures associated with sinology include James Legge, Bernhard Karlgren, and Jonathan Spence, among others.

Sinology intersects with broader scholarship in East Asian studies, comparative literature, and area studies. Debates in the field address methodological approaches, the colonial history of Western scholarship, representations of China in Western sources, and the role of bilingual scholarship in cross-cultural understanding.