The object of investigation of this study is embedded in the context of imperial China. Thus, all Chinese text is presented in traditional Chinese characters. As an exception, citations from modern publications, names, and titles originally in simplified characters are retained in that form.
This study relies on the Hanyu Pinyin system for the Romanisation of Chinese text. Quotes originally in older Romanisation systems—including Wade-Giles and others—are adapted to the Hanyu Pinyin system in the interests of consistency. Similarly, quotes from American sources are expressed in British English.
All translations are by the author of this study, unless stated otherwise. The adage “all translations are ultimately interpretations” applies to the translations in this study as well. All Chinese characters, concepts, and passages are explained by at least one possible English rendition. However, some Chinese texts involve multiple layers of meaning. For the sake of brevity, not all meanings for all characters and phrases can be expressed in the translated text. Since the English language is sometimes not sufficient to convey the often multi-layered meaning of the original Chinese text, the author has included Chinese characters for all relevant passages by way of acknowledging this problem.
Zhou Lianggong, like other Chinese authors, often changed his texts as compared to the original source. Some of these quotes have a long history and can be traced through multiple different sources. The author, therefore, adheres to the version in the Zichu, not the original source texts. The original source texts are only described if they are vital to the argument or are of special interest.
Entries from the six chapters of the Zichu 字觸 are presented in the following format: “Roman numeral-Arabic numeral”. The Roman numeral refers to the number of the respective chapter of the Zichu, the Arabic numeral to the number of the entry in the specific chapter, starting with the first entry of each chapter as number one. Thus, I-1 alludes to the first entry of the first chapter, VI-24 to the twenty-fourth entry of the sixth chapter, III-15 to the fifteenth entry of the third chapter, and so on.