Paul Thompson (sinologist)
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Paul Mulligan Thompson (10 February 1931 – 12 June 2007) was a British
sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...
and pioneer in the field of Chinese computer applications.


Biography

Paul Thompson was born at
Xingtai Xingtai ( zh, s= , t=邢臺, p=Xíngtái , w=Hsing2-tʻai2), formerly known as Xingzhou and Shunde, is a prefecture-level city in southern Hebei province, People's Republic of China. It has a total area of and administers 4 districts, 2 coun ...
in Hebei province, China, where his Northern Irish parents worked as missionaries with the
China Inland Mission OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship and before 1964 the China Inland Mission) is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christianity, Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It ...
. He attended the
Chefoo School The Chefoo School ( zh, first=t, t=芝罘學校, s=芝罘学校, p=Zhīfú Xuéxiào, w=Chih-fu Hsüeh-hsiao), also known as Protestant Collegiate School or China Inland Mission School, was a Christian boarding school established in 1881 by t ...
, a Christian boarding school at
Yantai Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of the People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao ...
in Shandong province, until November 1942 when the staff and students were interned at the Temple Hill Japanese Internment Camp. A few months later, in the summer of 1943, Thompson and his family were moved to the
Weixian Internment Camp The Weixian Internment Camp (), better known historically as the Weihsien Internment Camp, was a Japanese-run internment camp called a "Civilian Assembly Center" in the former (), located near the city of Weifang, Shandong, China. The compound ...
in Shandong (modern
Weifang Weifang ( zh, s=潍坊, t=濰坊, p=Wéifāng) is a prefecture-level city in central Shandong province, People's Republic of China. The city borders Dongying to the northwest, Zibo to the west, Linyi to the southwest, Rizhao to the south, Qingdao ...
city), where they remained until liberated by American paratroopers in 1945. His family then moved back to Northern Ireland, and Thompson completed his schooling in Belfast. After leaving school he travelled widely, and studied at the Free University of Amsterdam, the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
at Minneapolis (where he married his wife, Marcia Cole, in 1952), and the U.S. Army Language School at Monterey, California, but he did not obtain a degree from any of these institutions. He also worked for several years as an interpreter in Japan and a teacher in Taiwan. In 1959 he was accepted into the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
at Seattle, where he obtained a BA in 1960, and studied for his PhD on the lost book of Shenzi under
Hellmut Wilhelm Hellmut Wilhelm (10 December 1905 – 5 July 1990) was a German Sinologist known for his studies of both Chinese literature and Chinese history. Wilhelm was an expert on the ancient Chinese divination text '' I Ching (Yi jing)'', which h ...
. After receiving his PhD he taught at the
University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
from 1963 to 1970, and then in 1970 he was appointed to a position at the
School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...
(SOAS) in London, where he remained until his retirement in 1996. He was a key figure, together with
D. C. Lau D. C. Lau (; 8 March 192126 April 2010) was a Chinese sinologist and author of the widely read translations of ''Tao Te Ching'', Mencius and ''The Analects'' and contributed to the Proper Cantonese pronunciation movement. D. C. Lau studied Chi ...
, Angus Graham and
Sarah Allan Sarah Allan (; born 1945) is an American paleographer and scholar of ancient China. She was a Burlington Northern Foundation Professor of Asian Studies in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at Dartmouth College ...
, in making SOAS a world-renowned centre for the teaching of Chinese philosophy during the 1970s and 1980s. Thompson's major academic achievement was ''The Shen Tzu Fragments'' (1979), a work of textual scholarship in which he constructed a critical edition of the lost book of
Shen Dao Shen Dao () was an early to mid Warring states period Chinese philosopher and writer. Noteworthy as a predecessor influencing both Han Fei and Daoism, his remaining fragments are the most substantial of any Jixia Academy scholar, and may have ...
(probably originally composed during the early 3rd century BC) from the hundreds of quotations from it that are preserved in other Chinese texts. The methodology that he devised for analyzing the Shenzi fragments was based on the methods originally developed in Classical and Biblical scholarship, and was the first time that such methods had been applied to a classical Chinese text. In addition to his work on early Chinese philosophy, Thompson was interested in the use of computers for sinological research, and in the early 1980s developed a Chinese text input system that used dynamic tables of statistical frequency to generate a list of candidate characters, thus laying the groundwork for the development of the most common Chinese language input systems in use today. He died of cancer in 2007. After his death, Thompson's family presented his library to the Centre for Excavated Texts and Ancient Literature, Fudan University, Shanghai. In 2009 a conference was held in his memory at Fudan University, and the proceedings of the conference were published in 2010 as 出土文献与传世典籍的诠释—纪念谭朴森先生逝世两周年国际学术研讨会论文集 (Excavated texts and transmitted literature: a festschrift for Paul Thompson) by Shanghai guji chubanshe ( / 9787532556663). Thompson's widow, Marcia Thompson (1927-2023), was an educator. Following her work at North Harringay Primary School, London, she wrote several children's books, one of which, ''Akbar's India. Growing up and becoming a great emperor'', was published in 2019.Marcia Thompson, ''Akbar’s India: Growing up and becoming a great emperor'' (Balestier Press, 2019) ISBN 9 781 911 221 258.


Works

*1979. ''The Shen Tzu Fragments''. Oxford and London.


References


Obituary in the Guardian by Sarah Allan

Obituary in the Times
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, P. M. 1931 births 2007 deaths Academics of SOAS University of London British sinologists University of Minnesota alumni World War II civilian prisoners held by Japan Internees at the Weixian Internment Camp Defense Language Institute alumni People from Xingtai University of Washington alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty