法国哲学汉学家朱利安指出，中西都存在“间接书写”的诗学传统。在中国，源自《诗经》的比兴传统引致间接的情感表达，和“风”“味”“象外”等其他中国诗学的原创性范畴共同构建了“含蓄”的中国文学传统，与体现西方“间接书写”传统的象征相对应，突显了中西诗学传统的异质性。但事实上，“间接书写”在汉语里的意义对等词是“婉言”，而形成汉语文学婉言性的根源、方法和内容的是比兴尤其是兴。故比兴和象征方为中西之间平行对照的两个原创性诗学范畴，通过这两者中西诗学话语有可能实现“对话”。

François Jullien suggests that the tradition of indirect writing (l’écriture indirecte) exists both in China and the West. In China, the tradition of Bi-Xing (explicit comparison and implicit comparision) originated from The Book of Songs forms the indirect way of expressing emotion in poetry. Such way of expression combined with other original categories of Chinese poetics contributes to the “alterity” of the Chinese literary tradition by creating an “allusivity” in the text. Its Western counterpart is found in symbolism, which nevertheless showcases the heterogeneity between traditional Chinese and Western poetics. Chinese lexical equivalent to “indirect writing” is wanyan (indirect words), a concept rooted in the tradition of Bi-Xing, especially Xing. This essay proposes that Bi-Xing and symbolism are two original parallel concepts in Chinese and Western poetic traditions, between which a Sino-Western dialogue on poetic discourses is made possible.