On Hushi’s View of Language
论文作者:CHEN Wen-yao1论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-03编辑:黄丽樱点击率:5578
论文字数:论文编号:org200904031525461991语种:英语 English地区:中国价格:$ 66
关键词:vernacular Chinesecontentoral languagewritten formintrinsic linguisticsBackground
Abstract: “The May Fourth Movement” is an essential period when Chinese ideology and culture experienced profound changes and also the period that vernacular Chinese take the place of classical Chinese. As one of the leaders of the movement, Hushi has provided us many inspirations about scientific thinking and research method. Also as a modern language researcher, Hushi has his original views of language and has made great contribution to the reform of the Chinese language system. This paper will mainly introduce Hushi’s views about language and also see to the defect in his thoughts by applying Saussure’s views about language.
There are mainly three literature schools in the nineteenth century of China, namely the school of Tongcheng (桐城派), Wenxuan ( “文选” 派) and Jiangxi (宋代江西派). The largest one is the school of Tongcheng, which has formulated some rules on the basis of Confucianism. First, they promotes that language is used to bear and propagate morality and ethics. Second, they respect for intonation, rhyme and color, and according to them, the wording should be strictly polished and no vulgar words should be adopted.
At that time, Chinese literature was dominated by these three schools. Only poem and non-fiction prose were treated as serious literature. Novel and drama were commonly despised. Many novels, short stories and scripts in the precedent centuries written with vernacular Chinese were all regarded as heterodoxy.
At the end of the nineteenth century, there came some development of literature revolution. (1) After 1895, some young poets and the reformers began to advocate the new form of poems. They tried to add some prose words, new or western words and vulgarism in the composition of poems. (2) The form of prose started to serve for applied purpose. (3) Vernacular Chinese came into use in publications. (4) WANG Guo-wei held that literature should picture the life. (5) The PingYin system began to be setup.
But at this period, reformers failed to threaten the traditional language system.
The literature revolution from 1916 is different. First, new reformers challenge that classical Chinese is dead language. Second, they hold the vernacular Chinese in esteem. Third, they attack the traditional theory that language is used to bear and propagate morality and ethics.
2. Some Basic Views of Language by Hushi
Hushi put forward the “eight principles” which has smashed the long-standing way of valuation of Chinese traditional poems. The old way stands for the morality in content, the romanticism in artistic conception, the neatness in form and the rhyme in rhythm. Hushi’s “eight principles” are: meaningfulness, no copy of ancient literature, observance of grammar, no pretension, no cliché, no literary quotation, no anti
thesis and no avoidance of vulgarism. (吾以为今日而言文学改良,须从八事入手。八事者何? 一曰,须言之有物。二曰,不模仿古人。三曰,须讲求文法。四曰,不作无病之呻吟。五曰,务去烂调套语。六曰,不用典。七曰,不讲对仗。八曰,不避俗字俗语。 ) (《胡适文萃》 ,1991:3)
And Hushi has seen thought and form as a whole and realized that language, as the carrier of thought, is a tool to change the culture and furthermore the society. He puts forward that language should be a tool to express emotion and thought. (语言文字都是人类达意表情的工具, 达意达的好, 表情表的妙, 便是文学。 ) (ibid: 214)
He thinks emotion is the spirit of language and he includes aestheticism into the category of emotion. And thought makes language colorful while language makes thought enduring. It is a good language if it can appropriately and artfully express emotio
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