A Cultural Perspective Of The Language Of Fictions In The Last 20 Years Of The 20th Century

It is a very important part of the research of fiction to study the language of fictions. So studying the language of fictions occupies an important place in the research of fictions. There are two ways in the traditional study on the language of fictions. One is to see the language of fictions from the angle of style and the other is to analyze the rhetorical figures in the language of fictions. The both of them have a long history, can reveal some aesthetics features of a fiction & the writer's aesthetics ideal, the skills, their aesthetics effect, and help the readers to appreciate the fiction writers' superb skills when reading. But the both are on the base of the traditional view of languages, i.e. the tool view. So they have obvious defects. The discussion on the style of the language of fictions is prone to "seeing the forest but tree " because it confines on describing a whole impression. And it is empty and not concrete. And the analysis of the rhetorical figures in the language of fictions is prone to "seeing the tree but forest" because it dismembers a whole art life of a novel. During the join of the 19^th century and the 20^th century, the " linguistic turn" that has a great historical meaning takes place in the West. It brought a great change of the view of languages and made the building linguistic poetic possible. Since 80s of the 20^th century, under the enlightenment of the "linguistic turn", our theoreticians and criticizers have been building the linguistic poetic to accord with the reality of the writing of Chinese literature. This doctoral dissertation is written in the academic background. And its intention is to research the language of fiction and the phenomena of languages from the cultural angle, to reveal the depth of the cultural significance of the language of fiction and to lead to the birth of the subject of fiction-linguistic-culture.The part of introduction discusses the relation between language and culture at first. On one hand, the language is the most important manner of existence of culture. It must depend on a language to express and hand down the most profound part and the marrow of a culture. Every one has to accept a kind of culture while he learns a language. On the other hand, with the change of a culture, the language, from the angle of the evolution of the human language , must change correspondingly. Not only the narrative language of a fiction, from the angle of the study of the language of fiction to see, but also many names of the implements and appellations and the words of value relates to all respects of cultures and contain rich profound cultural significance. So the characters' parole in fictions must be painted the colors of a culture, because the characters are in their life. Besides, every writer grows up in certain culture surroundings, so his fiction language will be marked of the culture surroundings. And he stands a specially appointed position to choose appropriate language to write. Then I review the change of the fiction language in the development of the culture in the first 80 years of the 20^th century. In a history of Chinese fiction, the main patterns of the fiction language at first were "graceful", "delight" and "monstrous". Then, with the change of the culture, the language of fictions was from classical Chinese to the vernacular that stands for the class of townspeople and becomes fresh and vivid. In Ming & Qing dynasty, the graceful poetic forms were used to write a fiction. The Dreams in the Red Mansion is a great synthesis in the language of fiction and is the most excellent represent of the language of the ancient fictions. With the feudal culture declining, the language of fictions went downhill. After the end of the 19^th century, the language of fictions absorbed a lot of fresh words and patterns of expression from the society of townspeople, modern humanity and science vocabulary from the West, while the news trade rose, modern metropolis appeared and the culture of the West came in. The New Culture Movement of May 4^th brings a chance that the language of fictions went toward modern. The modern vernacular as the represent of the mass culture replaced the classical Chinese as the symbol of feudal culture. The individual discourse was blended in the narration and the parole of characters in fictions. The enlighten discourse that stood for the spirit of the time became a main trend of the language of fictions. Modern polity penetrated into the language of fictions. And the language of fictions started going toward the mass. Then, the politicization and popular of the language of fictions became a trend gradually. During the period of Great Cultural Revolution, the language of fictions was very monotonous and rigid because of the high-handed polity from the authorities. Since Great Cultural Revolution, the theoreticians' and criticizers' concept of the language of fictions have taken place an essential change from the view of tool to of ontology in the new history and cultural context. Much probe work has been done for building the poetic of Chinese fiction language.The main part of this dissertation is made of four chapters. And the revolution of the language of fictions in the cultural context of the last 20 years of the 20^th century is discussed in the first chapter. The cultural context not only becomes an important factor for understanding the thinking connotation of sayings and writings, but also restricts writers' writing to a great extent. So the change of the cultural context must influence the writer to choose and use his language. After Great Cultural Revolution, the language of fictions still paced up and down the shadow of Great Cultural Revolution. The polity occupied an important place in the language of fictions. During the end of 70s and the middle of 80s, the enlightenment of thinking and culture is a main cultural context. And the language structure of fable and the solemn style were used in many fictions in this cultural context. The humanistic reason was poured into the language of fictions. The readers were lead into the condition of dialogue and let accept the enlightenment during "thinking of aesthetic". The cultural context of modernism runs through the 80s and the 90s of the 20^th century. In this cultural context, the language of fictions turned from depicting the outside of things and narrating story plots to narrating the sense and memory. So a lot of sense words welled up in the text of fictions. The analogies were often used. The monstrous things often appeared in the fictions and the absurd, intense and fear senses form in the language of fictions. The writers used the beforehand-set-up and afterhand -set-up of the language to make the space-time of the narrating of the fiction be liberty to change. The modernism symbol gave the language of fictions hazy multi-meaning and abstract feature. From the beginning of the 80s to the 90s, the post-modernism became an important cultural context. And in this cultural context, the language of fictions appeared a rebel posture and challenges the tradition language norm and destructed the false "lofty" and "holy". And the writers got the freedom of the language. In the 90s, the language of fictions in the post-modernism cultural context appeared the trend of colonialism. Many famous trade marks could be read in the language of fictions because the desire of mater overflowed. A lot of fashionable words were often said by the main young characters of the fictions. The sigifie of the language overwhelmed its signifiant because of dispelled meaning of the language. And the language tended to plane and lack proper depth.We discuss the cultural significance of the language of fictions while the poetic is made in the second chapter. The poetic of the language of fictions mainly shows three kinds of forms as following: The first is to go to image. The image can give the language of fictions the poetic factor and has the specific property of the metaphor and the symbol from the angle of aesthetic. And it makes the function of the language of fictions changed. Thus the tension emerges between the sigifie and the signifisnt. The second is the intelligence. Wang Zengqi makes his language of fictions form in the " harmonious" atmosphere. The elegant, child's delight and wisdom give the language the intelligence. Jia Pingwa and so on are good at refining upon the wording and phrasing, painting the color of subject on their languages, let their languages grow the fancy wing and go from the concrete to the abstract. So their languages give out the light of intelligence. The third is to go to philosophy. To absorb the comment that has philosophy meaning, many abstract words which are often used to think can make the languages go to philosophy. In Shi Tiesheng's Notes of Principles, a lot of abstract, words that express sensation and psychology are used. Let the concrete words go to the abstract. The writer uses the language of talking to oneself, the question sentences and the suppose sentences to narrate. Besides all possibilities are thought in his narration. So the language of this novel is full of poetic.The third chapter is the annotations of cultural psychology according to the languages. When the sediment of the culture is deeper and deeper in the language, the people who live in their languages have relevant cultural psychology and the group-unconscious form. So the parole contains certain cultural psychology. Han Shaogong gives Maqiao's people a perspective according to their language and let the readers see our people's cultural psychology. Some writers can't help revealing their peasant cultural psychology in their fiction languages. Chi Li, Lu Wenfu and Liu Heng and so on reveal the urban petty bourgeois' cultural psychology of the sense of superiority, the sordid merchant, the rascally and the snobbish etc. The function of "shi" and " de" in Wang Anyi's Chang Hen Ge delays the narration rhythm of her novel and show some women in the metropolis sluggish mood. The reason spirit and the sad sentiment run through the language of Zhang Jie's A Square Boat. And it expresses that the intellectual female's thinking on the marriage in that time. The languages of Mian Mian and Wei Hui reflect that "the other" girls in the modern metropolis are seeking for the enjoyment of mater and the stimulus of sense organ. Can Xue's language of her fictions shows the people's morbid psychology and deformed spirit with the form of the non-reason rigmarole.The relation of the cultural standpoint and the choice of the language is studied in the forth chapter. Every writer's choice of the language is depend on his the cultural standpoint. The writers who stand the position of the regional culture like to use many the regional dialect in there works. And his language style is influenced by the certain geographical condition. Some forms of folk language is used to show the position of the non-government in the novel. The writers who stand the position of the traditional culture pour their sense of mission and responsibility that represent Confucianism culture into the language of their fictions. Some fictions' language sends out the smell of Buddhism's meditation. The spirit of Tao's "returning to simple and truth" permeates another writers' language. The art spirit of traditional opera and painting and calligraphy is carried on in Jia Pingwa's language of fictions.The concluding remark of this dissertation draws a conclusion according to the above exposition. That is the language is the reason of the being of fictions and to cope with the challenge from the modern electron medium in new century.