Exploring The Discourse Of Chinese Genealogy

With the upsurge of seeking roots overseas and great concern on traditional culture at home, genealogy compilation has revived. This phenomenon promoted the development of genealogical research. However, the researches mostly take genealogical records as a supplement for other research areas such as social economic history, geographical history, history of law, population history, religion and culture, history of overseas Chinese, inheritance practices and biography of historical figures. Therefore, in order to develop a better understanding of genealogical texts, it is necessary for this study to investigate genealogical discourses by putting forward the following questions:1) what kind of traditional value is embedded in the texture of the Chinese genealogical discourse? 2) how do the discourses mix together into Chinese genealogy? 3) how does Chinese genealogical discourse achieve the purpose of cultivation? The answers to these questions are based on the research of concrete Chinese genealogical material.Genealogy is not only a record of history, but also a worldview to see the world (Foucault,1972). In this way combining the two genealogies together is explainable. Foucault's genealogy deconstructs truth for it is often discovered by chance and backed by the operation of power or the consideration of interest. Therefore, truth is questionable, so does history, whereas genealogies/jiapu are described in different episteme---Chinese traditional logic. Fairclough adopted Foucault's theory for his critical discourse analysis. He explored the imbrications between language and social institutional practices and of "wider" political and social structures. If the practices are discursive shaped and enacted, the discourse are to constitute a key element of interpretation. Fairclough put the subject into social context, emphasizing the function of power and ideology. The common sense or take-for-granted items are challenged, deconstructed under this method. However, it needs to mention that CDA becomes incomplete when historical angle is banished. In order to better understanding Chinese genealogical discourse, the study takes not only CDA as a worldview to see the world in the perspective of language, but also as a method to analyze language for its cultural and social meaning. Correspondingly, genealogies have two dimensions---the cultural and the historical, which needs CDA to interpret it.In the genealogical discourse, ritual, Chinese religion, history memory and family ideology are found; correspondingly, discourses are presented in the genealogy. The presentation seems more concrete and direct which is quite different from western texts. With the development of the society and the globalization, the modern western episteme dominates Chinese world. It is believed that history is not an examination of self, but knowledge of truth. With the strengthening of this notion, the discourse of Chinese genealogy weakens and even is in the tendency to be thrown away. Traditional Chinese culture value is in weak until the awareness aroused on how to revive those culture value as well as the cultivation of youth in family context.Through this study, the value in the genealogy is probed. The Chinese genealogy research liberated from the historical angel to cross-disciplined one. CDA gives Chinese genealogy a chance to deconstruct and reconstruct itself in the social context. In addition, as a paradigm of traditional family education, it offers implication for modern education.