On The Application Of Dialect In Mo Yan 's Novels

As one of Chinese best contemporary writers, Mo Yan and his works have received wideattention, especially after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Shandongprovince, Mo Yan’s novels show not only the influence of his hometown which nourishes manyoutstanding persons but also his love for this land. Mo Yan’s unique language style has been thefocus in academic field. The use of dialect together with Putonghua in his works is a prominentfeature which deserves more attention. As the emerging and developing of the study on theecology of language, the use of dialects in literature draws more and more attention. By studyingthe dialect in Mo Yan’s novels, this paper attempts to explore the theoretical and practicalsignificance of the employment of dialect. This paper focuses on the way in which Mo Yan usesdialect in his novels so as to explore the underlying causes for the use of dialect, subsequentlyanalyzes the “carnival effect” resulting from the use of dialect, and then studies the deeprelationship between the use of dialect and ecological culture.This paper is divided into three parts, namely introduction, body and conclusion.Introduction mainly defines the concept of “dialect” and reviews the studies on the use of dialectin Mo Yan’s novels. The main body of this paper consists of four chapters. Chapter1analyzesthe use of dialect in Mo Yan’s novels by offering many examples. Mo Yan uses dialect mainly inthree ways: borrowing the local words directly from the dialect, employing sentence patterns ofdialect and using of distinct sounds. Borrowing the local words directly from the dialect mainlyfocuses on nouns, verbs, proverbs and vernaculars while the employing sentence patterns ofdialect is characterized by a number of short sentences in narration and local characteristics indialogues. As for the use of distinct sound, it includes various folk literature such as libretto,ballad, Shandong clapper ballad, and Maoqiang (a kind of opera popular in Gaomi). Chapter2explores the underlying causes for the use of dialect. The author believes that the reasons whyMo Yan uses dialect in his novels extensively are that he is influenced by the philosophy of“writing as a common person” and his love for his hometown. This paper studies Mo Yan’sstandpoint of “writing as a common person” which encourages him to write “as a commonperson” instead of “for common person”. Besides, it discusses the relationship between the wayof thinking and the use of language, which is conducted in two aspects: the use of dialect in literary works as well as the inheritance and innovation of traditional literature. Chapter3illustrates the effect of the dialect on Mo Yan’s works in which the author analyzes the impact ofclamour, crack jokes and vulgar writing on his works. Clamour is shown in two aspects: first,the use of both colloquial speech and written language, and the use of distinct sound in literaryworks by the employment of “Mosaic Genre”; second, dialect, as a language used by localcommon people, can challenge authority and is featured by “uncrowned”, colloquial andhumorous. In addition, the vulgar words in the dialect make Mo Yan’s works vulgar too. And thisdown-ward and profane type of attitude itself is a kind of “Carnival”. Chapter4is theinterpretation of the ecological and cultural values of Mo Yan’s use of dialect. From theperspectives of the ecology of dialect and language as well as the rethinking of Chinese writingand ecological culture, this paper reveals the value and significance of the dialect writing. As anindispensable part of the language system and the source of common language, dialect has greatsignificance in maintaining the ecological system of language. As a representative writer of thenew era, Mo Yan’s use of dialect is a rethinking of Chinese writing. What’s more, the way ofthinking hidden behind the dialect is valuable for today’s ecological culture.