Five Levels Of The White Shift

The study on the Vernacular Movement, which was not only a revolution of the Chinese language, but also a cultural and political revolution, processes in two ways, diachronically and synchronically.In the diachronic view, the Vernacular movement is divided into three stages: Late Qing, May 4th and 1930's. It's the unique idea that the first stage of the movement in late Qing, is based on the Chinese own characteristics which was hopefully to reform. However, because of the in-and-out situations, it failed, resulting in the Westernization introduced by the pioneers of May 4th.In the synchronic view, the Vernacular Movement could be analyzed in five aspects:culture, language, education, politics and nation. The main parts of the essay are the ones on politics and national identity.The modern vernacular since May 4th is a political movement with ideology pursuing freedom, equality and other human rights basing on the western ideas, to overthrow the old system and ideology of China. The government of the Republic of China also pushed forwards the Vernacular movement with its power, in order to spread its ideas and thoughts, as well as educating the people. It is also discussed in the article about some kind of politics of broad sense, such as the relationships between different dialects.Meanwhile, the meaning of Zhonghua was changing. Zhonghua means the Hans or the places Hans live in a very long time, but it expanded with the process of modern vernacular's spreading, resulting in establish a new national identity, matching the new nation and new country's needs.