Research On The “speech” Verbs In Bai Juyi’s Poems

The middle Tang Dynasty is "the center of the hundred generations” From the perspective of the history of the Chinese language,it is a transitional period from the evolution of Middle Ancient Chinese to modern Chinese.From the perspective of the history of Chinese literature,it is a specific period in which poetry underwent reform and development.It has historical significance in the entire history of Chinese literature.Bai Juyi was a representative poet in the mid-Tang Dynasty and an initiator of the new Yuefu poem movement.His poems are not only numerous,authentic and reliable,but also focused on "reconciling current affairs" for the purpose of forming a "common,plain and simple" language style.This thesis attempts to describe,analyze and compare the "speech" verbs in Bai Juyi’s poems,in order to get a glimpse of the characteristics and development of Chinese "speech" verbs in the middle Tang Dynasty.In addition,this thesis also attempts to analyze the unique pragmatic effects of "speech" verbs in Bai Juyi’s poems from the perspective of the language application and rhetoric,to review the literary and artistic value of Bai Juyi’s common,lucid and smooth poems.First,it extracts in total of 44 speech verb including“说”“道”“谓”“话”“语”“言”“称”“谈”“云”“曰”“陈”“叙”“论”“议”“告”“诉”“报”“谕”“问”“答”“对”“嘲”“嗤”“咍”“揶揄”“嗔”“叱”“刺”“呵”“讥”“诮”“责”“怪”“讽”“读”“念”“诵”“吟”“咏”“劝”“谏”“诫”“诲”“规”.According to the semantic field theory,they are classified into 8 different types of sub-semantic fields such as:"say"type verb semantic field,"discussion"type verb semantic field,"tell"type verb semantic field,"question and answer"type verb semantic field,"mockery"type verb semantic field,”condemn”type semantic field,“Recite”type semantic field and“persuade”type verb semantic field to describe the synchronic range from the angle of frequency,word meaning,morphology and syntax.Second,this thesis also focuses on the more frequently used speech verbs from Bai Juyi’s poems,which display strong word formation ability and characteristics of spoken language,for instance,“说”“道”“话”“语”“言”“论”“报”“问”“答” “读”“吟”“咏” “嗤”“刺”“劝”in summation of 15 “speech” verbs.From the diachronic aspect,it examines the development from the ancient times to the medieval times and then to the middle Tang Dynasty,so as to summarize the diachronic evolution of "speech" verbs in Bai Juyi’s poems in general.Last,this thesis concentrates on the pragmatic functions of "speech" verbs in Bai Juyi’s poems,from the use of old morphemes,idioms,personification and the syntactic expression of “speech” verbs are analyzed in four aspects.The rhetoric function of such verbs is evaluated to reflect the literary features and artistic value of Bai Juyi’s poems.In conclusion,This thesis studies about the "speech" verbs In Bai Juyi’s poems and is further divided into three aspects: synchronic research,diachronic research and language application research.Throughout analyzing the "speech" verbs of Bai Juyi’s poems,we can see the influence Chinese vocabulary in the middle Tang Dynasty has on the inheritance from the previous generation,and its own innovation and development.In addition,exploring its uniqueness in pragmatics,we could see the remarkable artistic value of Bai’s poetry which provides references to have a better understanding of his works.