Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2015

The Profound Influence of Linguistic Change on the Development of Modern Chinese Literary Forms

(Abstract)

Zhu Xiaojin and Li Wei

Literature is the art of language, so, in the light of the profound influence of linguistic transformation on the development of modern Chinese literary forms, it is appropriate to present the history of the development of modern Chinese literature as the art of language. Modern Chinese literature starts with the linguistic transformation of the May Fourth Movement’s rejection of classical Chinese and promotion of the vernacular. This linguistic revolution and the transformations of literary language during each subsequent historical period have exerted a profound influence on the overall development of modern Chinese literature, including literary forms, becoming an internal source of the development and evolution of modern Chinese literary forms and the formation of their main characteristics. An in-depth discussion of the interaction between linguistic transformation and the development of modern Chinese literary forms, as well as the rules governing this process, will not only disclose the universal linguistic context of literary creation created by the transformation of language, but will also enable us to find the historical sources of the phenomena of literary genres and forms, writers’ choice of literary styles, the formal characteristics of literary works, etc., and to offer a correct explanation and evaluation of the May Fourth vernacular movement and the subsequent series of new literary forms and styles. This is instrumental to achieving better generalizations from the experience and lessons of the development of modern Chinese literary forms and to finding historical clues to the development of our present-day literary forms.