Difference between revisions of "20220630 Culture 4"

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===4.1The thought of Laozi===
 
===4.1The thought of Laozi===
正文. (Wang 2021:423)如所用句子是引用他人的文章,请在引用部分后标明出处,如是借鉴他人观点,则请标注为(c.f: Wang 2021:423)
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===4.1.1The introduction of Laozi===
 
===4.1.1The introduction of Laozi===
 
The foundation of the whole thought of Sinology in China all took place in the pre-Qin period, that is, before Qin Shihuang unified China. Since then, China has hardly made any great achievements in the development of ideology and culture. With one exception, Indian Buddhism was introduced into China in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Even in the pre-Qin era, in the pre-Qin era, the highest point of thought is still the first ancestor of pre-Qin thought. Laozi and Confucius have a teacher-apprentice relationship. Confucius left a comment on this teacher: "I see Laozi today, like he is a dragon." This is the famous saying of Yulong. When I saw Laozi today, I finally knew what the dragon looked like.
 
The foundation of the whole thought of Sinology in China all took place in the pre-Qin period, that is, before Qin Shihuang unified China. Since then, China has hardly made any great achievements in the development of ideology and culture. With one exception, Indian Buddhism was introduced into China in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Even in the pre-Qin era, in the pre-Qin era, the highest point of thought is still the first ancestor of pre-Qin thought. Laozi and Confucius have a teacher-apprentice relationship. Confucius left a comment on this teacher: "I see Laozi today, like he is a dragon." This is the famous saying of Yulong. When I saw Laozi today, I finally knew what the dragon looked like.

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  • 20220630_Culture_1 papers 1-10: 1: 英语笔译 卞王倩 Bian Wangqian 202170081563 Europeanized Chinese and Cultural Factors Behind it, 2: 英语笔译 曹姣 Cao Jiao 202170081564 Research on court culture in the Tang Dynasty from the perspective of poem -- take Changhenge for example, 3 英语笔译 陈路瑶 Chen Luyao 202170081565, 4 英语笔译 崔晓凡 Cui Xiaofan 202170081566, 5 英语笔译 邓阳林 Deng Yanglin 202170081567, 6 英语笔译 高智慧 Gao Zhihui 202170081568, 7 英语笔译 何丽娜 He Lina 202170081569, 8 英语笔译 胡良明 Hu Liangming 202170081570, 9 英语笔译 黄琼 Huang Qiong 202170081571, 10 英语笔译 邝雨琪 Kuang Yuqi 202170081572
  • 20220630_Culture_2 papers 11-20: 11 英语笔译 黎溢佳 Li Yijia 202170081573, 12 英语笔译 李思敏 Li Simin 202170081574, 13 英语笔译 李思源 Li Siyuan 202170081575, 14 英语笔译 李婷 Li Ting 202170081576, 15 英语笔译 李欣 Li Xin 202170081577, 16 英语笔译 李颖 Li Ying 202170081578, 17 英语笔译 李媛 Li Yuan 202170081579, 18 英语笔译 李梓婕 Li Zijie 202170081580, 19 英语笔译 梁思婷 Liang Siting 202170081581, 20 英语笔译 廖诗韵 Liao Shiyun 202170081582
  • 20220630_Culture_3 papers 21-30: 21 英语笔译 刘唱 Liu Chang 202170081583, 22 英语笔译 刘乐乐 Liu Lele 202170081584, 23 英语笔译 刘双英 Liu Shuangying 202170081585, 24 英语笔译 刘婷 Liu Ting 202170081586, 25 英语笔译 刘瑶 Liu Yao 202170081587, 26 英语笔译 刘珍 Liu Zhen 202170081588, 27 英语笔译 龙翰良 Long Hanliang 202170081589, 28 英语笔译 罗姚林 Luo Yaolin 202170081590, 29 英语笔译 马艳焕 Ma Yanhuan 202170081591, 30 英语笔译 聂薇 Nie Wei 202170081592
  • 20220630_Culture_4 papers 31-40: 31 英语笔译 孙丽君 Sun Lijun 202170081593, 32 英语笔译 仝雨梦 Tong Yumeng 202170081594, 33 英语笔译 童略雅 Tong Lueya 202170081595, 34 英语笔译 庹树梅 Tuo Shumei 202170081596, 35 英语笔译 王思琪 Wang Siqi 202170081597, 36 英语笔译 王亚娟 Wang Yajuan 202170081598, 37 英语笔译 肖冬晴 Xiao Dongqing 202170081599, 38 英语笔译 肖佳莉 Xiao Jiali 202170081600, 39 英语笔译 谢晓莹 Xie Xiaoying 202170081601, 40 英语笔译 熊嘉玲 Xiong Jialing 202170081602
  • 20220630_Culture_5 papers 41-50: 41 英语笔译 颜媛 Yan Yuan 202170081603, 42 英语笔译 杨心怡 Yang Xinyi 202170081604, 43 英语笔译 杨紫微 Yang Ziwei 202170081605, 44 英语笔译 张国浩 Zhang Guohao 202170081606, 45 英语笔译 张姣玲 Zhang Jiaoling 202170081607, 46 英语笔译 张瑞 Zhang Rui 202170081608, 47 英语笔译 赵宇翔 Zhao Yuxiang 202170081609, 48 英语笔译 郑冬琴 Zheng Dongqin 202170081610, 49 英语笔译 钟青 Zhong Qing 202170081611, 50 英语笔译 周皓熙 Zhou Haoxi 202170081612
  • 20220630_Culture_6 papers 51-60: 51 英语笔译 周哲 Zhou Zhe 202170081613, 52 英语笔译 朱丽娟 Zhu Lijuan 202170081614, 53 英语口译 段小蝶 Duan Xiaodie 202170081615, 54 英语口译 方楚晗 Fang Chuhan 202170081616, 55 英语口译 胡雯雯 Hu Wenwen 202170081617, 56 英语口译 黄天琪 Huang Tianqi 202170081618, 57 英语口译 兰绮 Lan Qi 202170081619, 58 英语口译 李丹 Li Dan 202170081620, 59 英语口译 李立飞 Li Lifei 202170081621, 60 英语口译 莫雨婷 Mo Yuting 202170081622
  • 20220630_Culture_7 papers 61-70: 61 英语口译 彭慧璇 Peng Huixuan 202170081623, 62 英语口译 时友洁 Shi Youjie 202170081624, 63 英语口译 伍佳惠 Wu Jiahui 202170081625, 64 英语口译 夏晶 Xia Jing 202170081626, 65 英语口译 向师琦 Xiang Shiqi 202170081627, 66 英语口译 向望 Xiang Wang 202170081628, 67 英语口译 徐舞 Xu Wu 202170081629, 68 英语口译 张静芝 Zhang Jingzhi 202170081630, 69 英语口译 张旻丰 Zhang Minfeng 202170081631, 70 日语笔译 曹梦然 Cao Mengran 202170081632
  • 20220630_Culture_8 papers 71-80: 71 日语笔译 胡梦琪 Hu Mengqi 202170081633, 72 日语笔译 张白鹭 Zhang Bailu 202170081634, 73 朝鲜语笔译 刘安莉 Liu Anli 202170081635, 74 朝鲜语笔译 王思佳 Wang Sijia 202170081636, 75 朝朝鲜语笔译 徐盖 Xu Gai 202170081638, 76 朝鲜语笔译 徐文慧 Xu Wenhui 202170081639, 77 外国语言文学 Akira Jantarat 202121080009, 78 比较文学与跨文化研究 Mahzad 202021080004, 79 英语语言文学 Mimi 2020GBJ002301

英语笔译 孙丽君 Sun Lijun 202170081593

Chuanjing Work Songs
Sun Lijun

Introduction

Work song, nicknamed haozi(号子) in Chinese, is a kind of folk song that is created and sung by the working people in the process of production, bearing a direct relation with the manual work. And the contents of Chuanjiang work songs are rich and colorful, the representative works are Kuixing Tower(《魁星楼》), Giant Turtledove(《大斑鸠》), Lanlong Work Song(《懒龙号子》) and so on. Moreover, work song truthfully reflects the labor conditions and the mental appearance of the boatmen, emerging as an indispensably organic part in those workers' life. Chuanjiang work song, as one kind of work songs, is a traditional folk music originated in the Southwest China, mainly in Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality just as its name implies. And Chuanjing work song is a form of folk singing, led by a labor singer and accompanied by a crowd of boatmen in order to unify action and rhythm. It is a song of life cast by blood and sweat of those boatmen when they are struggling with the dangerous shoals and rapids, which is indicative of the working people's hardworking and their courageousness. Affluent in cultural connotations and charismatic in language art, Chuanjiang work song is the crystallization of the labor and wisdom of people living in Sichuan and Chongqing, which demonstrates the unsophisticated nature and tenacious will of them, possessing very high cultural value. However, as time goes on, great progress has been made in science and technology and outstanding improvements have been achieved in raising people's material living conditions, thus there is no need for them to struggle to meet the basic needs. It is not an age of necessities nowadays though, with the acceleration of modernization, Chuanjiang work song has lost its material carrier of its existence and is slowly withdrawing from the stage of history. On May 20th, 2006, with the approval of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, Chuanjing work song was listed as the First Batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage, and only after then it's protection and inheritance were gradually given attention by all parties, namely all walks of life and the rescue of this intangible cultural heritage became imminent. While just as a common saying goes, "Rome was not built in one day", the protection and inheritance of Chuanjiang work song are not an easy task, which needs massive investment of manpower, physical and financial resource. Mostly attracted by new high-tech products, many modern youngsters don’t have the least idea to understand and learn the Chuanjiang work song, not to mention that a sea of young people have never heard of Chuanjiang work song, which is a pity. Hence, there is a problem that still remains to be solved, that is how to raise youngsters' interests in and willingness to know more about Chuanjiang work song so as to better protect and inherit the endangered Chuanjiang work song.

The History of Chuanjiang Work Songs

Chuanjiang work song, which enjoys a long history and is unique among the work songs in Sichuan and Chongqing which is called Bashu area for short, is not only diverse in forms but also rich in contents. From the Perilous Journey to the Land of Shu, which was composed by Li Bai, one brilliant and great poet in Tang Dynasty, we can tell that Bashu area had an extremely rugged landscape. "The westbound road to Shu, so steep, steeper than Heaven! I plod my way, step by step, sign after sign", these two lines from this poem Perilous Journey to the Land of Shu especially project a vivid picture for us to imagine and illustrate how peculiar and precipitous the Bashu area is since the ancient time! And Bashu area is crisscrossed by rivers and canals with more than 90 rivers and streams of various lengths, in addition to this, the overlapped peaks rise one above the other in Bashu area, inviting traffic inconveniences for this region. Hence, the cargo circulation and passenger transportation all were carried by wooden boats in the ancient time. According to some archaeological discoveries, the Neolithic stone anchors and the tracker's tome figures, which were excavated along the banks of the Yangtze River running through Bashu area, are the evidences of the long history of the shipping industry of wooden boats which gave birth to the Chuanjiang work song in Bashu area(Wu Mingshi, 2011:34-42). However, it was around the middle of Qing Dynasty that the work songs gradually were on the upgrade. And the Chuanjiang work song was the fruit of those industrious boatmen's hardworking and life. According to the water potential and the depth, currents as well as other characteristics of the rivers, the dangers of reefs and submerged rocks to boats, the leader of those boatmen then created work songs with different rhythms, tones and emotions on the basis of the rhythms of those boatmen's rowing and pulling. And this is how Chuanjiang work song was produced. While after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government began to set about the business of the regulation of inland waterway navigation, therefore rivers and lakes in the Chuanjiang River Basin were destroyed by explosions to the submerged reefs and rocks in order to dredge the rivers and build waterpower stations. So these turbulent rivers and treacherous shoals that inspired boatmen to sing work songs have been a thing of the past. As the motor ships gradually replaced the wooden boats, the old shipping industry lost its competitiveness and living space little by little. The figures of the boatmen of the old days who swept over the rapids and dangerous shoals and climbed the rocks while towing a boat are gradually vanishing from people's sight in modern times, what's more, the appealing sound of the Chuanjiang work songs is fading away, resulting in the adverse conditions faced by Chuanjiang work songs. And scholars in the academic circles generally believe that Chuanjiang work song is cultural treasure in the history of waterway transportation along the Yangtze River and its existence reflects the indomitable fighting spirit, heroic spirit and humorous traits of character of the working people in the Chuanjiang River Basin when in face of a hostile environment. Such kind of intangible inheritage culture is supposed and deserves to be protected well, carried forward and promoted well in order to make Chinese culture and language splendid and glorious.

The Features of Chuanjiang Work Songs

The Geographical Distributions of Chuanjiang Work Songs

The Inheritance of Chuanjiang Work Songs

The Translation of Chuanjiang Work Songs

Conclusion

References

  • Wang Jianhua (2021). The Reception of Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 450 pp.

英语笔译 仝雨梦 Tong Yumeng 202170081594

The Influence of Traditional Chinese Philosophy in Contemporary Times
仝雨梦

Introduction

The word "philosophy" comes from Greece, which means “the study of wisdom”. It is characterized by the ultimate exploration of the universe and the world. As the essence of the spirit of the times, philosophy is the core content of national culture. Before contemporary times, there was no word “philosophy” in China, and naturally, there was no such subject in the ancient academic classification. For a long time in ancient China, literature, history, and philosophy were integrated and inseparable. In contemporary times, after being translated by Japanese scholars, philosophy has become the primary discipline of humanities and social sciences in this country. Traditional Chinese philosophy sprang up around the time of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties (1600 B.C.--- 256 B.C.), took shape at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period (770 B.C.--- 476 B.C.), and flourished during the Warring States period (475 B.C.--- 221 B.C.) when a hundred schools of thought were already competing. Developing for more than 3,000 years, traditional Chinese philosophy has long been an integral part of Chinese culture. Up to 1949, its development history can be broadly divided into three stages. First, the period of slavery and the period of transition from slavery to feudalism. The second is the period of feudalism. Third, is the period of transition from feudalism to socialism. The philosophy of the first two stages is known as ancient Chinese philosophy. And the last is called modern Chinese philosophy.

The Evolution of Chinese Traditional Philosophy

From another point of view, traditional Chinese philosophy has gone through seven different stages of development, namely, the Pre-Qin philosophy, the study of Confucian Classics in the Han Dynasty, the Metaphysics of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Buddhist philosophy during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties, the Practical Thought in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and Textual Studies in the late Qing Dynasty. Each stage of development has its distinct ideological characteristics.

(1) the Pre-Qin Philosophy

During the Pre-Qin period, the ideological circle was extremely active, and various ideological theories and academic schools appeared one after another. A large number of prominent thinkers emerged, such as Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi (Hsun Tzu), Laozi (Lao Tzu), Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), Sun Tzu, Mozi, Hui Shi, Gongsun Long (Kung-Sun lung), Han Feizi (Han Fei-tzu) and so on. People also call the philosophy of this period “the Pre-Qin study of Zi”. Besides, many schools of thought have been formed, such as Taoism, Confucianism, Mohism, the School of Legalists, the School of Logicians, the School of Military Strategists, the Yin-Yang School, the School of Political Strategists, the Eclectics, the School of Agriculturists, and many others. Among them, the most influential ones are the Confucian School, Taoist School, Mohist School, the School of Legalists, and the School of Military Strategists. The discussion of philosophy during that period focuses on the composition of the universe and social life. For example, what is the universe made of? How did people get here? What is the position of man between heaven and earth? What is the value and significance of living? The Pre-Qin philosophy laid the foundation for the development of philosophy in China and ushered in the real awakening of Chinese philosophy and the spirit of the Chinese nation.

(2) the Study of Confucian Classics in the Han Dynasty

A lesson from the demise of the Qin Dynasty is that a country cannot be well governed only by severe punishment and laws. Therefore, the early Han Dynasty advocated the learning about Emperor Huang and Lao Tzu. Later, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted Dong Zhongshu’s proposal to “proscribe all non-Confucian schools of thought and declared Confucianism the state ideology”. Since then, Confucianism has leaped from one of the hundred schools of thought to an official and mainstream ideology. A prominent manifestation of the authoritarianism, institutionalization, and ideologization of Confucianism is the birth of Confucian classics. Confucian scholars expressed their academic views and political opinions based on the Confucian classics in that period through the annotation of these classics.

(3) the Metaphysics of Wei and Jin Dynasties

The Wei and Jin Dynasties are quite different from the Han Dynasty in their style of study, ideology, and mode of thinking. During that period, against the cumbersome Confucian classics and theological teleology of the Han Dynasty, Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi, and the book of changes were respected, known as “three metaphysics”, and there was a great liberation in thought and mode of thinking. The core issues discussed in the metaphysics of Wei and Jin Dynasties can be summarized as follows: first, the relationship between the Confucian ethical code and nature; Second, the relationship between the original and the end; Third, the relationship between language and thought; Fourth, the relationship between the human body and spirit. These problems discussed in the Wei and Jin Dynasties all have a deep philosophical connotation, marking a big step forward in people’s thinking ability and the ability to understand the world and self.

(4) the Buddhist philosophy during Sui and Tang Dynasties

Buddhism was introduced into China in the Han Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang dynasties after hundreds of years of collision and integration, and many Buddhist schools were formed. On the one hand, the various sects have been in constant strife; On the other hand, they have also absorbed and influenced each other. At the same time, all sects drew nutrients and wisdom from Chinese traditional Confucianism and Taoism to enrich and develop their doctrines. Among all the Buddhist sects in Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Chan sect is the most widespread and influential one. It is the model and mature symbol of the Sinicization and secularization of Buddhism. It is the product of the integration of Buddhism and Chinese inherent philosophy.

(5) Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties

Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties is a new philosophy based on Confucianism, combining the ideas of Buddhism and Taoism. The institutionalization and ideologization of Confucianism during the period of the Han Dynasty was the first major turning point in the development of Confucianism, while the emergence and formation of Neo-Confucianism were right the second one. Neo-Confucianism is the guiding ideology of the late feudal society in China for nearly 700 years, which mainly has four schools: Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism (Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, and Zhu Xi), Lu and Wang’s Philosophy of the Mind (Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming), Zhang and Wang’s Qi theory (Zhangzai and Wang Fuzhi) and Chen and Ye’s Utilitarian Thought (Chen Liang and Ye Shi). It discusses a wide range of content and scope, such as cosmology, ontology, life theory, the theory of mind and nature, the view of knowledge and behavior, cultivation theory, and so on. As an important stage of the development of Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties raised Chinese philosophy to a new level. Its political purpose is to find the ultimate value basis for feudal ethics.

(6) the Practical Thought in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

In the eyes of thinkers in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties is nothing but empty talk about the nature of mind and life, which is useless. They also attributed the collapse of the Ming Dynasty to Neo-Confucianism. Therefore, most of the thinkers in that period strongly opposed Neo-Confucianism and feudal autocracy and advocated practical thoughts, which had the nature of early enlightenment. The main representatives of practical thoughts in the Ming and Qing Dynasties were Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Yan Yuan, and some others. The ideological trend of practical thoughts spread all over the political, economic, scientific, cultural, and artistic fields at that time, which was the concentrated embodiment of the Confucian thought of practical application in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

(7) Textual Studies in the late Qing Dynasty

Textual Studies in the late Qing Dynasty takes textual research as its main research method and pays more attention to evidence than theory, to distinguish it from the abstract discussion of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties. Its most outstanding academic contribution is the systematic arrangement of traditional philology, phonology, exegesis, and bibliography, which has achieved unprecedented development. After the Opium War broke out in 1840, the Western powers opened China’s door with advanced weapons, opium, and cheap commodities, and interrupted the inherent development path of Chinese civilization using armed aggression. At that time, the reformists, represented by Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan, demanded that academic research should be combined with real politics, and opposed textual studies in the late Qing Dynasty, which were divorced from reality. It can be said that Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan were both the terminators of the practical learning trend in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the pioneers of bourgeois reformism in modern China. 

The Representative Schools of Thought

(1) the Confucian School

As one of the hundred schools of thought during the Pre-Qin period, Confucianism is an ideological system founded by Confucius and gradually perfected by future generations. It was one of the most influential schools at that time, and it was called the "Famous School of Thought” with Mohism, which is “显学” in Chinese. The Confucianists paid attention to personal cultivation, social ethics, and state governance, which had a far-reaching impact on ancient and modern China. The main content of Confucianism in the Pre-Qin time can be divided into two aspects: “Ren” (仁) and “Li” (礼). In most cases, “Ren” refers to perfect virtue, covering “wisdom”, “courage”, “loyalty”, “filial piety” and other concepts in Confucianism. And “Li” means the rules of propriety in most instances. “Ren” is shown as “be intimate with families” and “be in sympathy with others” in dealing with the world, and “ruling people depending on the moral sentiments” in governing the state. According to Confucianism, “Ren” is seen as a qualification for people to enter society and live, while “be intimate with families” refers to “filial piety” and “virtue” based on the most basic human blood relationship. Confucius believed that in the blood relationship with the family as the basic unit, the concept of “filial piety” is indispensable. In the aspect of governing the state, the Confucian School advocates ruling people depending on moral sentiments, so that the king can be loved by his subjects in this way. “Li” requires people to attach importance to rites and ceremonies and restore the rites of the Zhou Dynasty, including various moral principles and humanistic norms in social life. (Miao Xinlei 2021, 187) The representative work of the Confucian School is the Analects.

(2) Taoist School

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Laozi gathered the great wisdom of ancient sages and summarized the essence of ancient Taoist thought, forming a complete systematic theory of Taoism, marking the formation and formalization of Taoist thought. This thought first originated from the period of the Fuxi and the Yellow Emperor, after the period of Yao, Shun, and Yu and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, the Taoist doctrine was not formed until the time of Laozi, which is the foundation of Chinese civilization. In Taoist thought, Laozi introduced the word “Tao” and used this abstract concept to explain the truth of the universe. “Tao” is the origin of the universe, which was born before the universe, invisible but always existed. According to Laozi, the universe consists of four parts: Heaven, Earth, Man, and the Tao. It is further derived that to survive, man must follow the natural laws of the earth; on the earth, the growth, reproduction, and migration of all things must follow the natural climate changes; the natural climate and celestial changes follow the “Tao”, and the “Tao” is the original appearance of all things in the world. This is the core concept of Taoism: “Tao follows nature”. Taoism advocates following nature and ruling without doing anything. (Hu Lu 2019, 141) This idea has been used by many emperors throughout Chinese history as a method of governing the state. The masterpiece of Taoism is the Tao Te Ching.

(3) Mohist School

Mozi was the founder of the Mohist School, and his ideas are concentrated in the book Mozi. Mozi was compiled by Mozi's disciples who collected his quotations based on his life story and historical materials. The book Mozi originally contains 75 pieces, of which 53 exist today. The first 31 pieces focus on Mozi's main ideas and doctrines, including the ten major propositions of “Universal Love”, “Against Aggression”, “Respecting the Virtuous”, “Identifying with the Superior”, “The Will of Heaven”, “On Ghosts”, “Against Fatalism”, “Against Music”, “Simplicity in Funerals” and “Saving Expenditures”. The remaining chapters record Mozi’s contributions in the fields of logic, mathematics, and mechanics. “Universal Love” is the core of Mozi’s thought, which refers to undifferentiated love and equal fraternity, which is opposite to the Confucian thought of “Love with Distinctions” (爱有等差). “Against Aggression” means opposing war and demanding peace. “Identifying with the Superior” refers to requiring the upper and lower levels to unite as one and implement a righteous government. “Respecting the Virtuous” means advocating sages, including electing sages as officials and electing sages as monarchs. Heaven has the will, ghosts are gods, and heaven loves the people. If the emperor disobeys the will of heaven, he will be punished by heaven. Otherwise, he will be rewarded by heaven. That means “The Will of Heaven” and “On Ghosts”. Mozi opposed the Confucian saying that “Death and life have been determined appointments. Riches and honor depend upon heaven.” (生死有命,富贵在天). He believed that everything is not determined by “destiny”. As long as people make active efforts, they can achieve their own life goals. This is what “Against Fatalism” means. Mozi believed that although the music was pleasant to hear, it did not conform to the principle of the king and the interests of the people, so he opposed music. He also believed that long mourning and costly funerals were not beneficial to society. Monarchs and nobles should live a frugal life like ancient saints. This is the meaning of “Simplicity in Funerals” and “Saving Expenditures”. (Lu Jian Lin 2019, 196)

(4) the School of Legalists

The School of Legalists, or Legalism, one of the Hundred Schools of Thought, is an important school of thought in Chinese history that advocates the rule of law as its core. The thinking of Legalism is a practical political philosophy, unlike Taoism, which takes the whole universe as its object of study, or Confucianism and Mohism, which takes the whole society as its object of study, but takes politics as its object of study and focuses on governing the state. It has the following main characteristics. First, it opposes the ritual system of Confucianism. The Legalists valued law and opposed the Confucian “Li”. They believed that Confucianism was unfair in upholding the privileges of the nobility, opposing the hereditary privileges of the nobility, which monopolized economic and political interests and demanded private ownership of land and the award of official positions according to merit and talent. Secondly, the theory of human nature of “man tends to pursue interests and avoid harm”. The Legalists believed that human beings have the nature of pursuing profit and hate to be harmed. The rulers could use this to govern the state and the people. Thirdly, is the historical view of “not following the past nor the present”. The Legalists opposed the conservative idea of retrogression and advocated reform. They believe that history is moving forward, and all laws and systems should be developed with the advance of history, neither retrogressive nor conformist. Fourth, the combination of “law”, “managing strategy” and “managing power” is the strategy of ruling the state. The representative figures of Legalism, namely Shang Yang, Shen Tao, and Shen Buhai, advocated the idea of emphasizing law, managing strategy, and power respectively. Han Fei, the master of Legalism, proposed a close combination of the three. “Law” refers to a sound legal system; “managing strategy” refers to the strategies and means to manage the ministers, grasp power, and implement decrees; and “managing power” refers to the power of the monarch, requiring the monarch to be in sole control of the military and political power. The representative works of Legalism include Guanzi, the Book of Lord Shang, Hanfeizi, and so on.

(5) the School of Military Strategists

The School of Military Strategists, one of the Hundred Schools of Thought, refers to a school of thought that studied military theory and engaged in military activities during the Pre-Qin and early Han Dynasties in China. According to this school, everything in the world has its objective law of change and development, and only by following the development of the law and correctly applying the laws of nature can war be won. In addition, warfare must be guided by knowledge of the ways of using the military and by the mastery of flexible strategies and tactics. As a ruler, not only should he know the military, but also master the general laws of war. A ruler should govern the state with both punishment and virtue, with both force and mercy, and regulate society according to the laws of nature to achieve long-term peace and stability.

War is a continuation of politics and is a matter of life and death for a country or a nation. A book on the art of war is both a guide on how to rule a country and develop a national strategy; and a book on how to lead an army into battle and develop a war strategy. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is the most important work of the School of Military Strategists and the oldest surviving book on warfare in the world. This work summarizes the experience of warfare and military governance of the time puts forward a series of strategic and tactical principles and contains a wealth of ideas on military dialectics. After the 18th century, The Art of War by Sun Tzu was translated into English, French, German, Czech, Russian, and Finnish, and widely appreciated across the world.

The Influence in Contemporary Times

(1) the Confucian School

On Environmental Protection

Confucians believe that “man is an integral part of nature” (天人合一), and nature is the common source of man and all things in the world. Confucianism emphasizes that man and nature should live in harmony, and everyone should love and protect nature. (Ren Jiaying 2021,199) Since the time of the industrial civilization, mankind has created massive material wealth. Yet, it has come at a cost of intensified exploitation of natural resources, which disrupted the balance in the Earth's ecosystem, and laid bare the growing tensions in the human-Nature relationship. Influenced by Confucian thought, the Chinese firmly believe that destroying the natural environment is equivalent to self-destruction. Therefore, in recent years, China has begun to take the path of sustainable development, pursuing the purpose of “green mountains are gold mountains”, and protecting the ecological environment while pursuing economic growth. On the Character of the Chinese Nation

“Harmony in Diversity” (和而不同) is an important concept of Confucianism, which first came from the Analects of Confucius. As philosophical thinking in ancient China, it is a scientific world outlook and methodology, which has given important guiding significance in the development of China’s economy, politics and culture. Ku Hung-Ming (1857-1928) pointed out in his speech at Peking University that the Chinese people have a specific spirit, a spirit that no other nation has, that is, gentleness. Gentleness is not softness, nor weak submissiveness, but a power of compassion. This power of compassion cannot be separated from the guidance of “Harmony in Diversity” as a world outlook for the Chinese people. This principle has cultivated the fine conduct of the Chinese people today and formed the unique temperament of the Chinese nation, which is “gentle”, “modest” and “inclusive”.

On International Communication

Moreover, an important issue in today's world is how different cultural and political communities, each with its particularities, can submit to common normative principles while respecting each other’s differences. The right answer to this question can be found in “Harmony in Diversity”. “Harmony” requires us to insist on harmony in exchanges and dialogues among countries. If cultures do not adopt an open and tolerant attitude but fall into a closed, conservative, and narrow-minded way of thinking, they will surely lose their vitality and go into decay. “Harmony” can also help us avoid conflicts in cultural exchanges, while “Diversity” requires us to respect the differences between cultures and maintain our unique strengths. (Niu Yufei 2022, 8)

(2) Taoist School

On the Economy

The core of Taoist thought is “Inaction” (无为), which is to follow the original law of development and not forcefully interfere with or change the course of things. This idea has a great influence on the participants in economic activities. It inspires people not to interfere too much with normal economic activities and to let economies participate in the reasonable competition in the market, to avoid disturbing the laws of economic activities, and achieve economic prosperity. Likewise, for enterprises, the thought of “Inaction” provides us with a new management model – “soft management” - which is beneficial to the long-term development of enterprises. On the other hand, Taoism advocates “less selfishness and fewer desires” (少私寡欲), which helps people today to abandon individualism and money-worship and establish good morals.

(3) Mohist School

On World Peace

In today's world, peace and development are the two main themes. Undoubtedly, the world economy is booming day by day, but the full realization of the ideal of peace for mankind is still a long way off. Some major powers are pursuing hegemony, power politics, military strikes, interference in internal affairs, economic sanctions, and arms races, which have made the world volatile. To achieve lasting peace for all mankind, it is necessary to establish a concept of peace recognized by all humanity, that is, the Moist idea of “Universal Love” (兼爱). As historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) said, "The Mozi doctrine of universal love as an obligation is all the more appropriate for the modern world, which has been unified technically, but not emotionally. Only universal love is the only hope for mankind to save themselves. Mozi's love is more needed by modern people than Confucius' love." True human peace can only be achieved if “Universal Love” is realized globally. (Liu Bangfan 2003, 24-25)

(4) the School of Legalists

On Legislation

In the face of intense social unrest, the Legalists advocated an active change of law and believed that reforms were following the natural law, the conditions of the people, and the times. Han Feizi also advocated, “There is no fixed way to manage the people, only to implement management according to law. Only by adapting to the changes of the times, can the society be well governed; Only by adapting social governance to social reality can we achieve results.” (治民无常,唯治为法。法与时转则治,治与世宜则有功。) He intended to emphasize that the law should respond to the changes of the state and adapt to the changes in social life. Influenced by this idea, since 2016, the introduction of laws such as Environment Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China, General Rules of the Civil Law of the PRC, and Cyber Security Law of the PRC have continued to fill the legislative gaps and promote the realization of the rule of good law. (Xu Nanzhi 2018, 3)

On Administration of Justice

In the implementation of the law, Legalism advocates that “matters are determined by the law and prisoners are punished without regard to their social status” (事断从法,刑无等级). The majesty of the law lies not only in its strict regulations but also in its severe enforcement. Han Feizi further developed the idea of “no difference in punishment” into “the law cannot fawn on the noble”, and pointed the finger of reforms at the nobility, increasing the strength of law enforcement. However, it is not difficult to find that Han Feizi also emphasized the idea of “monarchy”. What he strongly defended is the monarch’s equal treatment in the application of punishment, rather than the modern Western concept of “all men are created equal” in the rule of law. Therefore, the implementation of the law at that time could not achieve the true equality of all people. In today’s society, reflecting on the law enforcement aspects of Pre-Qin Dynasty legalism helps people to understand more deeply the implementation of the law and to better practice the principle of “equality before the law”. (Xu Nanzhi 2018, 3-4)

(5) the School of Military Strategists

On National Defense

After thousands of years of inheritance and development, Chinese military science has formed a valuable treasure. Mao Zedong’s military thought is an outstanding example of inheriting and carrying forward the traditional Chinese military culture. In his military writings, he not only cited a large number of ancient Chinese examples of warfare, but also clarified the ancient Chinese military thinking, including “If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles” (知彼知己,百战不殆), “Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened” (兼听则明,偏信则暗), and “Avoid the enemy when he is full of vigor, strike when he is fatigued and withdraws” (避其锐气,击其惰归). Then he applied those ideas to the practice of the Chinese revolution and war. Mao Zedong pointed out in Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War that “the phrase ‘if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles in the book of Sun Tzu, a great military man of ancient China, includes two stages: learning and using. It includes knowing the objective laws of development and deciding how to act according to these laws to defeat the current enemy, and we should not look down on this phrase.” The Art of War by Sun Tzu points out that “a victorious army is first sure of a win before seeking war, while a defeated army first fights before seeking victory” (胜兵先胜而后求战,败兵先战而后求胜). Mao Zedong absorbed and developed this idea from Sun Tzu and attached great importance to war preparation, stressing that one must have the certainty of victory before going to war. (Wang Xiaoxue 2011, 100-101)

China's long-standing traditional military culture has given extensive and in-depth consideration and summary to many issues of national defense and military. The military scholars in the Pre-Qin period always emphasized that fighting for justice and peace is the only way to win the hearts and minds of the people. Today we continue to adhere to the military strategy of active defense, putting national sovereignty and security in the first place. We adhere to the rule of law and strict military, and constantly improve the level of the military. Another outstanding feature of Pre-Qin military science is that it considers many factors such as politics, economy, and military together with national defense construction from a holistic perspective. Contemporary China has inherited the ancient traditional military culture and formed a national defense theory system with Chinese characteristics. (Wang Xiaoxue 2011, 102-103)

Conclusion

This paper first reviews the history of the development of traditional Chinese philosophy by dividing it into seven stages and gives a brief overview of Chinese philosophy at each stage. Subsequently, this paper distills five representative schools of thought in traditional Chinese philosophy, namely Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Legalism, and the School of Military Strategists, and briefly summarizes their respective characteristics. Finally, the paper explores the contemporary influences of these five schools of thought, which relate to environmental protection, the formation of the Chinese national spirit, international exchange, national defense construction, etc. Overall, the author’s purpose in writing this paper is to make the reader aware of the appeal of traditional Chinese philosophy. Although these ancient philosophical ideas seem to be very distant from this era, they still have an invisible and great influence on the world we live in today. As Chinese people, we should pay more attention to the wealth of ideas left to us by our ancestors and learn the best parts of traditional Chinese philosophy to establish a correct outlook on life, worldview, and values.

References

  • Wang Jie王杰. (2020). 中国传统哲学的发展脉络[The Development of Traditional Chinese Philosophy]. 新华文摘 Xinhua News Digest (24) 45.
  • Miao Xinlei 苗新蕾. (2021). 先秦儒家思想与道家思想的对比研究[A Comparative Study of Confucianism and Taoism in the Pre-Qin Period]. 汉字文化 Sinogram Culture (16) 187.
  • Hu Lu 胡璐. (2019). 儒家思想与道家思想的互补作用[The Complementarity of Confucianism and Taoism]. 文学教育 Literature Education (05) 141.
  • Lu Jianlin 陆建林. (2019). 学习墨子思想 培育大医精神[To Cultivate the Spirit of Doctors by Studying Mozi's Thought]. 广东职业技术教育与研究Guangdong Vocational Technical Education and Research (04) 196.
  • Ren Jiaying 任珈莹. (2021). 中国传统文化之儒家思想的当代价值[The Contemporary Value of Confucianism in Chinese Traditional Culture]. 科技资讯 Science & Technology Information (04) 199.
  • Niu Yufei 牛宇飞. (2022). 新世界主义中的“和而不同”["Harmony in Diversity" in New Cosmopolitanism]. 公关世界 PR World (04) 8.
  • Liu Bangfan 刘邦凡. (2003). 墨家思想的当代价值[The Modern Significance of Mohist School of Thought]. 燕山大学学报(哲学社会科学版) Journal of Yanshan University(Philosophy and Social Science Edition) (01) 24-25.
  • Xu Nanzhi 徐楠芝. (2018). 先秦法家思想对当代法治的价值[The Value of Pre-Qin Legalist Thought to Contemporary Rule of Law]. 黑龙江省政法管理干部学院学报 Journal of Heilongjiang Administrative Cadre College of Politics and Law (02) 3-4.
  • Wang Xiaoxue 王晓雪. (2011). 先秦兵家治国思想研究 ——以先秦六本兵书为中心[Study on State Affairs of the Military Strategists in Pre-Qin Period – Focused on Six Military Books in Pre-Qin Period]. 南开大学 Nankai University.


Terms and Expressions

the Pre-Qin philosophy 先秦哲学

the Study of Confucian Classics in the Han Dynasty 汉代经学

the Metaphysics of the Wei and Jin Dynasties 魏晋玄学

the Buddhist philosophy during the Sui and Tang Dynasties 隋唐佛学

Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties 宋明理学

the Practical Thought in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 明清实学

Textual Studies in the late Qing Dynasty 乾嘉朴学

the School of Legalists 法家

the School of Logicians 名家

the School of Military Strategists 战略家

the Yin-Yang School 阴阳家

the School of Political Strategists 纵横家

the Eclectics 杂家

the School of Agriculturists 农家

"Universal Love" 兼爱

"Against Aggression" 非攻

"Respecting the Virtuous" 尚贤

“Identifying with the Superior” 尚同

"The Will of Heaven" 天志

"On Ghosts" 明鬼

"Against Fatalism" 非命

"Against Music" 非乐

"Simplicity in Funerals" 节葬

"Saving Expenditures" 节用

Questions

1. When did traditional Chinese philosophy take shape?

2. What are the most influential schools of thought in the Pre-Qin period?

3. What is the core of Mozi's thought?

Answers

1. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period.

2. The most influential ones are the Confucian School, Taoist School, Mohist School, the School of Legalists, and the School of Military Strategists.

3. Universal Love.

英语笔译 童略雅 Tong Lueya 202170081595

A Brief Analysis of the Influence of Artificial Intelligence on Translators
Tong Lueya

Abstract

The Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and other information technologies in the digital age have brought profound changes to the development of human society. Of course, translation is also affected without exception. Artificial intelligence is quietly changing the process of translation and the identity of the translator. Over recent decades, AI has developed rapidly and has been widely used in various fields. It has become the inevitable trend of social development. As a special human activity, translation has developed from the early mechanical machine translation to the current computer-aided translation (CAT), which is the embodiment of the integration of artificial intelligence technology and translation, and more and more people hold that this technology will replace manual translation. Based on the current development of AI and translation technology, this paper will explore the influence of the AI on translators, and then attempt to give some suggestions to them, so as to make full use of artificial intelligence to lead the development of translation and form a good situation of complementary advantages and mutual benefit.

Key words

Artificial intelligence; translator; influence; machine translation

Introduction

Literature Review

Methods and Theories

Subtitle 1

正文. (Wang 2021:423)如所用句子是引用他人的文章,请在引用部分后标明出处,如是借鉴他人观点,则请标注为(c.f: Wang 2021:423)

Subtitle 2

Subtitle 3

Subtitle 4

Conclusion

References

  • Wang Jianhua (2021). The Reception of Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 450 pp.

英语笔译 庹树梅 Tuo Shumei 202170081596

Translation and Dissemination of Chinese Fairy Tales in the English-speaking World
Tuo Shumei

Abstract

Chinese fairy tales are a literary style created by ancient Chinese people in the process of working life through long-term social practice. It is a literary style with a strong and distinctive national character, and is a bright and dazzling pearl in the treasury of Chinese culture. Internally, it is a source of cultural confidence, and externally, it is a channel for overseas readers to understand Chinese history, culture and society. Nowadays, with the increasingly frequent cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, the English translation of Chinese mythological stories can help foreign readers better understand Chinese customs and traditions, and deepen their understanding of Chinese culture. Therefore, in order to tell Chinese stories and spread Chinese voices well, it is indispensable to tell Chinese Fairy Tales, spread Chinese mythological imagination and explain Chinese mythological wisdom. The first chapter of this paper analyzes Chinese Fairy Tales from the perspective of its translation status and strategies in the English-speaking world. The second chapter analyzes Chinese Fairy Tales from the perspective of its dissemination in the English-speaking world and their dissemination strategies. Chapter 3 analyzes Chinese Fairy Tales from the perspective of how to improve its translation and dissemination in the English-speaking world. Chapter 5 analyzes Chinese Fairy Taliesin the English-speaking world from the point of view of its translation and dissemination significance.

Key words

Introduction

Literature Review

Methods and Theories

Subtitle 1

正文. (Wang 2021:423)如所用句子是引用他人的文章,请在引用部分后标明出处,如是借鉴他人观点,则请标注为(c.f: Wang 2021:423)

Subtitle 2

Subtitle 3

Subtitle 4

Conclusion

References

  • Wang Jianhua (2021). The Reception of Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 450 pp.

英语笔译 王思琪 Wang Siqi 202170081597

A Study on Chinese Dialects
Wang Siqi

Abstract

Dialect, a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially. Generally speaking, regions with a long history, a large population and a broad territory tend to have more dialects. There are many factors that form dialects, from the migration of people in ancient times to the cultural exchanges with diverse ethnic groups, to the division of a society and the uneven development of various languages, etc., which allow them to derive a variety of different languages, so that dialects are characterized by its diversity. As an intangible cultural heritage, dialects should be transmitted in a more effective way, rather than stagnating abruptly in an era and disappearing without any signs. This paper will study the origin and development of Chinese dialects, the classifications and characteristics of Chinese dialects, the challenges faced by Chinese dialects in modern times, and how to protect and promote the dying Chinese dialects.

Key words

Regional Dialects; Social Dialects; Transmission of Chinese Dialects

Introduction

Dialects can be classified into regional dialects and social dialects. Regional dialect is a distinct form of a language spoken in a particular geographical area, it prevails in specific regions and are distinctly different from other local languages. While social dialects are social variants of language, People who use the same language will have different accents, wording, and speech for their different ages, genders, occupations, and classes within a society. The differences between regional dialects and social dialects manly reflect on three fronts: First, social dialects are different due to class discrepancies and other social factors, while regional dialects are different due to geographical discrepancies. Second, the distinction between social dialects is vague, while the distinction between regional dialects is clear for its geographical boundary; Third, social dialect can be easily influenced by external factors such as age, education, and professions, and the regional dialect has a relatively stable development. As a carrier for cultural exchange, Chinese dialect has a time-honored and colorful history, it plays an unique role in promoting Chinese culture and boosting a more inclusive and united society. This paper will deeply study the Chinese dialects, in the first part, the paper will introduce the evolution of Chinese Dialects; In the second part, the paper will clarify the classifications of Chinese dialects and their respective features; In the third part, the paper will analyze the challenges that the Chinese dialects are facing and illustrate the response to these challenges.

The Evolution of Chinese Dialects

The northern dialects are the direct result of the long development of the languages used by the Han Chinese living in the central plains in ancient times and the influence of the surrounding minority languages. The other dialects of Chinese spoken in southern China have their origins in the historical migration of people from the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River to the south. Migration in Chinese history has taken place from the early Qin dynasty to modern times. There are probably two types of migration, one is the automatic migration of people and the other is the planned migration by the government. The former is often caused by war, famine, famine or population explosion, while the latter is for some political, military or economic purpose. Throughout Chinese history, the general direction of migration has been mainly from north to south, and from east to west. This important feature gave rise to the original origins of the southern dialects of Chinese and formed the geographical pattern of Chinese dialects today.

(1) The origins of the seven major dialects

The Wu dialect has the most ancient origins. According to the Records of the Grand Historian, three thousand years ago, during the Pre-Zhou period, a group of immigrants moved from the Weishui valley in Shaanxi to the Taihu valley in Jiangnan after a political change. They founded the state of Wu, whose language may have been the earliest source of the later Wu dialect.(Ai Jun,2020)

The Xiang dialect is derived from the ancient Chu language, which no longer exists today. During the turmoil in the Central Plains at the end of the Shang dynasty, the Chu people moved south to the Jianghan basin, and so the Chu language was brought to the Hubei region. During the Warring States period, the state of Chu moved south to take possession of the Xiang River valley, so the ancient Chu language spread again to Hunan.(Ai Jun,2020)

After the Qin unified the six kingdoms, they crossed the Five Ridges to the south and took possession of the two regions of Canton. The area was originally inhabited by the Baiyue people, and the Qin emperor sent 500,000 troops to station there to prevent them from rebelling. The language used by these soldiers became the precursor to the Cantonese dialect of today.(Ai Jun,2020)

Fujian was originally the home of the Min Yue people, and during the Western Han Dynasty there was only one county here. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, when warlords were at war, a large number of migrants from the north entered Fujian by land and sea, and the original Min dialect would have sprung from this period.(Lin lunlun,2020)

The Gan and Hakka dialects were the latest to emerge. Jiangxi was a crossroads between the ancient Wu and Chu languages, so there was no original Gan language before the Han Dynasty. During the great migration of Han Chinese people southwards that took place after the Yongjia period of the Western Jin Dynasty (307-312), some of the migrants from the north arrived in northern Jiangxi, and the languages they brought with them were the precursors of the Gan and Hakka dialects.(Wang Xiyuan,2013)

The southern dialects of Chinese are the result of the above-mentioned origins and the constant impact of new dialects brought by the many migrations over the centuries, which have led to substitution, intermingling, infiltration and mixing.

(2) Three great migratory movements to the south

Before the Jin Dynasty, the Huai Shui and Qin Ling lines could be regarded as the general boundary between the northern and southern dialects, but it was only after the Western Jin Dynasty that three major migrations from the south took place, allowing the northern dialects to cross this line into the south on a large scale, thus gradually changing the geographical layout of southern dialects. The basic pattern of Chinese dialects is the result of three major southward migrations of Han Chinese and a number of small and medium-scale migrations throughout history. The first great wave of Han migration occurred during the period from the Western Jin to the Southern Dynasties (307 - 466). The Eight Kings' Rebellion at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty led to the invasion of minority groups on the frontier, thus forcing a large number of Han Chinese from the Middle Kingdom to migrate southwards. This number represented about one-eighth of the population of the northern Western Jin Dynasty and another sixth of the population of the Southern Song Dynasty.(Zhan Boyan,2015)

The second wave of migration was triggered by the An-shi Rebellion, which took place during the Tang Dynasty (755). The eight-year war spread across the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, causing a renewed exodus of people from the Central Plains to the south. Not only was the migration caused by the An-shi Rebellion large, but this time it went further than the previous one, reaching south of Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake, and even to Lingnan and Fujian. As a result, the northern dialects once again impacted on the southern dialects and played a key role in shaping their geographical pattern. In Hubei, the northern dialects accelerated the assimilation of the Hubei dialect and laid the foundation for the Southwestern official dialects of this region. In the Changsha-Hengyang area, the Xiang dialect was eroded by the northern dialects, weakening its inherent characteristics. At the same time, the Cantonese dialect has been influenced to some extent by the immigrant dialects.In northern and central Jiangxi, the languages brought by immigrants from the north formed the main basis of the present-day Gan language and prepared the ground for the formation of the later Hakka dialect. The immigrant languages entering Jiangxi permanently separated the Wu and Xiang speaking areas and confined the Min languages to the Fujian region.After the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty saw the emergence of clans and towns. These clans were nominally under the central government, but in reality were small independent kingdoms. After the fall of the Tang dynasty, five dynasties emerged in the Central Plains, known as the Five Dynasties, and a dozen other local feudal regimes emerged, collectively known as the Ten Kingdoms. During the two hundred years before and after this period, the people lived in a long period of fragmentation, reinforcing the geographical pattern of dialects. The Wu-Yue, Wu (Southern Tang), Chu, Min and Southern Han regimes played a significant role in the formation of the Wu, Gan, Xiang, Min and Yue dialect regions.(Zhan Boyan,2015)

The third great southward migration occurred at the time of the two Song dynasties (1126-1142) for similar reasons and southward routes to the first and second great migrations, with the southern part of present-day Jiangsu and Zhejiang receiving the greatest number of migrants, and the migrants reaching further south, with Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi all having migrant footprints. As the immigrants were more evenly distributed, except in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the northern dialects did not have as much influence on the southern dialects as the first two migrations. After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, a large number of civil and military officials, monks, nuns and merchants from the old capital of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) came south to the Southern Song capital of Lin'an (now Hangzhou).The Hakka dialect also gradually took shape during this period. As a result of the southern invasion of the Jin and Mongols, a large number of descendants of immigrants who had moved to Jiangnan after the Middle Tang Dynasty and people who had moved to western Fujian and southern Gan at the end of the Tang Dynasty moved again to the border area of Fujian, Guangdong and Gan. The geographical isolation of this area caused the immigrant dialects to finally separate themselves completely from the northern dialects, forming a distinctive Hakka dialect and making the area around Meizhou in Guangdong the core of the Hakka dialect.(Zhan Boyan,2015)

The process of migration from Jiangxi to Hunan lasted for seven or eight hundred years, starting from the Five Dynasties until the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The reasons for the migration were spontaneous economic requirements. The middle and lower reaches of the Gan River in Jiangxi were more developed than Hunan due to the large number of immigrants they received after the Middle Tang Dynasty. As a result, the Xiang language changed qualitatively and took on Gan characteristics.The migration from Fujian to Guangdong also began roughly during the Five Dynasties. Fujian had many mountains and few fields, and the population saturation became more pronounced. As a result, Fujianese immigrants entered the south-eastern coast of Guangdong and gradually spread westwards, mostly across the sea, spreading the Min dialect along the coastal areas in the eastern and western ends of Guangdong and leaving some Min islands in the Pearl River Delta.

Chinese Regional Dialects and Social Dialects

(1)Classifications and phonetic features of Chinese Regional Dialects

In general, Chinese dialects can be roughly classified into seven large groups: the Northern dialect (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang, and Yue (Cantonese). The seven large dialectal groups were defined by regional factors.

The Northern dialect, also known as the Mandarin, is the basic dialect of modern Chinese Mandarin, represented by Beijing dialect, which is the most widely used. The main feature of northern dialects in terms of pronunciation is that there is no voiced stopper and voiced syllable vowel, and there are four tones, including level tone, the rising tone, the falling-rising tone, and the falling tone. According to its characteristics, the northern dialect is generally divided into four sub-dialects: North China dialect, Northwest dialect, Southwest dialect and Jianghuai dialect. The internal consistency of northern dialects is relatively strong, the difference in its grammatical structure is small, and the difference in pronunciation is not very large.

The Gan dialect is mainly spoken in the central and northern parts of Jiangxi Province, as well as parts of eastern Hunan, southeastern Hubei, southwestern Anhui, and northwestern Fujian. There are about 100 counties (cities), with a population of more than 30 million. Nanchang dialect is typical. From a dialect map, the Gan dialect is surrounded by northern dialects, Wu dialects, Fujian dialects, Hakka dialects, and Hunan dialects. This geographical location is the most unique among all dialects of Chinese. Because of this, the Gan dialect is greatly influenced by other dialects, and the boundaries on all sides are very indistinct.One of the most prominent features of the Gan dialect pronunciation is that the ancient voiced stopper and the voiced vowel all become the same pronunciation part of the air-sending clear vowel (Liu Lunxin, 2003:34)

Kejia, or Hakka, is mainly spoken in the eastern and northern regions of Guangdong, Guangxi and southern Jiangxi, western Fujian, and parts of Hunan, Sichuan, and Taiwan Provinces. The main phonetic characteristics are: Most of the ancient voiced stopper and voiced vowels become the same part of the air-sending clear vowel, which is consistent with the Gan dialect; g, k, h and z, c, s can be spelled with the homonymous vowel;

Min is spoken in China's southern coastal province—Fujian, it is also spoken by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaoshan, parts of Zhongshan, three counties in southern Wenzhou, Zhoushan archipelago, and Taiwan.The name is derived from the Min River in Fujian, which is also the abbreviated name of Fujian Province. It is the most diverse dialect, meaning within the dialect group there are still many different variations on word pronunciation. There is no labiodental fricative f in the pronunciation of the Min dialect. In Mandarin, all words that pronounce f vowels are pronounced b or p vowels in Min dialect; In Mandarin, the word with zh and ch vowel are pronounced d or t in Min dialect.

The Wu dialect spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang Province and the part of Jiangsu Province south of the Yangtze River, which makes up the cultural region of Wu.

Xiang is a southern dialect concentrated in Hunan province. The two major varieties of Xiang are New Xiang and Old Xiang. New Xiang, which is spoken predominantly around Changsha, the capital of Hunan, has been strongly influenced by Mandarin Chinese. Old Xiang, which is spoken in other areas of the province. Old Xiang has a greater number of different initial consonants than does any other major Chinese language. Xiang uses five tones to distinguish meaning between words or word elements that have the same series of consonants and vowels.

Cantonese, or Yue, is also a southern dialect. It is spoken in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau. At the same time, the Cantonese dialect area is the forefront of China's opening up and reform, every year there attracts millions of migrant workers from all provinces in the interior to pan for gold, so in recent years the influence of Cantonese dialect is getting bigger and bigger. Cantonese dialect words, in recent years, also showed a trend of northward penetration, which reflects the close relationship between language expansion and economic development. The phonetic system of Cantonese dialect is relatively complex, with as many as fifty-three finals, which is the dialect with the most tones among all Chinese dialects.(Tao Huan, 2018)

(2)Factors affecting the Social Dialects

Social dialect is a variety of speech associated with a particular social class or occupational group within a society. Also known as a sociolect, group idiolect, and class dialect. The term sociolect is a combination of the words 'social' and 'dialect', It includes professional terminology, jargon, cant, etc. Sociolects typically develop among groups of people who share the same social environments or backgrounds. Social factors that influence sociolects include socioeconomic status, age, occupation, and gender and so on.

Socioeconomic status typically refers to a person's class. The language someone uses will likely differ greatly depending on their socioeconomic status. This can all be linked to the education they received, the people they choose to spend time with (or can afford to spend time with), the job they do, and the income they make.

New words are added to the dictionary every year, and many words that were once common fall out of use. This is because language is constantly changing.These changes are often apparent when we examine the different sociolects across ages. Especially grandparents or someone older than you.

Occupation is about the jobs we do. As we learn and develop skills for specific jobs, we also pick up lots of new vocabularies along the way. Take a computer programmer, for example, they probably know and use a lot of technical 'jargon' that a neurosurgeon wouldn't understand, and vice-versa.

Gender is a little more controversial than the others as there is a lot of conflicting research around the differences in men and women's speech. Some researchers suggest that it is due to genetics, whereas others believe that women's lower status in society has impacted their speech.

Sociolect is a variety of language unique to a social group. It is important to remember that most people will use several different sociolects throughout their lives. Our speech will likely change depending on who we talk to and where we are. Think about why your speech differs from when you're at work and when you are hanging out with your friends. Sociolect plays an vital role in your social interactions with others, it can help you leave a good or bad impression for others, even influence you relations with others.(Xie Nana,2015)

Challenges of Chinese Dialects

The Chinese regional dialects are shrinking or even dying out at a very rapid rate, and many of the dialects have become completely alien to young people. On the other hand, regional dialects are assimilated by mandarin. On the other hand, the regional dialects have gradually lost their soil and the young people are gradually alienated from the regional culture embedded in the dialects. There are four reasons that can better explain this situation.

First, the increasing development and convenience of transportation have made it possible for the population to move around frequently on a large scale, and people in different regions can break the communication barriers by speaking Mandarin. The promotion results have seen remarkable progress in cities, and in rural areas, the regionalects are local residents’ common communication means, however, since more and more rural immigrants work in the cities, their dialects have been gradually assimilated under a new working and social environment where mandarin is the main language.(Zhuang Chusheng,2017)

Second, television and Internet media that require and promote Mandarin to bolster mutual understandings and exchanges. In most media platform, the host are required to speak fluent Mandarin, and after the audience gradually accepts massive inputs of Mandarin, their dialects are rapidly assimilated.(Zhuang Chusheng,2017)

Third, the promotion of Mandarin has been intensified by Chinese governments. Since the promotion of Putonghua has been carried out extensively, more and more remarkable results have been achieved, dialects are bound to face the dilemma of shrinking. From primary and secondary schools to the whole society, Putonghua has become a leading language in the Chinese society, no matter where you go, you can notice the promotion slogans. In China, there are an important test for your mandarin level, that is The Putonghua Proficiency Test or Putonghua Shuiping Ceshi (PSC), is an official test intended for native speakers of Chinese languages, Candidates who pass the test are given a Certificate of Putonghua Proficiency Level at levels 1, 2 or 3, each of which is subdivided into grades A and B, and the majority of Chinese students will try to get a good grade, this is because they regard the certification as an additional skill when they are seeking jobs, it is conducive to job-seekers especially those working in broadcasting, education and government sectors. (Zhuang Chusheng,2017)

Finally, many young people took pride in speaking Mandarin and felt that the regional dialects are too old-fashioned. Even some young people felt ashamed of speaking their dialects, and they grew up in a Mandarin environment in which parents, teachers, and their friends all speak Mandarin, this has a serious impact on the transmission of regional culture.(Zhuang Chusheng,2017)

The Transmission and Inheritance of Chinese Dialects

Firstly, in the perspective of official authority, the language authorities should issue policies to protect the regionalects in the same way as they do for Madarin, so as to raise awareness of speaking regionalect in the community, specific measures such as instruct relevant departments to carry out special publicity on dialect culture, establish relevant regulations for the protection of dialects, and do the academic rescue work of good dialects, to construct a Chinese dialect museum to preserve and display Chinese dialects. The construction of a virtual language museum has also become an important aspect of the protection of language resources, and use advanced technical tools to collect, preserve, display and develop language resources, these efforts will better preserve the dialect culture and make it easier for future generations to do better understand dialect culture and promote the publicity and inheritance of dialect culture.(Zhang Shifang,2017)

Secondly, the mass media have to play its own role in promoting the vernacular language through various modes of communication, to stimulate the interest of the public in learning a regional dialect, the media can also make use of the dialect culture in television programmes wherever appropriate. In addition, diversify the broadcasting form of culture, such as promoting the popularity of Cantonese, spreading the traditional Chinese opera based on local languages, launching the shows to disseminate local culture with the aim of attracting the young people’s sense of belonging and inspiring them to carry forward the regional dialects. Besides, influential local shows can invite indigenous celebrities to promote regional dialects for their hometown.(Zhang Shifang,2017)

Thirdly, It is everyone's duty to preserve our regional dialects. Older people can communicate with younger people in their regional dialects to promote the transmission of it, young people should increase frequency of speaking regional dialects in daily life, and the parents should set a good example for their children and value the significance of regional dialects with an insightful and far-seeing wisdom, these efforts will stimulate a sense of responsibility and enthusiasm for learning regional dialects in youth, and enhance their sense of identity with Chinese culture, fully mobilize social forces, mobilize the enthusiasm of all sectors of society, and carry out long-term protection. (Zhang Shifang,2017)

Terms and Expressions

level tone阴平

the rising tone阳平

the falling-rising tone上声

the falling tone去声

sub-dialects次方言

voiced stopper浊塞音

the voiced vowel浊元音

the air-sending clear vowel 送气清元音

fricative唇齿擦音.

Questions

1.What’s the differences between regional dialects and social dialects?

2.How many groups of regional dialects in China?

3.How to protect and promote the Chinese regional dialects?

Answers

1. First, social dialects are different due to class discrepancies and other social factors, while regional dialects are different due to geographical discrepancies. Second, the distinction between social dialects is vague, while the distinction between regional dialects is clear for its geographical boundary; Third, social dialect can be easily influenced by external factors such as age, education, and professions, and the regional dialect has a relatively stable development.

2.Seven

3.The language authorities should issue policies to protect the regionalects; the mass media have to play its own role in promoting the vernacular language through various modes of communication; It is everyone's duty to preserve our regional dialects.

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英语笔译 王亚娟 Wang Yajuan 202170081598

Filial Piety in China
Wang Yajuan

Introduction

Filial piety has been a tradition of the Chinese nation since ancient times and has been passed down from generation to generation. As the core concept and main feature of traditional Chinese ethics, filial piety has long been priority in the traditional Chinese politics and cultures. (Xiao Longhang 2006: 1)China's unique patriarchal social system determines that filial piety goes through a process from a religious ethic of ancestor worship to a family ethic and then to a political ethic.

Since the pre-Qin period, monarchs have advocated respect for the elderly and used filial piety to educate the people; thinkers from various periods have put forward their ideas about respect for the elderly and have written books to preach it. In feudal society, when the system was thriving, filial piety was closely linked to politics and became a criterion for selecting talents; in modern society, filial piety has also been given a new meaning in the modern era. (Fan Yan 2016;11) This article will focus on the origin and development of filial piety in China, analyze the cultural values and limitations of filial piety of Chinese filial piety, then briefly compare and analyzes Chinese and western filial piety, finally a brief conclusion about filial piety will be given.

Origin and Basic Meaning of Filial Piety

The exact origin of the idea of filial piety is still inconclusive in academic circles. Because in the absence of exact archaeological findings and written records, all conclusions drawn by scholars are only speculations, with imaginary approximations but no factual results. Therefore, the origin can only be explored in the ancient literature. (Wang Xiaohu 2014:3 .)

The explanation of filial piety in Erya-Shihun(《尔雅·释训》) is "being nice to parents is filial piety"; the explanation in Relics from South is “The Chinese character ‘孝’(filial piety) is a combination of the Chinese character ‘老’ (old) with the lower right corner omitted, and 子 (son), thus, 孝 means to serve one's parents well, and it means that children respect and support their parents.’’ Today's scholars interpret the Jinwen(金文inscriptions on ancient bronze objects) form of filial piety in much the same way as the above, and the explanation of filial piety in the Ci Hai(《辞海》) is “to be nice to parents well”, which is almost identical to the explanation in the Erya;Tang Yin's On the Origin of Characters《文字源流浅说》 is even more interesting: “Like a '子'(son) walking with his head bearing ‘老’(the old man), showing ‘孝’(filial piety) by the shape of supporting an old man to walk.’’ It can be seen that the ancient form of the character "孝”(filial piety) and the meaning of "nice to parents" match perfectly, so "filial piety" is regarded as a kind of good deed and virtue of children to their parents. (Yang Jianhai 2017:10)

In history, records of "respect olders" first began with Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors:"昔者,有虞氏贵德而尚齿,夏后氏贵爵而尚齿,殷人贵富而尚齿,周人贵亲而尚齿”(From the time of Yu and Shun, although they respected virtuous people, they did not forget to respect older people; in the Xia Dynasty, although they respected people with titles, they did not forget to respect older people; in the Yin Dynasty, although they respected people with money, they did not forget to respect older people; in the Zhou Dynasty, although they respected people with kinship, they did not forget to respect older people.”)and “有虞氏养国老于上庠,养庶老于下庠;夏后氏养国老于东序,养庶老于西......(Fan Yan 2016:11)(In the era of the yu, the retired senior officials were entertained at the upper school and the retired scholars at the lower school; the offspring of Xia entertained the retired senior officials in the east and the old people in the west...)

From the available information, the Jin dynasty appeared on the "filial piety" records, such as "“天子明哲,观孝与申(神)”(The emperor judged a man's virtue by his filial piety and religious belief) People in Yin Period believed that the ancestors could directly worship God and are the main medium between God and the human world. Since the ancestors were the medium between the human world and the divine world, they naturally became the masters of the earth and thus could bring disasters and blessings. (Yang Jianhai 2017:134)This is the reason why the Yin people attached special importance to heavy burial and had religious worship of their ancestors.

After King Wu of Zhou pacified the world, he redistributed the world and restored the social orders, therefore, Zhou Dynasty not only inherited the traditions of the previous dynasties, but also created customs and festivals to honor and respect the elderly. For example, the "乡饮酒(country drinking ceremony)" was a unique form of village gathering in the Zhou Dynasty, where the younger generation expressed their respect to their elders by making a toast. During the banquet, ancient songs or chapters from the Book of Songs(《诗经》) were played to praise the virtue and prestige of the elderly. (Fan Yan 2016:11)

Filial piety in the sense of ethical norms is not fully highlighted until Confucius: "“夫孝,天之经也,地之义也,民之行也。”(Filial piety, like the operation of heaven, is eternal and unchanging; like the natural growth of all things on earth, it is natural and justified, and is the natural behavior of the people.)and “天地之性,人为贵。人之行,莫大于孝。”"The nature of heaven is valued by man. The conduct of man is no greater than filial piety." Mencius inherited this view and proposed, "“事孰为大?事亲为大“(What is the greatest thing to do? To serve one's parents is the greatest) (Fan Yan 2016:11). Confucianism believes that filial piety and respect for one's elders is a natural and righteous thing to do, and it is the foundation of one's life.

Confucianism has laid the foundation for the most influential part of filial piety in Chinese people for more than two thousand years because Confucian sages, represented by Confucius, completed the transformation of filial piety from religion to philosophy, from "pursuing filial piety" to "nurturing filial piety" during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. As we all know, Confucius created a philosophical system with "benevolence" as the core concept, reinterpreting the Western Zhou "rites" from the viewpoint of "doctrine of benevolence". He also believes that filial piety is no longer due to the external pressure of society and the constraints of gods, but is an emotional demand and moral consciousness from people's heart and he also combined "filial piety" with "rites", saying that one should treat one's parents and elders with "生,事之以礼;死,葬之以礼,祭之以礼’’ (Yang Jianhai 2017:135)(rites in life, rites in burial, and rites in sacrifice) .

Evolution of the Meaning of Filial Piety

After the formation of filial piety in the time of Confucius, it continued to develop.


1.The Han and Wei And Jin Period

During the Han Dynasty, there was a more obvious trend of expanding the idea of filial piety, and after the adoption of Dong Zhongshu's proposal of “罢黜百家,独尊儒术(dismissing the hundred schools and respecting only Confucianism)”, the Han Emperor began to promote Confucianism. The idea of "filial piety" was closely related to social politics, and during the Western Han Dynasty, the implementation of filial piety was encouraged through the establishment of an official for filial piety, and the old caring was established as a system, which had extremely severe legal penalties for those who were not provided for their parents - would to be beheaded.(Ma Yaobin 2017:101)Through such external coercive norms, instead of focusing on the internalization of the idea from the heart, the idea of filial piety was heavily colored by politics, making the people's filial behavior more formal.

From the beginning, the rulers of the Wei and Jin periods advocated the rule of the state by filial piety as the basis of governance and he sets an example for all his subjects by serving his own mother personally. The rulers of the Wei and Jin dynasties attached great importance to the Classic of Filial Piety, not only having the great scholars teach it, but also made notes themselves. When the emperor lectured on The Classic of Filial Piety(《孝经》), he had to be accompanied by important ministers, and there was a clear division of labor, including lecturing, reading, reading and extracting sentences. (Fan Yan 2016:12)

2.The Tang Dynasty, Song and Yuan Dynasty

In the Tang dynasty, although filial piety was still not given much attention, the ethics of filial piety was still enriched and developed by the royal family out of the need to rule. First, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang twice annotated The Classic of Filial Piety(《孝经》), which became the common version used today; second, The Classic of Filial Piety became a compulsory subject for the imperial examinations; third, Tang Code(《唐律疏议》), which is the highest legislative achievement of the Chinese legal system, pays special attention to filial piety, in which there are 58 articles that can reflect "filial piety".(Yang Zhigang 2012:262)

During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the traditional idea of filial piety in China was to a certain extent alienated, for example, the filial sons and acts of filial piety in the book 24 Stories of Filial Piety(《二十四孝》) which was written in the Yuan Dynasty, could find their prototypes in the Song Dynasty. 24 Stories of Filial Piety was collected by Guo Juijing of the Yuan Dynasty, with many versions and mostly similar contents, recording the stories of twenty-four filial sons from the ancient times to the Tang and Song dynasties, such as Zhongyu "carrying rice for a hundred miles" and Wang Bao "hearing the thunder and weeping at the grave" and so on,which all reflect the deepest concern and respect of children for their parents, and even after their parents have passed away, they are still able to respect and raise their parents. . (Ma Yaobin 2017:101) However, there are also some foolish acts of filial piety, such as Guo Ju's "burying his son for his mother"and Wang Xiang's "lying on ice for seeking carp for mother", which are either the loss of basic humanity or foolishness, and are not worth promoting.

3.The Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty

During the Ming Dynasty, against the backdrop pf reinforced centralization of power and people’s confined minds, filial piety was advocated in a perverse way, and it was the darkest period of feudal culture. Luo Lun said in the Outline of Principle of Feudal Moral Conduct(《扶植纲常疏》): "孝者,天之经也,地之义也。国而非此不可以为国,家而非此不可以为家。’’(Filial piety is unalterable principle. Without it, the country can not be the country and home can not be home ) (Xiao Longhang 2006:9)There were many loyal subjects and many filial sons in the Ming Dynasty, but many of them were foolishly loyal and blind filial people under the dark rituals,which had a profound influence on later generations.

The Qing dynasty, as a foreign regime, after entering the country to inherit the great unity, continuously learn the Han culture and also with the power of "filial piety" to rule, and the Kangxi emperor placed emphasis on the three principles and the five rules in which the "filial piety" was put in the first place. He believed that to rule the world, the emperor should respect the rule of filial piety. At the same time, the folk power also spared no effort to promote and publicize filial piety with the help of popular teaching materials, such as The Hundred Filial Piety Charts(《百孝图》), which were widely disseminated until the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period. (Yang Jianhai 2017:137)

4.In Modern Times

In modern times, new reform and revolutionary forces have become increasingly critical of traditional filial piety, and南京临时政府《临时约法》( the Provisional Treaty enacted by the Nanjing Provisional Government) , completely ousting Confucianism, which had ruled China for a long time, making democratic thought the mainstream ideology of the democratic revolution. (Li Renjun 2010:42)

The New Culture Movement (新文化运动)made an unprecedented rethinking of filial piety. In his essay Speaking of Filial Piety(《说孝》), Wu Yu pointed out that "the original meaning of filial piety is to gratitude." It is a social virtue for children to care for their parents, but it is wrong to derive other morals from it while Chen Duxiu believed that the adverse effect of the patriarchal system, with its emphasis on filial piety was to exacerbate social inequality." Lu Xun, who was a master of ideas in establishing a new type of ethical relationship between parents and children during the New Culture Movement, believed that love and respect was the cornerstone of establishing a new type ideology between families, "To expand this love, one must understand and take the child as the principal; secondly to guide instead of commanding or chastising; and third, to liberate, so that the child becomes an independent person." (Xiao Qunzhong 2001:124)

In short, during the New Culture Movement, these thoughts about the establishment of a new ethic of father-child relationship, which was consistent with the slogan of "democracy, science, advocating new morality and opposing old morality"at that time. (Li Renjun 2010:43)This new concept of "freedom and equality" also laid the ideological foundation for the establishment of new relations in modern times.

5.In Contemporary Times

In contemporary times, people have begun to adhere to the Marxist and rethink the current development of filial piety and its practice in our country. In recent years, when the song "《常回家看看》Come home often" has entered thousands of households, filial piety has once again become a hot topic. People are beginning to rethink the idea of filial piety in the context of the new era, and general public is focusing more on the concern and reflection on parents' emotions. (Ma Yaobin 2017:102)

Influence of Filial Piety on China

Filial piety has a long history as a traditional Chinese ethical culture and has a universal influence in society. Its strong power has played a great role in consolidating the centralized rule of feudal dynasties and stability of civil families in successive generations. (Li Renjun 2010:45) However, many of these views are feudal dregs that are having a negative impact on society.

1.Negative Influence

In our history, the concept of filial piety has had many shortcomings.

(1)Fool the People

Traditional filial piety emphasizes the "three principles and five rules" to fool the people, just as Confucius said: "民可使由之,不可使知之"(With the people, we can only make them do what we want them to do, not why they want to do it). By propagating the idea of loyalty and filial piety and polarizing it, the people were made obedient and the ministers were made loyal, not thinking of rebellion and rarely rebelling. Wu Yu points out that “China has been turned into a big factory for the production of obedient people. Such is the great role of the word filial piety!" (Zhao Qing, Zheng Cheng 1985)

(2)Inequality

The relationship between ruler and subject, father and son in traditional filial piety and the resulting hierarchical concept lead to the inequality between people. Although it involves the idea of respecting the old and loving the young, it is always the "elders" that is absolutely dominant. (Xiao Longhang 2006:29)

(3)Feudalism

Filial piety that has been transformed by the ruling class and used to rule the people, should be criticized and discarded. The meaning and role of filial piety has been mystified, and myths and legends about filial piety being able to sense heavenly things have spread throughout the world. (Li Chunhua, Yu Dahai 2006:26) As a result, there were some extreme cases and some people did inhumane things, such as hurting themselves to benefit one's parents and kill one's son to support his mother, thus exerting a bad impact on history.

(4)Conservativeness

Persevere and unity can be said to be the basic spirit of Chinese filial piety. Filial piety emphasizes respect for ancestors and treating parents well, "三年无改于父道”(He didn't change his father's ways for three years), and respect and obedience to their parents and ancestors,and if not, they are regarded as "rebellious sons" and "black sheep" and are severely reprimanded. Moreover, it is very conservative and unequal, as the sons identify with their fathers and submit to them. (Xiao Qunzhong 2001;42 )

2.Positive Influence

Despite the many shortcomings of filial piety, we cannot deny the positive role it has played in our country's history:

(1)Shaping the Character of People.

Filial piety is the basis for establishing one's character. Sima Guang of the Song Dynasty said, "治身莫先于孝”(There is no better way to sahp one's character than by filial piety.) "夫孝,始于事亲,中于事君,终于立身”(Filial piety begins with serving one's relatives and ends with serving the king,Finally, it is the foundation of shaping one’s mind.)" The scope of falial piety no longer limited to the family, but a social cause. (Xiao Longhang 2006:28)The responsibility to parents and family constitutes an inexhaustible motivation for the ancient people to build their career and dedicate themselves to the country and the nation, which promotes social progress.

(2)Promote Family Harmony

Filial piety, that is the core foundation of family harmony. Our parents are the source of our life. The affection between children and parents is deepest, and filial piety is the fundamental of being a human being. "睦于父母之党,可谓孝矣”If you are good to your parents, you can be considered filial" (Shen Shanhong 19895 ). Being filial to parents is conducive to improving family relations, creating a sense of wholeness and harmony in the family, and promoting the development of all members of the family.

(3)Enriching Chinese Culture

As traditional Chinese culture dominated by Confucian culture, with Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism interlinked, filial piety is the mainstream of Confucianism, and also is found in Shi and Tao, and has contributed to the development of Shi and Tao culture. The Buddhist scriptures such as The Anthology of Hong Ming(《弘明集》) and the Taoist scriptures such as Scripture of the Great Peace(《太平经》)are also rich in filial thoughts. (Xiao Long Hang 2006:33)In addition, with the passage of time, filial piety gradually integrated into the fields of philosophy, literature, art, and folklore, playing an expanding role for the national culture.

(4)Maintaining Social Stability

“其为人也孝弟,而好犯上者鲜矣。不好犯上,而好作乱者,未之有也。”(It is rare to see the kind of person who is filial to his parents and loves his brother but likes to offend his superiors; it is even more rare to see the kind of person who does not like to offend his superiors but likes to rebel.)"“事亲者,居上不骄,为下不乱。”(Ning Yegao 1995)反之,“居上而骄,为下而乱则刑,在丑而争则兵。“(He who serves his parents is not proud when he is in a higher position, not disruptive when he is in a lower position, and not contentious when he is among the people. If you are proud in a higher position, you will perish; if you are disorderly in a lower position, you will be punished; if you are angry among the people, you will be attacked.)This kind of conduct, which has been honored for thousands of years, does have a deep meaning and a realistic role. Moreover, the value of filial piety does not lie only in loving one's relatives, as filial piety begins with loving one's parents and then moves on to love people and love society. Therefore, filial piety is conducive to social harmony.

Comparison between Chinese and Western Filial Piety

Filial piety in both China and the West emerged with family, and its initial meaning is basically the same: filial to parents. (Lian Luxia 2012:) However, Chinese and Western filial piety are based on different geographical, political, economic, and cultural conditions, which influence the differences in the Chinese and Western understanding of the meaning of filial piety.

(1) Differences in the Objects In the feudal society, parents had absolute authority. After entering feudal society, Chinese filial piety culture developed from respect for parents at the family level to loyalty to the ruler at the social level. By promoting filial culture, feudal rulers were able to achieve their political indoctrination and feudal rule. In an environment that preached the combination of loyalty and filial piety, and the integration of family and ruling (Li Xiang, 2010:52), filial piety was even bound to people as a code of conduct in ancient patriarchal societies.

In the West, the meaningful of filial culture at the social level is not significant, and its mainly refers to respect for parents. Unlike China, however, respect does not mean absolute obedience, and the West attaches more importance to the personal independence between parents and children, and it is more often reflected in the religious sphere. (Huang Shujuan 2021:190)

(2)Differences Between Chinese and Western Family Ethics

Confucius said, "事父母几谏,见志不从,又敬不违,劳而不怨。(Serve your parents, and if they are wrong, politely advise them. If you express your own opinion and your parents are unwilling to listen to it, you should still be respectful to them and not disobey them, and work for them without resentment.)" Chinese feudal society took filial piety as the fundamental of feudal rule. Influenced by Confucianism, parents and elders had absolute authority in the family, and filial piety was reflected in the attitude and behavior of children toward their parents.

The West pursues equality and believes that all men are born equal, and that the relationship between children and parents is also equal. According to Rousseau, "The most primitive society, the only natural society, is the family; the son is dependent on the father only when his protection is needed, and once this need ceases, the natural union breaks down. Each becomes equally independent of the other." (Hu Yuanjiang, Chen Haitao, 2007:48)

All in all, the differences between Chinese and Western attitudes to filial piety exist objectively, so in the face of this difference, one cannot simply judge it by good or bad and the two cultures in different countries are valuable treasures for all mankind. (Lian Lu Xia 2012:203) Today, the Chinese and Western cultures of filial piety are influencing each other and learning from each other because Chinese culture of filial piety shines with the light of humanity, while Western pension system is conducive to economic development. With the continuous development of globalization, western societies can learn from Chinese love and care for the elderly while in the face of social problems such as population aging, there should be more equal between Chinese elders and youngers.

Conclusion

Filial piety has profoundly influenced the habits, psychological qualities and national spirit of our nation. According to Mr. Wei Yingmin, "filial piety is not only applicable to one society, one class or one era, but it is super-class or cross-era, and it is applicable in several eras" (He Naichuan 2002).

In the study of filial piety culture in China, we analyze the history of filial piety as well as its values and drawbacks. We can have a clearer understanding of filial piety, and then better take its essence and remove its dross. Traditional culture is to be traced and analyzed in order to inherit and innovate.

Filial piety is not only an ethical requirement, but also a tool of the feudal rulers in history and in recent times, people have gained a deeper understanding of filial piety through the inheritance and renewal of traditional culture. Respect for elders is a need for human development, and traditional culture plays an important role in maintaining family relationships. At present, China vigorously promotes the core values of socialism, and a harmonious and stable society needs filial piety to play its positive role, so under the new situation, it is the mission to inherit and carry forward the reasonable part of traditional culture and actively explore a new way to deal with filial culture.

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英语笔译 肖冬晴 Xiao Dongqing 202170081599

On Verbal Humour in Chinese Sketch Comedy from the Perspective of Violating Cooperative Principle
Xiao Dongqing

Abstract

As a common linguistic phenomenon, verbal humour is an important part of our daily communication. Grice’s cooperative principle is one of the major principle of pragmatics which is ubiquitous in people’s daily conversations. Therefore, it could provide a new perspective from which we analyse verbal humour. Chinese sketch comedy, also known as Chinese Xiaopin, is an art commonly performed by a group of comic actors or comedians presenting a series of short, amusing scenes called “sketches”. This thesis intends to work out the mechanisms of verbal humour in Chines sketch comedy from the perspective of violation of cooperative principle. It reveals in this special art form the violation of quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim as well as the manner maxim in the process of analysing and proves that the violation of cooperative principle could avoid taking verbal humour at face value and arouse deeper thinking about this topic.

Key words

Verbal humour; Chinese sketch comedy; cooperative principle

Introduction

Humour plays an important role in people’s daily conversations. As a kind of lubricant of verbal communication, it creates an easy and comfortable environment, provides a happy and relaxing atmosphere and helps bring interlocutors closer. Researches and studies on this topic at home and abroad could date back to as early as the 4th century B.C. when the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan composed “There in front of me remains nothing but vastness and silence(眴兮杳杳,孔静幽默)” in his masterpiece The Nine Elegies, meaning vastness.

However, the “humour” this paper talks about is the one transliterated by Lin Yutang. At home, researches on humour have greatly progress since the 1980s. Li Lanping (2002) believes that there are intrinsic connections between the principles in pragmatics and the triggering of humour. She discussed the relationship between the two parts under the guidance of the basic principles of pragmatics and the theory of conversational implicature. Yang Ting (2020), on the other hand, analysed the linguistic phenomenon of humour to further decipher the mechanism of it from the perspective of phonetics, semantics, pragmatics, contexts, figures of speech and logic of languages respectively. Ge Lingling (2011) focused on the translation of humour texts from the perspective of verbal humour so as to figure out the translation pattern of texts of this kind.

Abroad, researches on humour are multidisciplinary, involving anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics, semiotics and artificial intelligence which are ultimately centred on superiority theory, release theory and incongruity theory. For instance, Charles Gruner explained that wonder is an essential element of humour and that there is always a “winner” and a “loser” in humourous contexts. Freud the representative figure of release theory analysed the mechanism of humour from the perspective of psychoanalysis and divided jokes into intentional ones and unintentional ones(Cai Hui, Yin Xing, 2005:5). Kant was said to be the first to denote humour from the perspective of incongruity theory who pointed out that humour comes from a sudden twist from expectation and the inaccessibility of it(Cai Hui, Yin Xing, 2005:5).

There are studies concentrating on the mechanism of humour in comedy. For example, Dang Fengxiao and Cheng Xiongyong(2021) studied on the humourous language in sketch comedy from the perspective of speech act theory while Wei Ya'e studied the sketch comedy presented by Mahua Funage using logic rules. Looking across the border, Adesoye Ronke Eunice (2018) investigated humour and how it is achieved using phonological processes. Parashar Poorva and Tewari Paul (2020) analysed the humour in The Lonely Island and tried to work out its essence as well as how absurdism and stupid comedy provides insight into millennial and internet psychology. Alex Clayton (2020) studied humour from the perspective of rhetoric through vivid, highly readable analyses of individual sketches.

From all the above, it’s clear that the studies on humour are basically centred around linguistics, literature and figures of speech while researches abroad are involved with more disciplines ranging from anthropology to AI. What’s worth mentioning is that although humour was first brought forward in China, researches on this topic went through a far longer history in the west which could date back to the ancient Greek times. Meanwhile, researches on verbal humour in Chinese sketches are rare. Therefore, it’s necessary to work further on this subject. This thesis will adopt the cooperative principle to analyse the relationship between verbal humour in Chinese sketches and the violation of the principle in which the theoretical basis of cooperative theory, its classification as well as the detailed analysis of its four kinds of violation in Chinese sketch comedy will be covered.

Cooperative Principle

Conversational implicature as the core principle of pragmatics theory was first proposed by Oxford philosopher Herbert Paul Grice. Grice noticed that in daily conversations people do not say thing directly but tend to imply them. He believes that there is some regularity in conversation. “Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction.”(Herbert Paul Grice, 1975:45) In other words, we seem to follow some principle like the following: “make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.”(ibid.) And this principle is known as COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE, or CP for short.

To further specify the CP, Grice introduced four key categories of maxims, namely quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim, each of which contains several specific maxims and sub-maxims. In simple terms, quantity maxim is to be informative, quality maxim is to be truthful, relation maxim is to be relevant and manner maxim is to be clear. These describe specific rational principles observed by people who follow the cooperative principle in pursuit of effective communication. Therefore, applying the maxims is a way to explain the link between utterances and what is understood from them.

Yet the use of terms such as “principle” and “maxims” does not mean that the CP and its maxims will be followed everywhere. Despite the wide use of CP in daily conversations, people would more often than not violate these principles in actual communication. When basic communication is interfered, it’s common for people to notice the violation of CP. As a result, the hearer has to make efforts to figure out the implicature so as to understand what the speaker means. Conversational implicature, in fact, is the direct cause of humour. Speaker only violates CP to achieve a sense of humour when the hearer manages to interpret the conversational implicatures under the surface and enjoys the pleasure brought by humour.

Chinese Sketch Comedy

Chinese sketch comedy first gained popularity after the Spring Festival Gala in 1984 when comedian Chen Peisi presented “eating noodles” on stage with his partner Zhu Shimao. Since then, this art form embodying acting and setting on stage sprung up like mushrooms across China and underwent refinement after years of development. Famous sketch comedians include Chen Peisi, Zhao Benshan, Fan Wei, Guo Da, Pan Changjiang, Song Dandan and so forth. The advent of the millennial witnessed the flourishing of this artistic form in which passionate performances of the younger generation, with Shen Teng, Ma Li, and Jia Ling taking the lead, engaged with great enthusiasm and produced a series of humourous yet educational works.

3.1 Historical origin

Chinese Sketch comedy got its name from art schools and performing groups. In the performing art community, the single or group performance which creates a simple scene through body and language is dubbed as “sketch comedy”, an event originally adopted to examine the basics of students of performing arts when teachers threw a topic during an interview and students were required to respond to that on the spot.

As a form of performance about small things in people's daily lives, Chinese sketch comedy has inherited qualities, and developed from other forms of comedy, such as stage play, xiangsheng, errenzhuan and comic drama and is generally believed to originate in the 1980s. Normally, sketch comedy revolves around just one topic, but with a lot of action and lively language. With the help of the promotion by the annual Spring Festival Gala, Chinese sketch comedy became a very popular artistic form in China. The first sketch comedy in China was“eating noodles” (in 1984) which was performed by Chen Peisi. Classic Chinese sketch comedy includes “Blind Date” performed by Zhao Benshan and Huang Xiaojuan in 1989, “The Adventures of Migrant Worker” led by Gong Hanlin and Zhao Lirong in 1996 and “Selling Crutches” by Zhao Benshan and Fan Wei in 2001, etc. Famous comedy groups in operation are DEYUNSHE initiated by Guo Degang, Mahua FunAge best known for its member Shen Teng, Big Bowl Entertainment led by Jia Ling, Zhao Benshan and his students, and Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture started by Li Dan, in which Mahua FunAge, Big Bowl Entertainment and Xiaoguo are still active on screen taking up sketch comedy, the Zhao’s team play “partially” for its fans in China’s northeast and DEYUNSHE mainly focus on passing on crosstalk to the next generation for the audience.

3.2 Features of Chinese Sketch Comedy

Chinese sketch comedy is sharp and witty, with simple plots, which represents as the most fundamental character that distinguish itself from other forms of art and performance. It may not be as sophisticated as other stage performances such as drama and opera, but it is able to render to its audience wisdom and thought-provoking perceptions based on its witty dialogue wrapped up in humour.

Chinese sketch comedy is also an art form that is highly narrative. As many of the topics are directly taken from the life of the people living in the grassroot, it appeals to all ages and entertains people from all works of life. Stories are the fundamental part of sketch comedies which are presented by the characters and the development of the plot interwoven with hookers of suspense, surprise and sudden changes.

Laughter is what sketch comedy aims to achieve ultimately. As the embodiment of stage play, xiangsheng, errenzhuan and comic drama, the modern sketch comedy manages to give the strengths of the artistic forms into full play with the help of modern technology, throwing humourous verbal “packages” consecutively and smoothly to the audience in the hope of eliciting ecstasy from them.

After giving a brief explanation of the theoretical basis and development of Chinese sketch comedy, the following chapter is to elaborate and exemplify the mechanism of humour in specific cases from the perspective of violation of CP in its four key categories, namely the violation of quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim.

3.3 Classifications of Chinese Sketch Comedy

Chinese sketch comedy could be divided into different types with different names in accordance with the changing measurements. For example, from the size and scale of the art, Chinese sketch comedy could be classified into two types: multi-act ones and one-act ones. When looked from the perspective of the era of its theme, it could be divided into historical and modern ones. However, if it is categorised according to the effects of its artistic expressions, there are three kinds of Chinese sketch comedies, namely tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy.

An Overview of Cooperative Principle Violation in Chinese Sketch Comedy

As the kind of sketch comedy presented on stage are plenty, the cases this thesis is to select and analyse are mainly to taken from the ones presented by Mahua FunAge and Big Bowl Entertainment. Here is the detailed analysis of the comic dialogues:

4.1 Verbal Humour Resulted from Violation of Quantity Maxim

Quantity maxim requires that the contribution is as informative as required. In other words, the contribution should not be more informative than is required. However, this maxim is often violated in daily conversation when too much or incomplete contributions are made, which is especially common and humourous when it comes to sketch comedy jokes. For example:

Hao Jian: Oh my god! Are you feeling alright? Where did you hurt?

The old lady (lying on the road groaning): Oh, my elbow! Oh, my kneecaps! And my waist! None of them are painful!

The example above is taken from “To Help or not to Help”(《扶不扶》) in the Spring Festival Gala in 2014. In the opening part of the comedy, Hao the biker was intended to get his broken bike repaired after a car accident. On the way to the repair shop, an old lady with memory problems accidentally slipped on the ice and fell at the back of his bicycle, mistaking him to be the one who knocked her down. In this dialogue, the old lady was expected to answer where was painful. However, she adopted a funny “elimination” method carrying a bunch of irrelevant body parts as her reply. By creating a surprise contrary to what most of the audience would tend to presume, conversations of this kind produce a comic effect by violating quantity maxim.

Here is another case taken from “Making Friends”(《投其所好》) played in 2015:

Official: Is it true that you loved playing ping-pong in your spare time at your department?

Hao Jian(interrupts): I apologise. It was me being too playful. I now see that I was wrong and I swear that I’ll never play ping-pong again! If I were to commit it again, I would have my hands cut……

This satirical sketch comedy focused on the social phenomenon of “making friends” through bribery in order to get things done. In the part mentioned, what the official intended to do was to persuade Hao to practise more and try to be proficient in table tennis so as to flatter the new boss. However, Hao misunderstood the official. Instead of giving a “yes” or “no” to the question, he added up many remarks and even made an oath. It was the violation of quantity maxim in his clumsiness that made this part of acting hilarious.

4.2 Verbal Humour Resulted from Violation of Quality Maxim

Quality maxim requires the interlocutors to be sincere and talk about true things. It has two sub-maxims, namely “do not say what you believe is false” and “do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.” But in real life, this maxim is also often violated by people who tries not to hurt other people’s feelings or who with special intensions. Here is an example from “The Real and Fake Teacher”(《真假老师》) made its debut on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala in 2018:

Teacher: Nice to meet you, Madam, I’m Xiaoming’s head teacher, Ms Jia.

Cleaner: You too! I’m Xiaoming’s mother, Jia (the surname ‘Jia’ and fake are homophones in Chinese. Here the cleaner accidentally blurted it out).

Teacher: Excuse me?

Cleaner: I mean, my family name’s also Jia.

Teacher: But I remember Xiaoming’s parent is called Wang Guixiang(apparently a girl’s name)…

Cleaner: And that’s his father.

Teacher: Zhang Xiaoming actually had a father named Wang Guixiang?

Cleaner: You see, we are from a quite complicated family…

In China, it is a tradition to name the child after the surname of one of the parents, normally that of the father. In this example, the cleaner tried to make a cover-up for her accident alleging the girlish name Wang Guixiang(meaning the fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus) which has nothing to do with Xiaoming’s last name, belongs to the boy’s father. By stating consciously something fake one after another, the cleaner created a sense of humour.

Here is another example violating quality maxim from “Happiness of Today”(《今天的幸福》):

Wife: Tell me a little bit about your father please, baby.

Hao Jian: My dad is a huge success in the future! You know what, he even gets his name on the Fordes list!

Husband (poking Hao, whispering): It’s Forbes!

Hao Jian: Oh, right! Forbes made it later, too. Yet he still can’t hold a handle to my dad…

"Happiness of Today" was a sketch comedy inspired by the time-travelling drama and TV series such as “Palace”(《宫》) and “Treading on Thin Ice”(《步步惊心》). In this scene, Hao Jian was asked to play the son of the wife of his friend who travelled all along from the future back to the present to reassure the “mother” who’s in labour and mitigate her prenatal syndrome. In this example, Hao Jian was making up something that was clearly not true to humour his pregnant “mother”. What made this dialogue even more funny was his lack of knowledge about the “Forbes list” and the clumsy cover-up he made after correct hints from his partner.

4.3 Verbal Humour Resulted from Violation of Relation Maxim

Relation maxim is not only one of the most important maxims of the pragmatics theory, but also a protocol with which should be complied by all. It requires speakers to talk about things which are relevant to the topics. Violation of this maxim could bring about humour as well. The following examples are also taken from the sketch comedy “The Real and Fake Teacher”:

Xiaoming: You see, I am a high school student. Recently I have made some mistakes at school and my teacher is about to conduct a home visit. But the thing is, my parents are currently working abroad and I’m afraid my teacher be here at any minute, so I was wondering if you could, er, wow, that’s a little embarrassing…

Cleaner: Oh, I see. When will she arrive?

Xiaoming: She’ll be here at 10:00.

Cleaner: I’ll finish my job at 9:50 sharp.

In this example, what the student meant was to ask the cleaner to pretend as his mother so that there would be a parent present for the coming home visit. However, the cleaner misunderstood him and gave an irrelevant reply to the request. In this way, humour was generated.

Here is another example taken from this episode concerning the violation of relation maxim:

Teacher: You see, school education won’t do without the help of family education. After all, family is the place where goodness starts. These are the words of the famous educator Sukhomlynsky. I’m sure you must know about him, don’t you?

Cleaner: Eat… eat an apple, please.

In this case, the teacher quoted a motto from Sukhomlynsky, an influential educator from the Soviet Union to remind the “mother” the important role family and family education plays in a child’s development. However, the cleaner obviously had no idea of the educator and didn’t know how to respond. To avoid awkwardness and break the silence, she had only to hand the teacher an apple and divert her attention. In doing so, laughter was elicited from her irrelevant behaviour.

4.4 Verbal Humour Resulted from Violation of Manner Maxim

Unlike the three maxims above which focus on the contents conveyed in the process of talking, manner maxim mainly concentrates on the way how things are expressed. Its sub-maxims include to avoid obscurity of expression, to avoid ambiguity, to be brief and to be orderly. But this maxim is often violated in real life, too. Below is an example taken form the comedy “Happiness of Today” (《今天的幸福》) presented in the Spring Festival Gala in 2012:

Wife: My dear, what do you do then?

Hao Jian: (to the husband, whispering) Ah? Daddy, I don’t think we talked about this before …

Husband: Never mind. Just make up one! As if your mother were a master of the names of jobs.

Hao Jian: I scrub (the husband poking him)…wash…bathe…I study the epidermis of human beings!

Wife: Oh, you are a doctor then!

Hao Jian: You see, I specialise on dirt-ology.

In this comedy, Hao was actually a bather whose main job was to help scrub and wash the dirt off the customers in a public bathhouse. When his “mother” asked him about his job, he described it in an obscure way and even coined a term to sound more professional. His words apparently violated the manner maxim, yet it is the obscurity that made the dialogue funny.

The second example in this section is another one taken from “The Real and Fake Teacher” about job inquiry:

Xiaoming’s father: What on earth do you do, Miss?

Teacher: Well, I can tell you with great proud that I am a gardener!

Xiaoming’s father: Gardener? Then why don’t you water the flowers outside right away?

The mechanism of humour in this example works a little bit differently from the one mentioned in the first place. Instead of using some obscure term to explain what she does, the real teacher Ms Jia selected the word “gardener” with dual meanings to make a self-introduction. Apparently, the package proved to be a success regarding Xiaoming’s father’s misunderstanding.

Here is another example taken from Jia Ling’s autobiographical sketch comedy “Hi, mom!” (《你好,李焕英》)debuted on the stage of “Comedy General Mobilisation”(《喜剧总动员》) in 2016. “Hi, mom!” was a play in which the heroine Jia Ling travelled through space and time to the 1980s to spend some time with her mother who had passed away in a car accident in the 21st century. In the prologue where the two heroines made their first appearance, here comes their dialogue:

Li Huangying: Come on, go inside and stay a while with your grandma!

Jia Ling: I can’t!

Li Huanying: What do you mean you can’t? She loves you a lot! How could you say such hurtful things?

Jia Ling: Because she can’t stop sewing my ripped trousers!

In the example above, Jia used ambiguity in her reply to her mother’s question. It was not until the viewers watch further that they found out why the granddaughter would be so reluctant when it comes to her grandma’s sewing trousers, an act that was supposed to seem loving and caring----it was about the contradiction in aesthetic taste between generations. In this way, Humour comes along with the explanation.

Conclusion

Humour plays an important part in people’s daily conversation which conveys abundant cultural connotations. Grice’s cooperative principle as the core of pragmatics, is also a guiding principle according to which people converse. Once CP is violated, pleasure in humour which comes along with it could be felt. As an artistic form playing an important role in modern China, Chinese sketch comedy has been entertaining its audience of all ages with its funny plots and packages embedded in verbal humour. This thesis selected the sketch comedy performed by Mahua FunAge and Big Bowl Entertainment on the stage of Spring Festival Gala as its corpus and studied the mechanism of verbal humour under the guidance of Cooperative Principle. It has been found that to a large extent, it is the violation of quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim that generated the humour in sketch comedy. As an integral part of Chinese sketch comedy, verbal humour was created through constant violation of Cooperative Principle and its maxims.

However, limitations are inevitable as a result of time and the limited knowledge of the writer. Moreover, as the theories on linguistics are becoming increasingly abundant, analysis about verbal humour should be made from different perspectives and with diversified texts as well. Only through this process could verbal humour and its mechanism be further understood and Cooperative Principle further applied in research and studies.

References

  • Adesoye Ronke Eunice (2018). Phonological distortion as a humorous strategy in Folarin Falana’s comedy skits[J]. The European Journal of Humour Research, 6(4): 60-74.
  • Clayton , A. (2020). Funny How? Sketch Comedy and the Art of Humor. Horizons of Cinema, State University of New York Press.
  • Dang Fengxiao,Cheng Xiongyong (2021). Analysis of Humorous Speech Act in the Skit Help or Not Help[J]. International Journal of Education and Management, 6(1).
  • Grice, H.P.(1975). Logic and Conversation[M]. New York: Academic Press.
  • Parashar Poorva, Tewari Parul (2021). Locating humour in Absurdism and comedy in millennial humour[J]. Comedy Studies, 12(1): 65-74.
  • Yao Xiaomin, Song Liya.Verbal(2019). Humour in English Jokes from the Perspective of Violation of Cooperative Principle[J]. Harbin: Northeast Forestry University.
  • Cai Hui, Yin Xing 蔡辉, 尹星. (2005). 西方幽默理论综述研究[A Review of Western Humour Theory]. 外语研究Foreign Language Research(01):5-8+15.
  • Ge Lingling 戈玲玲. (2011). 论幽默文本中本源概念的翻译模式——基于汉英双语平行语料库的研究[On the Pattern of Translating Alien Sources in Humourous Texts—— A Study Based on a Chinese-English Bilingual Parallel Corpus]. 外语学刊Foreign Language Research(01):117-122.
  • Hu Zhuanglin 胡壮麟. (2017). 语言学教程[Linguistics: A Course Book]. Beijing: Peking University Press北京: 北京大学出版社.
  • Li Lanping 李兰萍. (2002). 语用原则与英语幽默[On Pragmatic Principles and English Humour]. 天津外国语学院学报Journal of Tianjin Foreign Studies University(02):32-36.
  • Wei Ya’e 魏亚娥. (2022). 幽默的产生与逻辑规律的违反——以沈腾春晚小品为例[The Generation of Humour and the Violation of Logic Law -- A case Study of Shen Teng's Spring Festival Gala]. 今古文创 JinGu Creative Literature(02): 95-97.
  • Xu Jie, Zeng Xianmo 徐洁, 曾贤模. (2020). 以言致笑——从言语行为理论视角解析小品《扰民了您》中的幽默[Laughter through Words -- An Analysis of Humour in You Are Disturbing from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory]. 汉字文化Sinogram Culture(23):22-24.
  • Yang Ting 杨婷. (2020). 认知视角下的言语幽默分析——以“生活大爆炸”为例[An Analysis of Verbal Humour from a Cognitive Perspective: A Case Study of The Big Bang Theory]. Shaanxi: Shaanxi Normal University陕西师范大学.

Terms and expressions

Chinese sketch comedy 小品

Cooperative Principle 合作原则

quantity maxim 数量原则

quality maxim 质量原则

relation maxim 关系原则

manner maxim 方式原则

Spring Festival Gala 春节联欢晚会

packages “包袱”

sweet-scented osmanthus 桂花

Questions

1. What are the maxims of Cooperative Principle?

2. What’s the name of the first sketch comedy in China?

3. How do you categorise Chinese sketch comedy?

Answers

1. There are four maxims in total, namely quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim.

2. The first sketch comedy in China is “eating noodles” played by Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao in 1984.

3. Chinese sketch comedy could be divided into different types with different names in accordance with the changing measurements. For example, from the size and scale of the art, Chinese sketch comedy could be classified into two types: multi-act ones and one-act ones. When looked from the perspective of the era of its theme, it could be divided into historical and modern ones. However, if it is categorised according to the effects of its artistic expressions, there are three kinds of Chinese sketch comedies, namely tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy.

英语笔译 肖佳莉 Xiao Jiali 202170081600

The Various Schools of Thought and Their Exponents During the Period from Pre-Qin Times
Xiao Jiali

1.Abstract

The hundred schools of thought are the general name of various academic schools in the pre-Qin period. Among them, the three most influential schools are Laozi, Confucius and Shang Yang, and their views are different. The period from the sixth century BC to the third century BC, that is, the Spring and Autumn and warring States period, was the rejuvenation period of all schools of thought in the pre-Qin period. This period basically laid the foundation of Chinese traditional culture or Sinology, and there has been almost no major breakthrough since then. In this article, we divide the content of the paper into three parts, and respectively discuss the thought and background of Laozi, Confucius and Shang Yang, as well as their characters, and compare the differences and reasons between them. Through the above analysis to emulate the predecessors to face the reality, put forward new problems, put forward new ideas, and open up a channel for our future survival.

Key words

The Various Schools of Thought; The Period from Pre-Qin Times; Laozi; Confucius; Shang Yang

2.Introduction

There is an interesting phenomenon that between the sixth century BC and the third century BC, a group of thinkers who established early human civilization appeared in various parts of the world. For example, Confucius and Laozi in China, such as Sakyamuni in India, and a group of scholars represented by Isaiah who created the text of the Bible in the ancient Jewish state, such as ancient Greece from Thales to Aristotle. We will find that around the sixth century BC, the birth of human civilization in various parts of the world coincided with the emergence of a group of thinkers, known as the Axis Age.

Why did this happen?

The writing purpose of this paper is not only to review the path of the development of ancient ideas, but also to let everyone know that when you are faced with a social transformation, a major social confusion is constantly spreading and the amount of information is increasing,how do you follow the example of your predecessors to face the reality, ask new questions and put forward new ideas.

3.Background of the genesis of the hundred schools of thought

The pre-Qin period is the first great social transformation of Chinese society, we open our horizons, it is actually the first great social transformation of all mankind. How to transform? It took a long time to transform from the way of gathering and hunting to the civilized way of agriculture and animal husbandry. The early days of agricultural civilization was only a marginal supplement to the hunting way of life. By around 600 BC, the civilization of agriculture and animal husbandry was fully mature, and the semi-agricultural and semi-industrial and commercial civilization of ancient Greece around the Mediterranean was also mature.

Therefore, the axis age of the world has three major characteristics. First, the first great social transformation of Chinese society took place in this period; second, this is the mature period of the first civilization of all mankind; third, this is the dazzling period of the sprout of industry and commerce in ancient Greece, and these three come together into an axis era. The pre-Qin era in China is the branch and manifestation of this axis era in East Asia.

So why has this era become a platform for many thinkers to think? There are three reasons.

First, there are a lot of problems in social transformation, which is a confused exploration and inquiry. As we all know, in the period of human social transformation, the complexity of social structure presents many social and survival problems that human beings have never seen and never happened before, and these problems will make human beings face great confusion at that time. Thinkers seek answers on the basis of this confusion. Therefore, the perplexity period is a hotbed for the birth of a new culture. Therefore, when faith is broken and confused, we should not think that it is just a bad thing, it indicates that another crop of new culture and new ideas is about to happen.

Second, the complexity of survival increases, which is characterized by the increase of the cost of survival, the more difficult and dangerous survival, and the more complex survival structure. In this case, the amount of information is soaring, so people have to face the new survival structure and living environment, which is the second feature of the axis era and the pre-Qin era.

Third, the fragmented feudal system provides a relatively free and relaxed atmosphere. In the pre-Qin period, China was typical and the only feudal era. At this time, ancient Greece was a city-state culture, that is, a small political bloc. The feudal states were also common in Europe until the Middle Ages. Therefore, it provides some social conditions for freedom of thought. For example, Confucius, if he could not stay in Lu, he could travel around the world; In modern times, Descartes and Voltaire, if he could not stay in France, he could go into exile to other countries and develop his own thoughts. So the fragmented political structure of that era provided a relatively free and relatively relaxed cultural atmosphere.

As for the cultural differences between the East and the West. Ancient Greek philosophers and Chinese sages faced different problems.Because East Asia is a closed landform, and it is one of the three primitive farming bases of human beings, it is unable to exchange in industry and commerce, so it is the most typical and concentrated agricultural civilization in the world. Agricultural civilization immediately brought about a hundred-fold surge in population, so interpersonal and resource relations were particularly tense.

So people in the pre-Qin period in China had to apply their wisdom to the discussion of human relations and social issues.

And ancient Greece, because it was faced with a small Mediterranean, could obtain food through commercial exchange in North Africa and the near East, while the geographical conditions of ancient Greece were very poor, which forced them to develop a semi-agricultural and semi-industrial way of life. In addition, industrial and commercial civilization obtained resources across regions, so their interpersonal and resource relationships were less tense than in East Asia. Moreover, its social structure is relatively simple, and its social problems are not prominent enough. At the same time, industrial and commercial civilization needs innovation and the computing power of equipment manufacturing. It makes the ancient Greek philosophers devote their main energy to natural problems and logic in geometry.

Therefore, in the face of a social transformation, it is inevitable to solve many problems, thus giving birth to great ideas.

4.Different schools of thoughts

4.1The thought of Laozi

4.1.1The introduction of Laozi

The foundation of the whole thought of Sinology in China all took place in the pre-Qin period, that is, before Qin Shihuang unified China. Since then, China has hardly made any great achievements in the development of ideology and culture. With one exception, Indian Buddhism was introduced into China in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Even in the pre-Qin era, in the pre-Qin era, the highest point of thought is still the first ancestor of pre-Qin thought. Laozi and Confucius have a teacher-apprentice relationship. Confucius left a comment on this teacher: "I see Laozi today, like he is a dragon." This is the famous saying of Yulong. When I saw Laozi today, I finally knew what the dragon looked like.

At that time, Laozi was the national preservation history of the Zhou Dynasty, which was equivalent to the "national teacher", the consultant of all the knowledge of the Zhou royal family and various princes, and the highest representative of the national culture. It is said that in the 22nd year of Lu Zhaogong, that is, 520 BC, a major event occurred, that is, the then son of Zhou, King Zhou died. Due to the issue of succession to the throne, his more than a dozen children fought for the throne, serious royal infighting broke out, and the tug-of-war broke out for more than a decade, which was called the chaos of the prince, and the prince himself was defeated.

It is said that he fled to the State of Chu with a large number of Zhou royal books. And Laozi, a historian of the Zhou royal family, is equivalent to the current director of the National Archives Library. if all books and documents are taken away, Laozi will naturally lose his job, so Laozi resigned to travel around the world. This is why it is recorded in the history books that Laozi is in Chu, Laozi is in the State of Chen, Laozi is in the State of Song, and Laozi returned to Qin in the west. In the end, Laozi returned to his roots and died in Shaanxi. This is the historical relics of Laozi.

In order to understand Laozi's thought, we can only start with his Daojing. Laozi's so-called morality is a far cry from our literal meaning today. The moral Sutra is divided into two volumes, the Tao volume, the outlook on the universe and nature, the moral volume, and the social outlook and outlook on life. The so-called Tao is the general law of the operation of heaven and earth, and the so-called virtue is to comply with the Tao of heaven. The core of Taoism is weakness, and the core of moral theory is inaction. Laozi constantly criticizes that the development of human civilization is a process of deviating from the way of heaven and losing material morality.

4.1.2The interpretation of Tao

Laozi said, "Tao gives birth to one, one to two, two to three, and three to all things." This sentence means that Tao derives a chaotic state that even heaven and earth does not appear, chaotic state derives heaven and earth, heaven and earth derives animals, plants and people, animals and plants and people finally derive all things in the world, and all things refer to life and matter. This shows that Laozi believes that all things in heaven and earth evolved gradually. The concept of evolution did not exist until the 18th century, and it is indeed unusual for Laozi to hold such a deep idea that everything evolved from the first system of everything 2600 years ago.

Then, "Heaven is Tao, Tao is long" expresses the difference between persistence and stability in this evolutionary sequence, so what is not Tao is not lasting, and there is no stability to speak of. Therefore, Laozi believes that the stability of matter is gradually lost in the process of evolution.

Then he said, "Heaven and earth are not benevolent, and we regard all things as ruminant dogs." The saints are not benevolent and regard the people as ruminant dogs. " The ruminant dog here is a dog that is only sacrificed with grass, referring to lowly things. It means that heaven and earth are not as fastidious as human civilization, and he treats all things equally and will not give special care to anyone. As a result, all things follow the trend and exist forever. Then the way of man should conform to the way of heaven, so the people who manage the world should do nothing, do not use civilization to derive too many tricks, this is against the way of heaven, it will only destroy the state of human existence.

"it is as good as water. Therefore, it is better than the way. " Laozi uses figurative water to describe the natural way in which Heaven operates, and the best state is like water. Nourish all things without competing with them, and flow downward, in the lowest position and hated by all, which is closest to the Tao.

Laozi is taking this opportunity to criticize the competition pattern of human civilized society against the way of heaven. Primitive gentile society, property public ownership, there is no private property, there is no competition, after privatization, the fierce competition pattern is formed, everyone strives for the top, so the world is in disorder and life is restless. But the operation of heaven and earth does not have such a competitive pattern, so there is no such impulse.

"Heaven and earth can't last long, but it doesn't matter to people?" The most primitive derivative of all the heaven and earth can not be eternal, how weak people are. "the softest in the world, the strongest in the world." To be gentle, the weakest of course refers to human beings, but people can control things that are much stronger than we are. He found that the weakest human beings with a very low degree of existence have the ability to control objects with a very high degree of existence.

Finally, the Taoist scroll summed up the two words "weak", which appeared as many as 11 times in Laozi's text of 5000 words.

4.1.3The interpretation of De

The original word of de's oracle bone inscription is a person walking on a road with a fork in the road, staring only at the front and moving forward wholeheartedly. In other words, to act in accordance with the way of heaven is virtue. Therefore, Laozi's morality is not the same thing as what we call morality. The general law of the operation of heaven and earth is for Tao; to comply with the way of heaven is to act for virtue.

He added: "supplement the nature of all things and dare not do it." Follow the way all things run, do not have any superfluous action, called virtue.

He continued to criticize human beings: "morality leads to morality, morality leads to benevolence, benevolence leads to righteousness, and unrighteousness leads to propriety." When we advocated virtue, we had already lost the Tao, and then we also lost it, so we began to talk about benevolence. Recently, we could not even keep our heart of benevolence, and we could only give handouts. In the end, we lost all Tao, virtue, benevolence and righteousness. The so-called etiquette is the sum of national political law and folk etiquette. It was only when we discarded all these that human civilization began the violent control of severe punishment and draconian laws.

There is also a very clear indication of this meaning: "those who are virtuous are better than those who are naked." only babies born within 7 days have virtue. Civilized people develop their own wisdom, form a highly intelligent group, release their greed, and constitute a competitive society. In fact, this is a process of deviating from the way of heaven and losing material morality.

So what are we supposed to do? Laozi said: "plug its exchange, close its door, frustrate its sharp, solve its dispute, and its light, with its dust, is called Xuantong." It means that we should close our channels of facial features, do not accept too much external information, close the door of the spiritual world, and frustrate the great aspirations of civilization. only in this way can we resolve disputes in civilized society.

Therefore, the center of Laozi's theory of morality is this sentence: "there is nothing to do but nothing to do." Virtue means walking along the way, and nothing else is needed. It can be summed up as two words "inaction". Inaction means opposing all civilized actions.His ideal is to return to the primitive gentile society, the country is small and the people are few, even if they have advanced tools, the people value life and death and do not leave their hometown, and they are not bound by beliefs such as brave sacrifice. Even if there are cars, boats and weapons, no one uses them. People all return to the simple state of knot recording and enjoy the simplest happiness of life. Countries also return to the animal kinship society, wolves can eat sheep is no problem, but wolves will never eat wolves, the same kind of division of territory between life, there will never be slaughter. To return to the uncivilized state of existence. "the country is smaller, the people are more stupid, the things are simpler, and the things are simpler." this is Laozi's real ideal.

We ordinary people only have a forward perspective, while thinkers can complement the backward perspective and mobilize omni-directional thinking to know the facts. The most important thinkers in the history of human thought, such as Laozi, Confucius, Plato and Rousseau, all expressed the tendency of anti-civilization.

4.1.4The cause of the thought of Laozi

Why did Laozi have such a reactionary moral theory and social view?

At that time, East Asian civilization was limited to the Central Plains, which I talked about in my previous lecture. He was surrounded by uncivilized people. Laozi saw helplessly that he could find out intuitively without logical reasoning. In the civilized Central Plains, interpersonal relations are tense, intrigues, wars are everywhere and bloody. Shang destroyed Xia, Zhou destroyed Shang, to the Spring and Autumn period, more than 180 vassal states became one, while looking around the primitive clan society, the uncivilized and uncivilized society was peaceful.

Therefore, by intuitive comparison, Laozi can find that civilization is a disaster and the trend of civilization is bad. In Laozi's text, his view of reactionary society is expressed very clearly. Many ancient thinkers held a critical attitude towards civilization, because civilization was only a small seedling at that time, they could see the whole picture and development trend of civilization, and they could see that it was a process of disaster. This is the basic social view of the Chinese sages in the pre-Qin period. This was also the cause of the tone of conservatism in Chinese culture at that time, in which there was a far-reaching vision, which laid an important foundation for China's stable survival for more than 2000 years.

4.2The thought of Confucius

4.2.1The characteristics of Confucius' theory: insipid

Confucius and his Confucianism are almost the soul and benchmark of Chinese traditional ideology and culture, leading Chinese mainstream ideology for more than two thousand years. This is a situation that we can hardly see anywhere else in the world except religion. However, compared with Laozi, Confucius' theory is shallow and straightforward. Because Confucius is concerned with the real social and political problems, while Laozi is concerned with the ultimate problem. Therefore, Confucius' theory is very insipid.

In fact, the core of Confucius theory is eight words: monarch and subjects, father and son. The first word is a noun and the second word is a verb. What he means is to be like a king, a minister like a minister, a father like a father, and a son like a son. The doctrine of Confucius is such a straightforward statement. Hegel said, he said, "Confucius' books are just full of old moral lessons." These are his exact words. He even said that it would be better not to translate his books, which would damage his glorious image. Obviously, there is a gap in Hegel's expectations of Confucius. The West was in a state of religious repression at that time. At that time, Westerners knew that there was an empire governing the country by virtue in the East, and its management model established social order on the basis of human ethics and morality, which was much milder than the suppression of human nature by the theocracy in the West. Therefore, they were extremely envious of the East, coupled with some untrue legends at that time, they thought that the East was extremely rich. Therefore, the western philosophers and academic and cultural circles at that time regarded China as the paradise of the East.

4.2.2The characteristics of Confucius' time

The degree of social unrest and the development trend of civilization

1. Confucius was born at the end of the Spring and Autumn period, the phenomenon of national destruction occurred constantly, and the monarch was killed constantly. Only 43 cases were recorded in the history books in the past 255 years. The world was in chaos and the males sprang up.

There is no war between human beings and animals before civilization, and the struggle within the animal species only occurs during estrus for reproductive resources, and this is also an individual struggle. As soon as the outcome is divided, the struggle stops immediately. You don't want to kill each other, let alone a collectivized war. It is only after human civilization that brutal internal killings occur.

2. In ancient times, there was no severe punishment and severe law, and the country was ruled by virtue. The clan tribal society has always maintained social stability with a soft moral system.

Confucius said, "Tao is governed by politics, Qi is punished, and the people are exempted and shameless." If the society is managed by penalty, people will not touch the bottom line of the law in order to evade the punishment of the law, but there will be people to do anything that is not prohibited by law and no matter how immoral it is. Moral ties are no longer enough to maintain social stability, so they have to be regulated in a violent way. Confucius called it the collapse of etiquette and music. The more civilization develops, the more complex the society becomes, and it becomes extremely difficult to survive only with a simple heart in a highly complex society.

3. The characteristics of this period Let's take a look at how the first great social transformation was carried out in the pre-Qin period from the economic, political and cultural aspects.

Economically, with the rapid development of productive forces in the pre-Qin period, agricultural civilization tends to be stabilized, farming techniques are widely used, bronzes are widely used, and iron has appeared in farming tools.

As we all know, in the early years of mankind, although agricultural civilization took place 8,000 or even 10,000 years ago, in the early thousands of years of agricultural civilization, the way of life of hunting was still dominant. Agricultural farming is still only an auxiliary part of human means of livelihood and food and food materials.

When agriculture develops to a certain scale, the scope of land reclamation becomes larger and larger, and forest vegetation is pushed far away, human beings will completely return to agricultural civilization from the way of life of hunting civilization and gathering civilization. Therefore, the full maturity of agricultural civilization requires large-scale population development, large-scale land reclamation, large-scale destruction of trees, and then people can not reach the forest. Only at this time can agricultural civilization be completely stable.

Therefore, after thousands of years, China's agricultural civilization did not take shape until the Zhou Dynasty, and hunting and gathering became a secondary source of feed for life. Not only that, in the Spring and Autumn period, the sprout of industrial and commercial civilization appeared in China's agricultural civilization.

With the development of agricultural civilization to a certain extent, due to the gradual complexity of agricultural production tools and people's life, a considerable number of products are made of non-agricultural products. The early production of non-agricultural products was done by the farmers themselves. Such as building houses, such as weaving, or even making pottery, but with the further development of the division of labor, with the further complexity of people's lives, a large number of things cannot be completed by farmers, such as more complex and diverse pottery production, such as the smelting of bronze and the production of tools, all of which will lead to the division of labor in agricultural civilization.

The emergence of the division of labor, that is, the emergence of professionals no longer farming, but only to make certain products for use by others. We do not use this for our own use, but make it for use by others in exchange for goods. This product is called a commodity.

As soon as the commodity appears, the exchange takes place. As you can imagine, the exchange activity in the early years of mankind was barter, because there were very few kinds of goods. So if the variety of goods continues to increase, the other party does not need what you want to exchange, and you do not often have what the other party needs. Therefore, there is a need for some kind of unified scale of exchange and medium of exchange, also known as general equivalents, that is, such a commodity in which it can measure the value of any commodity, which is money.Therefore, the emergence of money marks the emergence of human exchange, or division of labor, or commodity economy, to a considerable extent. But you should know that in the pre-Qin period in China, money has already appeared. In the early stage, Beibei and ten thousand yuan marked the large-scale maturity of agricultural economy and the sprout of commodity economy in the pre-Qin period.

Let's take a look at the political form. The authority of the emperor of the Zhou Dynasty has fallen, and the original feudal social ties have been lax. Not only that, the vassal states grew up, the activities of annexation of the world continued to occur, national annihilation events emerged one after another, international wars continued to occur, not only that, it unexpectedly appeared a major change in the form of social class.

As we all know, the monarch of Jin in the Spring and Autumn period was set up by four important officials, that is, the famous Han, Zhao, Wei and Zhi families. At this time, a famous political figure named Zhao Wut appeared in the Zhao family, which shocked the world. He announced the liberation of all slaves in Zhao and gave away 30 mu of land. at the same time, he announced to all countries in the Central Plains that if any slaves fled to Zhao from other countries, they would liberate their lives and give away land.

Zhao Xiangzi's move led to the instant collapse of slavery in the land of China. Why? Because the idea that the people are precious is a typical feudal thought.

That is, for any feudal lord, his best interest lies not in the size of his fiefdom, but in the number of hukou and population on his fief. Because the more hukou and population, the greater his tax revenue.

Therefore, Zhao Xiangzi liberated the slaves and he got the people. He got two major benefits. First, labor resources, the number of people; the second soldier. Therefore, this led to the liberation of slaves all over the surrounding countries, his citizens would flee, and slavery quickly disintegrated on the land of China.

The pre-Qin period, that is, the era in which Chinese traditional culture was fully formed.

4.2.3Confucius theory

The eight words at the core of Confucius' theory are "monarch and subjects, father and son". That is to say, Confucius used the most primitive blood social button to rectify the social structure of the super-blood unstable society, which is the core of Confucius theory.

And what is the consanguinity society? Called: love has difference and so on. This has something to do with sociobiology. In the middle of the last century, biologists found that all living things and all animals live in social groups. Social biologists have found that all animals, all creatures, their emotions, their love are different. For example, parents love their children most strongly, followed by brothers and sisters. The cub state of any creature needs to be cared for by its elders, otherwise he will not survive. So emotionally, the relationship between parents and children is the heaviest, and then between children, followed by brothers and sisters.

Human agricultural civilization took place in the era of clan tribes and in the era of consanguinity society. On every mu of land, we must work together and cultivate carefully in order to get enough food and clothing. This is the basic feature of agricultural civilization. The structure of consanguineous ethnic groups is the most readily available and favorable way to form this stable cooperation.

4.3The thought of Shang Yang

4.3.1The introduction of Shang Yang

The emergence of Legalism marks the retreat of Confucianism to the background. With the high development of agricultural civilization to the pre-Qin and Spring and Autumn dynasties, large-scale population development, class social differentiation, interpersonal relations, resources gradually tense, the competition of human society is becoming more and more fierce. It can even be said to be getting worse and worse, and the legalists began to stand out temporarily, so the soft Confucian doctrine with the idea of governing the country by virtue as the core retreated as the background. Legalism fundamentally shows a very dark frame of reference at the bottom of human nature, and shows a major inferiority of human nature.

Shang Yang is the most representative figure of the Legalists, he did a very successful thing is Shang Yang reform. Decided to help Qin realize the reform from the rule of virtue to the rule of law. Shang Yang was able to reform and reform in the State of Qin. Of course, most of the credit went to Qin Xiaogong. We should know that Shang Yang is only a guest minister, and he does not have any political influence in the State of Qin. And any reform must touch the interests of the original aristocratic interest groups in the State of Qin and cause the counterattack of the aristocratic groups. He relied on Qin Xiaogong to carry it all on his shoulder, so that Shang Yang could continue to reform Enron below.

Shang Yang was very lucky. although Xiaogong was under great pressure and died of illness at the age of 44, he accompanied Shang Yang's reform for more than 20 years. As soon as Xiaogong died, Shang Yang was immediately cracked by the aristocracy. Although the car of the next King Qin Huiwen cracked Shang Yang, it was not easy to solve the long-term accumulation of reform for Shang Yang. And King Huiwen of Qin was well aware of the effectiveness of the reform of Shang Yang, and continued the reform of Shang Yang, after the implementation of the later six kings, to the final unification of the government of King Qin, and from then on he was known as the first emperor. Therefore, we can say that the first founder of the Qin Empire was Shang Yang, who unified the world into Qin Shihuang and established the Da Qin Empire.

Shang Yang has a lot of characteristics in his political reform. He has two characteristics. First, it is determined to reform without regard for personal safety. Second, regardless of the world. As we all know, the average politician must be able to deal with personnel first and foremost, but this is not the case with Shang Yang. He is bent on political reform. Liang Qichao, the most famous scholar in the era of the Republic of China, once said that only six people in Chinese history could be called politicians, in other words, other people could only be called politicians, and one of these six politicians was Shang Yang.

4.3.2Shang Yang's reform

In the early days of the reform, he set up a big wood at its south gate in the wartime temporary capital of the State of Qin, called Yueyang. Then tell anyone in the public that if you carry this wooden rafter from the south gate to the north gate, you will reward ten gold. Gold in the pre-Qin period was not gold but bronze, but a jin of wealth was equivalent to the total harvest of a peasant family in a year, and ten gold was equivalent to the total harvest of a thousand years of farmers, which was a great opportunity to make a fortune. However, all the people watched and laughed, thinking that the official words could not be trusted, because it was too strange, and it also showed that the credibility of the Qin government was not high. Shang Yang saw that there was no way to increase the reward of 50. At this time, a young man came out. He said that I carried this piece of wood to the north gate. Even if the government lied to me, there would be no great loss. Try to carry it over. So carrying the wood to the north gate, Shang Yang immediately rewarded fifty gold, and this man became rich instantly, which is the famous allusion of Qianmu Lixin. What is Shang Yang doing? he is telling the people of the Qin Dynasty that Shang Yang's reform is true. Please abide by the law. We can see the wisdom of Shang Yang in practicing the law from this very small matter.

With regard to the detailed rules of Shang Yang's reform, we give a brief account of the main items.

First, to force people to learn the lowest level of etiquette, this etiquette is not a Confucian culture, but to get rid of the barbaric wind and establish a modern social configuration at that time.

Second, every citizen should be forced to have a legitimate job, and no one should be idle. What? Take measures to attach importance to agriculture, that is, to develop all the wasteland of Qin. Just like today's British princes are going to serve in the army for some time. Shang Yang stipulated that anyone, including the children of aristocrats and rich businessmen, who found that there were idlers, would conclude the frontier to open up wasteland. From this we can see that Shang Yang's reform is the same as Wu Qi, as long as he wants to change the national policy, he must deal with the original political structure formed by the original aristocracy, which is of course a serious violation of the interests of the aristocracy.

Third, he also stipulated the forced separation of two adult men in a family. There are two benefits: increasing labor enthusiasm and increasing taxes. The reason is that in the big family system in ancient China, everyone ate in a big pot, and because communism was practiced within the family, everyone had no enthusiasm for labor. No matter how much I contribute, I will share it equally with everyone and distribute it according to needs, so when my labor enthusiasm is not as high as that of a society under the rule of law, I will establish a tax system. Tax is based on the family, if the family, the tax base is very weak. For these two reasons, Shang Yang's reform requires that any man must be separated once he is married as an adult.

Fourth, reward farming. Qin people banned business, that is, the people of Qin were not allowed to do business, but only allowed to engage in agriculture. The income of commercial activities is much higher than that of agriculture, so China has adopted the national policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce since ancient times to suppress businessmen. Shang Yang is the clearest starting point, so where to deploy resources? Preferential treatment for foreign businessmen. That is, businessmen from other countries around the world will give preferential policies if they come to do business in the State of Qin. It is a bit like the situation in the early days of Deng Xiaoping's reform, which does not mean that we are advanced, but that we are similar to those of more than 2,000 years ago. Foreign businessmen went to Qin to do business to solve the problem of resource allocation, so they gave preferential policies to foreign businessmen, so the Qin people of Qin engaged in agriculture and foreign businessmen did business, forming an extremely reasonable national economic structure.

Looking back at Shang Yang's reform, we notice that Shang Yang's reform is as thorough as any revolution. It carried out reforms not only in the economic field, but also in the political field, and even changed the state system, before the feudal system, followed by the autocratic monarchy. It is not a general political reform, it is a fundamental change of the state system. This kind of thing can usually be accomplished only through revolution. Shang Yang's reform basically adopted the way of no bloodshed and non-violence, and completed this revolutionary reform. This is very rare in history, which is why Liang Qichao said that Shang Yang is one of the only six major politicians in China.

5.Conclusion

With regard to the hundred schools of thought, we discussed in detail the three major factions: Laozi, Confucius and Shang Yang. The writing purpose of this paper is not only to review the path of the development of ancient ideas, but also to let everyone know that when you are faced with a social transformation, a major social confusion is constantly spreading and the amount of information is increasing. How do you follow the example of your predecessors to face the reality, ask new questions and put forward new ideas? In this way, human beings will open up a channel for their future survival, which is the most important enlightening significance of this paper.

References

  • Wang Jianhua (2021). The Reception of Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 450 pp.

英语笔译 谢晓莹 Xie Xiaoying 202170081601

The Acrobatic Fighting in Peking Opera
Xie Xiaoying

Abstract

Known as the quintessence of Chinese culture, Peking Opera is an intangible cultural heritage of China and the world with profound cultural heritage. Among the four basic skills of "singing, speaking, acting and combating" that Peking Opera emphasizes, "combating" is the highly artistic refinement of fighting scenes in daily life. The acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera have made great contributions to shaping the characters and enriching the plots, which has become a highly expressive and infectious dance language in Peking Opera performances. With a long history, it draws nourishment from the chivalry culture of ancient China, puts the traditional Chinese martial art culture on the stage, and develops distinguished artistic skills and aesthetic characteristics. Starting from the martial spirit and chivalrous culture of ancient China, this paper expounds the origin and development of acrobatic fighting in Beijing Opera, analyses the reasons of its significant place in Peking Opera based on its artistic techniques, and explores the development path of it in new era, so as to deepen people's understanding of the Peking Opera and carry forward the traditional culture of the Chinese nation.

Key words

acrobatic fighting; Peking Opera; martial spirit; chivalry culture; artistic techniques; inheritance and development

Introduction

Peking Opera is the most influential opera in China, with its center in Beijing and spread throughout the country. During its long artistic history, Peking Opera has continuously absorbed nutrients from the traditional Chinese culture and people’s daily life and developed into a magnificent flower in the opera garden (Zhang Yinhe 2013, 15). As the product of the merging in Peking of Anhui and Hubei opera styles in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Peking Opera has a set of standardized forms of artistic expression in literature, performance, music, stage art and other aspects. There are four character roles in Peking Opera, that is, Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou, each with a set of performance procedures and distinctive skills in singing, speaking, acting and combating. Historical stories are the main content of Peking Opera. There are more than 1300 traditional operas, of which more than 300 are often performed. As an important form of expression of traditional Chinese culture, Peking Opera has a wide influence all over the country, and various artistic elements of it are regarded as symbols of traditional Chinese culture.

"Combating", one of the four basic skills of Peking Opera, is not only an indispensable means of expression, but also clearly reflects the important position of martial arts in Peking Opera performance. As a traditional Chinese national art, acrobatic fighting is a kind of stage art that borrows offensive and defensive movements of martial arts as a means of physical expression. It absorbs action materials from martial arts and enriches performance skills. In Beijing Opera, the entertainment of acrobatic fighting comes from the acrobatic nature of martial arts. In performance of acrobatic fighting, there are often combat with knives, guns, sticks and other instruments, as well as pair combat and hand-to-hand combat performances, which are so intense that they can always attract the audience and give them associations and resonance. Therefore, although some acrobatic fighting performers are not excellent in singing and speaking, they are able to create distinctive characters with their excellent martial art skills and win great reputation (Liu Haikuan 2005, 58).

The acrobatic fighting represented by Peking Opera was an inexhaustible artistic treasure house for other art forms at that time in terms of costumes, martial arts, instruments, Qupai, performances and choreography, providing rich creative space for directors, scriptwriters and actors from generation to generation. However, the decline of the Peking Opera and the operas with both singing and martial characteristics in the current society is a cause for concern, and it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of Peking Opera and explore ways to continue its development in the contemporary society.

This paper consists of three chapters. Chapter one gives a brief overview of the origin of the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera, including the inheritance of the martial spirit of the Chinese nation and the influence of ancient chivalry culture. Chapter two introduces the artistic skills of the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera and analyzes the character of Zhao Yun and the performance Crossroads based on this skills. Chapter three discusses the inheritance and development of the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera, such as digging out the lost plays by seeking experience from the predecessors and collecting drama notes from the veteran fans.

Literature Review

Peking Opera has a history of more than 150 years since its formal formation in the Tongguang Period in the late Qing Dynasty. Although it is impossible to give a standard answer to the question of the repertoire of acrobatic fighting in Peking opera, it is still possible to find almost all the repertoire in many books that record the repertoire of Peking opera. However, throughout the research on the artistic theory of Peking Opera for more than one hundred years, the research on the martial drama is relatively weak compared with the research on singing drama. On the one hand, the research results on the martial drama are fewer and more difficult than that on the singing drama. On the other hand, among the few articles and treatises on acrobatic fighting, most of them are about famous performers, repertoire, and techniques, while few of them are about the origins, development, current situation, and solutions of problems of acrobatic fighting in Peking opera, and few of them are about a comprehensive study of acrobatic fighting in the context of Chinese history and national psychology (Du Peng 2014, 5).

Over the past hundred years, the research works related to the acrobatic fighting can be roughly divided into the following categories: (1) The discussion of the performing skills of the acrobatic fighting. Most of the articles and books about it are summaries and records of technical skills, while some of them also have the requirements and explanations of famous artists for skills of acrobatic fighting, such as The Role of Acrobatic Fighting in Traditional Chinese Opera by He Jinhai. (2) Repertoire statistics and script compilation. As for the acrobatic fighting repertory in Peking Opera, one can find it in many books recording Peking Opera repertory, such as A Compilation of Traditional Peking Opera Scripts. (3) Collection of art criticism by famous performers. These books contain both the actors' own experience of performing acrobatic fighting and memories of fans and the drama critics who have watched the performances of these famous artists, such as The Collection of Art Criticism about Yang Xiaolou edited by Dai Shujuan et al. (4) Treatises on memory of famous artists. Most of these works were written by famous Peking Opera masters and recorded by others, which are regarded as important first-hand materials, such as A Miscellany on the Performing Arts of Peking Opera narrated orally by Qian Baosen and compiled by Pan Xiaofeng . (5) The works of the drama critics. These works not only have a good account of some of the Peking Opera's acrobatic fighting and famous schools, but also have a great contribution to the study of the aesthetics and theories of Peking Opera, such as Qi Rushan's The Art of Chinese Opera. (6) Biographies of famous performers. These works include the memory and summary of the life of the predecessors by later generations. Among them, there are performance materials of famous artists about acrobatic fighting and operas with both singing and martial characteristics, such as Song Danju's Stage Art of Song Dezhu. (7) Dictionaries related to Peking Opera. Such books summarize the expression of special nouns of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera, such as Dictionary of Peking Opera Culture by Huang Jun and Xu Xibo.

Methods and Theories

Based on the research method of discovering problems, studying them, and solving them, this paper takes the development of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera as the main clue, involving the study and analysis of its origin, characteristics, current situation, and future development, and seeks effective methods and approaches for the rise and prosperity of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera while exploring the inner artistic characteristics of it.

This paper starts from the origin of acrobatic fighting, which involves social culture, social psychology, national psychology and other aspects, aiming at the analysis of performance skills of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera with justification and evidence, and also focuses on the practicality of the theory of the article with the research method of theory in practice. In addition, the breadth of the material requires a more sophisticated research method to be effective. The study of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera involves a variety of knowledge, including social psychology, history, theater and operatic studies, and Peking Opera performance studies. Only after reading and inquiring enough literature information related to acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera can we have a more comprehensive understanding of it.

Origin of the Acrobatic Fighting in Peking Opera

1.Inheritance of the Martial Spirit of the Chinese Nation

Throughout the five thousand years of Chinese civilization, the Chinese nation has always been characterized by the endless worship of literature and active martial spirit. They influence each other, depend on each other, and cannot be separated from each other. It is the consistent requirement of the Chinese nation for social talents to be both civil and military. Just as Liang Qichao said, " The martial spirit of the Chinese nation is its original nature" (Liang Qichao 2006, 21).

The ancient Chinese people lived in the Yellow River basin with harsh natural environment, men hunting and women picking fruits, accompanied by inter-tribal strife, resulting in the worship of the primitive ancestors of force to the extreme. In following dynasties, in order to defend the country, the martial spirit continued: During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the oftenness of war led to a great number of warriors; In the Western Han Dynasty, when the Hsiung-nu came south to invade the people, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, two brave generals who were good at fighting defeated them; In the Tang Dynasty, during the Wu Zetian period, The system of selecting scholars for martial arts examinations inspired the poets to join the army and go to the frontier; At the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the western powers invaded China, many famous boxers, such as Huo Yuanjia, defeated the foreigners with martial arts and got rid of the title of “Sick Man of East Asia”... During these wars, the cohesion of the Chinese nation increased and the lives of the common people were greatly affected. Aggression inevitably leads to resistance. Force is the most direct and effective way of wage war of aggression, and it’s also the most advocated way of anti-aggression. With the outbreak, development and end of war of aggression, the military culture has infiltrated into the traditional culture of the Chinese nation stealthily (Du Peng 2014, 20). The social environment provides a strong accumulation of social psychology and national psychology for the generation of war culture, so it can be found in every corner of the traditional Chinese culture. It is not difficult to find the existence of war culture and martial spirit in characters, poems, novels, paintings, operas and dramas.

"Once the traditional thinking mode of a nation is formed, it will have the tendency to constrain the nation's mental activities, which some people call psychological stereotypes in psychology" (Jia Zhigang 1996,129). The martial spirit, which has been existing in the blood of the Chinese nation for thousands of years, has a great influence on the heroes on the stage of Peking Opera and the production of acrobatic fighting plays. The national heroes and heroines emerging in various dynasties have provided prototype materials for the characters of martial arts in Peking Opera. Out of the desire for the description of fighting and war between gods and ghosts, and the call for punishing evil and praising national heroes, a large number of acrobatic fighting elements appear in Chinese operas. Among them, the creation and expression of characters of famous generals like Ban Chao, Han Xin, Xue Rengui and Yue Fei are all from real characters in Chinese history, rather than mythological characters and stories. Although there are exaggerations, they are generally based on historical evidence, different from a large number of ethereal characters in Journey to the West.

2.Influence of Ancient Chivalry Culture

The various schools of thought and folk customs have a profound influence on the martial spirit of the state. Conversely, the martial spirit of the state also acts on the courageous characteristics of the people. In a cultural environment with orderly royal control and distinct social hierarchy, it is very unlikely to challenge the traditional social norms including royal power by force (Li Xiaojing 2013, 23). Since the middle of the Spring and Autumn period, with the profound economic, political, social and cultural upheavals, a series of unprecedented new factors constantly emerging, the chivalry culture was born.

"Chivalry" contains three characteristics: commitment, righteousness, and lightness of life and death. Life is inevitably critical, coupled with social injustice and not all-inclusive law, "chivalrous justice" is indispensable. And these chivalrous and righteous people always put other people instead of themselves first, strive to solve other people's difficulties and match their words with their deeds. During the Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei was fond of making friends with chivalrous men when he was young; In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Zu Ti got up upon hearing the crow of a rooster and practised with the sword day by day only to serve his country; In Tang Dynasty, many poets wrote to praise the quality of chivalrous men; In the Ming Dynasty, famous novels such as Water Margin enriched the image of chivalrous men...

With the gradual enrichment of martial novels, a large number of commentary artists changed them into various versions of sung commentaries and preached them around to popularize them. Later, the storytelling artist Deng Guangdou even created a new style of comment which added the boxing skills in storytelling. In other words, he showed the boxing skills when commenting on Wu Song, making the audience not only feel like seeing Wu Song, but also marvel at the storytellers' excellent boxing skills. This style of performance, in which the chivalry of the book is expressed in the real kung fu of the storyteller, fully demonstrates the brilliance of the chivalrous characters depicted in the novel and the richness of the storyteller's own performance techniques, and promotes the development of the book review (Du Peng 2014, 34). And these novels and book reviews depicting chivalry had a huge impact on the emergence and development of acrobatic fighting repertoire in the art of opera: The chivalrous characters in the books provided a rich cast of characters for Peking Opera; The novel reviews were interpreted into acrobatic fighting repertoire in Peking Opera; The depiction of characters in the novel reviews permeated Peking Opera costumes; Many of the language and customs from the book reviews were directly inherited from Peking Opera... Thus it can be seen that chivalry culture and crime novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties have a profound psychological impact on Chinese people, and have a direct impact on opera art, especially the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera.

Artistic Skills of the Acrobatic Fighting in Peking Opera

1.Aesthetic Techniques

Nourished by traditional aesthetic thought, the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera originates from traditional Chinese culture and have a consistent aesthetic sense of it. As the embodiment of the characters' valor happening in the fierce battle scenes, acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera is characterized by being absolute aesthetic, which is also the feature of the art of Peking Opera. Turning martial art into dance and then turn it into beauty, acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera makes what is originally a cruel and bloody scene into aesthetic stage art, showing the charm of Peking Opera. Therefore, whether it is a tumble or a move, it is possible to find their common characteristics in the traditional aesthetic thought of "observing objects and taking images", "integrating movement and stillness", and "combining both form and spirit". (Du Peng 2014, 60).

Due to the characteristics of the means of expression, the plot of the acrobatic fighting is relatively simple, and the psychology of the characters is not so delicate, which makes it more difficult to reflect the ideological content that makes people recall repeatedly and think deeply. The audience understands and recognizes these limitations, and even needs and appreciates them out of preference. The requirements of acrobatic fighting are different from those of singing operas. While acrobatic fighting should certainly teach people patriotism, noble virtues and historical knowledge, the direct manifestation of its value lies in its aesthetic role, i.e., to give the audience its unique healthy aesthetic enjoyment and beauty, and to enrich and enhance the appreciation of the public (Liu Haikuan 2005, 58).

The formal beauty of acrobatic fighting is typical of masculine beauty. What it generally reflects is either military hardware and magnificent battle scenes, or fierce and hand-to-hand combat, or fearless heroes with lofty ideals. These characters are brave and tenacious with superb martial power, moving forward under the fierce music on stage. They have a kind of majestic beauty without decadent and depressing mood, inspiring people to move on. And it is a reflection of the traditional moral concepts and aesthetic requirements of the Chinese people in the art of opera, which has the charm crossing time and space.

The formal beauty of acrobatic fighting has three characteristics: Firstly, the performer's skilled and exquisite somersault skills and kung fu; Secondly, the performer's shapely and beautiful bodies; Thirdly, the beauty of composition formed by the collective cooperation on the stage. The performers combine these three characteristics in a integrated manner, presenting a gorgeous picture of acrobatic fighting. They present a magnificent ancient war scene or a fierce fight in a specific situation in a limited stage space, which reflects the high artistic wisdom of the Chinese people (Liu Haikuan 2005, 58). The acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera generalizes, refines, exaggerates and beautifies life. Not only the actions of the characters are completely choreized, but also the emotions are transformed into the forms of martial arts skills. Everything is unified under the premise of paying attention to the depiction of the inner world of the characters and the authenticity of their thoughts and feelings, and is subject to the overall requirements of formal beauty.

2.Typical Characters and Performances

The martial spirit of the Chinese nation has a profound influence on Chinese culture. During the two thousand years of feudal rule, most of the warriors and generals carried the martial culture. The military generals and swordsmen of all dynasties exerted significant influence on Chinese society and culture, among which famous military generals include: Sun Wu in the Spring and Autumn Period, Bai Qi in the Warring States Period, Chen Qingzhi in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Huo Qubing and Han Xin in the Western Han Dynasty, Ban Chao in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Li Jing and Gao Xianzhi in the Tang Dynasty, Yue Fei in the Song Dynasty, and Xu Da in the Ming Dynasty. Famous swordsmen include: Zhuan Zhu and Yu Rang in the Spring and Autumn Period, Nie Zheng, Lu Zhonglian, Hou Ying and Jing Ke in the Warring States Period, etc. While inheriting the martial spirit, they make the chivalry spirit and heroic integrity known to the extreme. These characters are the common archetypes of roles of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera and the operas with both singing and martial plays. They are also the heroes that people are interested in talking about, playwrights constantly create and artists try their best to show. Among them, Zhao Yun in the Three Kingdoms Period was one of the most special, resourceful and brilliant general characters in Peking Opera. He was brave and courageous with wisdom. His rescue of the master on Steepslope Bridge was recorded and praised by later generations and presented in numerous literary and operatic works. Among the existing drama in the Yuan Dynasty, there are 21 kinds of drama of the Three Kingdoms, among which 8 are about Zhao Yun; In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there are more than 20 kinds of drama of the Three Kingdoms, of which 7 are about Zhao Yun. The performances of Yang Xiaolou, Gao Shenglin and Li Huiliang have always been praised.

In addition to the image of Zhao Yun, the Peking Opera "Crossroads" is also a representative of acrobatic fighting performances. The play is about Jiao Zan, who escorted the prisoners and stayed in a hotel at crossroads in the border of Song and Liao areas, only to find it’s a ganster inn, where Ren Huitang was also there and saved Jiao Zan after fierce fights. On the one hand, this play combines Chinese martial arts and acrobatic movements into opera performances: It’s easy to find that these martial actors have outstanding martial arts skills. For example, the actor who plays the role of Ren Tanghui, strives to achieve unity and integrity from character personality, spiritual outlook to internal temperament and external image. When he appears on the scene, he raises his legs, leaves his feet and falls to the ground quickly, being light and steady. The first three flexible steps, the slight swaying of the upper body, together with the face looking around and observing the movement, show the resourcefulness and heroic spirit of this battle-hardened general. On the other hand, the play perfectly combines silent action with artistic beauty: With martial skills reaching a certain level, short-distance martial actors can perform with their bodies as light as swallow’s. The play "Crossroads" takes place in a specific place and environment, whose performance requires the actors to have such tumbling skills as "cheating legs", "seven feet". All these require the performer to go through hard exercises and profound kung fu, turning the body into a tool to reflect artistic beauty, in order to win the artistic effect of lightness of body (Fan Qiying Li Guanghui 2008, 50). When appreciating the play "Crossroads", we are often feeling the artistic perception brought by Chinese opera, which is expressiveness. In artistic creation, expressiveness is higher than reproducibility. It has long been recognized that our traditional art has incorporated expressiveness into our performance system. So it's no surprise that "Crossroads" has been so popular.

Inheritance and Development of the Acrobatic Fighting in Peking Opera

1.Current Situation of Acrobatic Fighting

In the mid-twentieth century, Chinese opera schools had rich performances of martial arts repertoire. At that time, there were hundreds of outstanding actors performing different operas. However, after the impact of the Cultural Revolution and the reform and opening up, new art forms emerged endlessly, and people no longer took the opera as a regular entertainment and leisure activity as before. The popular singing repertoire of Peking Opera has been greatly affected, and the acrobatic fighting has suffered a very obvious decline. It is very difficult to see the wonderful acrobatic fighting repertoire on the Peking Opera stage today as it was in the past. Even if there is, the quality of the performances is hardly guaranteed. And in the new performance of Peking Opera, it is hard to see any form of new repertoire that involves Wudan, Daomadan, or even Peking Opera martial arts. The shrinkage of traditional repertoire and the absence of new repertoire in Peking Opera have put the current comprehensive inheritance and development of Peking Opera and even the art of opera in a disadvantageous situation (Zhang Xiaocui 2017, 132).

The decline of acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera and the repertoire emphasizing both literary and military arts in the current society is worrying, which is caused by various reasons, both from the practitioners themselves and from the society. From the performer's point of view, the foundation of the martial arts actors is not good enough and the performance id not so authentic, so the audience is not really satisfied; Some singing actors do not pay attention to the overall development, blindly pursuing the progress of singing skills, so that a lot of operas both with singing and martial skills can not be well preserved, resulting in the shrinkage of the repertoire; The old and new inheritance system bear some difference, so many practitioners today do not practice can also get paid due to the monthly salary system, lacking the perseverance of their predecessors. In terms of the social environment, some plays were lost in the 1930s and 1940s; After liberation, some policies for maintaining unity had an impact on the repertoire of martial arts; The traditional acrobatic fighting ceased during the Cultural Revolution; There were few acrobatic fighting in the new repertoire; The number of actors of acrobatic fighting has decreased (Du Peng 2014, 108).

The disappearance of a large number of acrobatic fighting and the opera with both singing and martial skills has led to the serious division of singing and martial skills in Peking Opera performance, the loss of many acrobatic fighting plays, the deterioration of the performers' comprehensive ability of singing, speaking, acting and combating, and the serious tendency of "emphasizing the singing skills and neglecting the martial arts" in opera innovation. The innovation of Peking Opera should be a comprehensive innovation, rather than a single level of development. It can be said that such unbalanced development hinders the benign and comprehensive development of Peking Opera (Zhang Xiaocui 2017, 132).

2.The Innovative Ways of Development of Acrobatic Fighting in Contemporary Era The analysis and concern about the current situation of Peking Opera is not pure criticism, but to raise and solve problems. The cultural environment of a particular era is complicated, and the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera can not be easily recovered by shouting out a few words of revitalization. Here we try to propose some solutions for practitioners to think about.

First of all, opera schools should be the main body of the inheritance of acrobatic fighting and related repertoire. It is a realistic problem that the teaching repertoire of Peking Opera at all levels is in disorder nowadays, which restricts the development of Peking Opera and even the whole teaching of Peking Opera. Schools should increase acrobatic fighting in the teaching repertoire and standardize it. Secondly, it is necessary to restore the endangered or already lost acrobatic fighting repertoire. Some plays are performed repeatedly in various Peking Opera troupes, easily making the audience get bored. So for the sake of the troupes' future and the obligation of inheritance, it is necessary to restore the lost acrobatic fighting repertoire.

As for how to explore the lost repertoire, we can start from the following aspects :(1) ask the living predecessors for relevant performance skills and stage experience; (2) Make full use of the recordings and videos left by the seniors; (3) Collect notes from experienced theater fans. With the precious resources of the acrobatic fighting, the recovery of these plays can be considered from the following three aspects: Firstly, start restoring the repertoire from the traditional seasonal repertoire, that is, to find appropriate unpopular plays from each season of the year to resume the performance, so that the audience can not only watch the repertoire rarely seen on the stage, but also inherit and enrich the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera. Secondly, restore the repertoire from the perspective of characters: It is also a good way to restore it from point to point as time goes by until the repertoire is serialized. Thirdly, select a specific kind of repertoire for recovery: In the process of recovering traditional repertoire, we should not only do it in a solemn and stirring mood, but also learn how to use effective methods and promote acrobatic fighting to the market, believing that they can be accepted and welcomed by audiences (Du Peng 2014, 116).

Conclusion

Since the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, all the artists who became masters of Peking Opera were able to perform both singing skills and martial skills in the martial arts. They were able to break through the limitations of their own lineage, which really pushed the art of Peking Opera to a whole new peak and developed each lineage comprehensively, making the art of Peking Opera of that era wonderful and brilliant. Now, in the twenty-first century, some aspects of Peking Opera seem to have returned to the situation that existed before the masters of Peking Opera, i.e., the singing skills and martial arts are divided, and there is an unprecedented dilemma that the acrobatic fighting repertoire may be lost. There are many reasons for this situation, but the result is the degradation of the ability of actors in various roles, the loss of plays, the fragmentation of plays, the homogenization of skills and so on.

As the younger generation, we should not only have reverence for the older masters and the heights they have promoted the art of Peking Opera, but also do our best to carry forward the opera skills. The Peking Opera troupes and actors of acrobatic fighting are hoped to spare no efforts to pass on the skills through constantly improving the level of business, modestly consulting and learning from the predecessors and strengthening the theoretical accomplishment, so as to inherit acrobatic skills through traditional martial plays. They’re also supposed to explore new ways of innovating acrobatic fighting according to the troupe's actual situation, to "revitalize" the acrobatic fighting in Peking Opera, so that they can be inherited, developed and innovated in the tradition, thus comprehensively promoting the prosperity of the Peking Opera performance market and better serving the socialist cultural market.

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英语笔译 熊嘉玲 Xiong Jialing 202170081602

Yue Opera
Xiong Jialing

Abstract

Yue Opera, an important local opera in China, is one of the five types of Chinese opera. From the original "Chinese Folk Rap"(落地唱书), it has developed into the second most popular opera in China and is one of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, Yue Opera plays a very important role in China's art field. This article will give a general introduction to Yue Opera. The first is a brief introduction to the general situation of Yue Opera; In the first chapter, the author will introduce the historical origin and development of Yue Opera. In the second chapter, the author will focus on the introduction of the performance characteristics of Yue Opera, including its singing voice, role of business and so on; In the third chapter, the author will talk about the value of Yue Opera, such as its cultural value, social value and so on. The fourth chapter will mention the inheritance and development of Yue Opera. As one of Chinese operas, Yue Opera has a long history and rich cultural connotation. In today's cultural diversity and economic globalization, it can promote the spread of traditional Chinese culture to let the world see and hear Yue Opera.

Key words

Yue Opera;traditional Chinese culture;Chinese opera

Introduction

Yue Opera (Yueju in Pinyin) is the second largest opera genre in China, and some scholars consider it to be "the largest local opera genre". It is also one of the five major Chinese opera genres (Peking Opera, Huangmei Opera, Yue Opera, Pingju opera and Henan Opera). Originated in Shengzhou, Zhejiang province, prosperity in the whole country, spread to the world, it has experienced a historical evolution from male to female Yue Opera.In the development, it absorbed the elements of kunqu opera, drama, Shaoxing opera and other operas. It is called "Chinese opera" abroad. It is also known as "the most popular local opera". Yue Opera is long in lyric, mainly singing, beautiful voice, real and moving performance, beautiful and elegant, with the spirit of jiangnan. Most of them are based on the theme of "talents and beauties", and there are various artistic schools. There are as many as 13 recognized schools. It was mainly popular in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Jiangxi, Anhui and other southern regions, as well as most northern regions such as Beijing and Tianjin. In its heyday, professional troupes existed all over the country except xizang, Guangdong, Guangxi and a few other provinces and autonomous regions. (Qian Hong, edited by the editorial board of Chinese Yue Opera Canon,2006)

Yue Opera is also the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Among the modern emerging operas in China, the Yue Opera bred from the regional culture and modern art of the Yangtze River Delta is undoubtedly the most influential. Once upon a time, "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" produced by "Shaoxing Women's Literary Opera" and "Shaoxing Women's Opera" were popular in Shanghai. The heroic deeds of the ten Sisters of Yue Opera, represented by Yuan Xuefen, against the bullying of the dark forces shocked the Chinese cultural circle; After the founding of the People's Republic of China, With the help of the movie a Dream of Red Mansions, Yue Opera became a national hit. Premier Zhou Enlai took the film liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai as one of new China's diplomatic means to promote the Opera overseas.(Liu,2022)

The Historical Origin of Yue Opera

Shengzhou, The Birthplace of Yue Opera

Yue Opera is one of the five major operas in China and the second largest in China at present. Yue Opera is called "the second in China" in terms of the number of performances and social popularity. In terms of its performing arts history and popular areas, it is probably far inferior to kunqu opera and Huangmei Opera. Due to language limitations, it is mainly popular in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Yue Opera is generally spread in Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu and other places which are usually said wu language area. So Yue Opera is still a typical local opera. It originated from Shengzhou of Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province, which is the shengzhou city of Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province today. It is evolved from local folk songs and formed by absorbing the characteristics of Kunqu opera and Shaoxing opera in the development process. Shengzhou, the birthplace of Shaoxing opera, has been attracting celebrities from all sides to visit with its unique charm since ancient times. The beautiful scenery here, surrounded by beautiful mountains, with a long history, and its unique dynamic temperament, has created a unique charm and beauty in Shengzhou. The enchanting natural scenery has given here the magic charm, attracting the high sages and celebrities in succession to enjoy the scenery, leaving many immortal chapters spread through the ages for the later generations. With the growing popularity of folk poetry and lyrics, shengzhou people who are good at singing have integrated songs into their lives. Versatile shengzhou people thus became the original creator of Yue Opera art, Shengzhou has also become a fertile soil for the birth of Yue Opera art.

The Real Birth of Little Choir, the Predecessor of Yue Opera

From the year of 1906 , Yue Opera entered the stage role playing period. Therefore, it can be regarded as the origin of Yue Opera as the identity of opera. However, the little choir did not come into being suddenly, nor did it start out dressed up for the stage. From the xianfeng period in the 1850s and 1860s, it went through decades of embryonic stages. In terms of art classification, Chinese Folk Rap does not belong to opera, but to quyi. Therefore, it can not be called the "predecessor" of Yue Opera, but its original form of performance.

The origin of Chinese Folk Rap is that when farmers were resting in the fields after work, many people would compose and sing ditty that could reflect the aspirations of the common people, which always aroused the praise of farmers and gradually spread among them. The last few popular songs, everyone can sing. Researchers on the history of Yue Opera generally believe that the sign of the emergence of Chinese Folk Rap is that Jin Qibing and others began to sing Buddhist songs and folk tunes in front of rich households in the nearby countryside in order to make a living.(Pan,2009)

The early Chinese Folk Rap performers did not completely break away from agriculture while singing Chinese Folk Rap. For many performers, farm work is the main thing to support their families and is the job left to them for generations. It is unimaginable for them to completely break away from farm work. Therefore, during the spring ploughing season from January to February and March, the artists went back to their hometown in Sheng County to work on their fields. Qian Jingsong, Li Shiquan, Gao Binghuo and other artists who had been invited to the "stage" in Yuhang and Yuqian (now part of Lin 'an) talked with the villagers about their debut experience, which aroused the interest of many villagers. They urged artists to do the same at home. Guangxu period (1906) on the qingming Festival on the third day of march in the lunar calendar, on the vacant lot of dongwang village in Sheng County, the village civilian used rice barrel, the door panel set up the stage, invited many artists coarsely-dressed up to sing the Chinese Folk Raps, unexpectedly caused a stir in the countryside, attracted people from many villages to watch. The popularity of this form of singing book in the village even exceeded the artists' expectations.(Edited by Cultural and Historical Data Committee of Shengxian CPPCC,1992)

So they began to think about organizing theater groups to put on more scripted performances, and they came up with a low-key and elegant name for the form: Little Choir". In general, such performance formula has met the basic conditions of opera, so many researchers have always regarded this performance as the origin of Yue Opera. Stage at this time, not only clothing is very simple, Musical Instruments are also very simple. Although the form of "Little Choir" is primitive, the singing is monotonous, and the costumes are simple, but this pioneering move alone is enough to leave a brilliant first in the history of Yue Opera. Since the birth of the "Little Choir" in Sheng County, it has spread quickly to the surrounding areas. As a literature and art originating in country life, it is not surprising that it first established itself in the country. At the same time, it is constantly exploring transformation, slowly infiltrating into the city, After 1907, the "Little Choir" has been all over Athens County, and gradually to the neighboring Xinchang, Shangyu, Shaoxing, Yuyao, Fenghua and other places spread, both in the village and the town theater, where are warmly welcomed. For example, in Xinchang, only three or five years after the first contact with the "Little Choir", the number of newly established local opera troupe has reached 30 or 40 classes.

Performing in the countryside, the troupe must suffer from displacement. Therefore, it is always the ideal of the troupe to perform in a city with a large population, both male and female. Large and medium-sized cities for "Little Choir", is always tempting. On the one hand, large and medium-sized cities have strong consumption capacity and can obtain higher economic benefits. On the other hand, the fact that "Little Choir" can establish itself in big cities is the recognition of "Little Choir" by higher-level audiences, which is a kind of honor.(Pan,2009)

Shaoxing Civil Opera Period

In 1922, the development of Shaoxing Opera entered a new historical stage, that is, the Period of "Shaoxing Civil Opera". Because "Little Choir" was born in Shengzhou, which is subordinate to Shaoxing Prefecture, and the content of "Little Choir" is more focused on family ethics and love, so it is called "Shaoxing Civil Opera". Shaoxing Civil Opera period is the mature stage of the development of Yue Opera. It can be divided into two periods. In the early stage, there are all male actors, so it is called Shaoxing Civil Opera Male Troupe; in the later stage, there are mixed performances of male and female actors, and the transition to female troupe is called Shaoxing Civil Opera Female Troupe.

The Period of Women's Improvement in Shaoxing Civil Opera

In the history of The development of Yue Opera, the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War is an important dividing line. Before this, Shaoxing Civil Opera, which was dominated by male classes, was in its heyday, with famous actors concentrated in Shanghai and female classes flourishing, but the activity area was mainly in Zhejiang. Although there were female classes in Shanghai, most of them were mobile, so their status was not high and their influence was limited in the whole Cultural pattern of Shanghai.

In the late 1930s, after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, a large number of female classes came to Shanghai for development and rose rapidly. At the same time, male classes declined sharply and were soon replaced by female classes, gradually forming a kind of operas featuring all-female performances. Almost all the famous actors and drama companies were concentrated in Shanghai. The social and cultural environment of Shanghai has provided rich nutrition for the progress of Yue Opera art, promoted the reform of Yue Opera in the new environment, and provided a rare historical opportunity for its rapid development.

"New Yue Opera" Period

The reform of Yue Opera, which started in October 1942, opened up a new era in the history of Yue Opera and had a profound influence on the establishment of the form and style of Yue Opera. The "new Yue Opera" rising in the wave of reform in this period is obviously different from the original women's Yue Opera in terms of repertoire, music, stage image, deconstruction and operation mechanism of troupe. During the period of "New Yue Opera", Yue Opera achieved rapid development. A group of young actors, such as Yuan Xuefen, Yin Guifang, Fan Ruijuan and Fu Quanxiang, became the representatives of the new generation of Yue Opera.

The Development of Yue Opera After Liberation

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, opera art began to enter the process of planned, deployed and focused reform, and Yue Opera also began to adapt to the new era of profound reform. In the early 1950s, a drama reform movement was launched nationwide. During this period, professional drama troupes in Shanghai and Zhejiang carried out the work of "Three reforms" to different degrees successively, which brought new changes to the appearance of Yue Opera. In March 1955, Shanghai Theatre was formally established, gathering a large number of professional talents with high artistic quality in the field of yue Opera, such as editing, directing, acting, music, beauty and so on.

The Revival of Yue Opera in the New Period

The "Cultural Revolution" that began in 1966 severely destroyed Yue Opera. After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", especially after the third Plenary Session of the eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978, Yue Opera began a comprehensive revival in a new period, ushering in a new spring in the development history of Yue Opera

Under the influence of historical conditions, the revival of Yue Opera started from the modern opera performed by men and women. In 1977, the Shanghai Yue Opera reenacted the drama with a co-performance of male and female and was a great success, setting off the wave of the revival of Yue Opera. Soon after that, Shanghai Film Studio made "Xiang Lin's wife" into the first color widescreen style art film of Yue Opera and screened it in the whole country, re-expanding the influence of Yue Opera in the whole country. Traditional and historical operas have also been resumed, and women's Yue Opera has gained recognition and new vitality. In 2006, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yue Opera, it was listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural Heritage list with the approval of The State Council. The future of Yue Opera will be more brilliant.

The Performance Characteristics of Yue Opera

First, the selection of materials for the Yue Opera plays is mainly based on the love and marriage stories of ancient talents and beauties. Such as Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, Fan Li and Xi Shi, Lu You and Tang Wan and so on. These stories have long been written and interpreted into various literary and artistic works and passed down from generation to generation among the people. After these stories were compiled into The Yue Opera, the artistic atmosphere of the story and the tragic color of the characters were enhanced, giving people a more vivid and profound impression.

Second, the music of Yue Opera is good at showing the feelings of young men and women. The singing style is based on the "Chinese Folk Rap" of Wuyue water town in the south of Yangtze River, absorbing the folk music of Sheng County. After Yuan Xuefen and lute zhou Baocai cooperation, so that the opera singing form a gentle lingering lyric style.

Third, the performances of Yue Opera are vivid, natural, elegant and moving. They are full of beauty and talent in the south of the Yangtze River, especially the performances of young girl's role, which combine the scholarliness of scholars with the beauty of young girls. The principle of "virtuality" and "stylization" and the aesthetic pursuit of "symbolism" and "freehand style" formed in the long-term artistic practice of Chinese opera performance have provided a theoretical basis for the formation of the performing art of young women in Yue Opera, so that female actors can play male roles without being restricted by their own gender. Under the guidance of virtual drama and freehand brushwork principle, the female students can not completely imitate the performance of men and force the unity of actors and roles, actors can use stylized performance to look at the male roles in the drama from the perspective of women. What she interprets is not the man in real life, but the man in the woman's mind, that is, the man that the woman idealizes, the man that the woman plays to the audience. This is just like the plum blossom and bamboo painted by Chinese painters in traditional Chinese paintings. They are not plum blossom and bamboo in nature, but plum blossom and bamboo in the artist's mind. Of course, the course of this success is not follow one's inclinations, is not subject to any condition, also need actors themselves have a certain external conditions and mental qualities, such as the tall figure, elegant temperament, generous demeanor, etc., so as to better shape the character image, conveys the verve of male role. Various schools of Yue Opera have blossomed.

Fourth, the stage presentation of the Yue Opera is fresh and elegant, which is often refreshing. The makeup of Yue Opera has absorbed the methods of drama and film, and is characterized by being close to nature, fresh and elegant, rather than exaggerated and colorful. Based on the paintings of ancient ladies in costume, the costumes are changed from complex to simple and gorgeous to clear and beautiful with the characteristics of simplicity and clarity. The scenery is simple and lively, the combination of virtual and real, with the performance of the actors, making full use of modern sound and light technology, giving people an immersive artistic feeling.(Liu,2022)

The Value of Yue Opera

Cultural Value

Cultural creation is based on traditional culture and under the influence of modern culture, absorbing new tunes, new choreography, new themes, new talents and new music of modern culture to generate a new round of cultural wave and a "new culture" that is different from the past and more adaptable. Yue Opera is "rich in expressive force, plain and smooth melody, fresh and beautiful with local flavor". It has beautiful melody, graceful and touching pronunciation, beautiful appearance but not coqueness. Both civic and military opera have their own strengths, and it is different from the softness and beauty of Peking Opera. It has a very high viewing value, which is why in recent years, Yue Opera has gained more and more audience's love, causing more and more attention. This is the cultural creation value of Yue Opera.(Jin,2012)

From the point of view of Marx's theory of literature and art, all arts (including literature, calligraphy, architecture, painting, opera, etc.) are the reflection of people's lifestyle and cultural psychology in a particular era and region. In the field investigation, we found that most of the people who adhere to Yue Opera are the older generation, because it used to be a part of their life, carrying their joys and sorrows, and relying on their understanding of life. Yue Opera touches the softest part of the heart of a generation in a casual way at some point. These cultural memories, no matter joyful, sad, beautiful or ugly, will become a kind of cultural nutrition and melt into the bones and blood of the whole regional culture and even the national culture, giving us reasons and directions to move forward. This is the cultural creation value of Yue Opera.This is the cultural inheritance value of Yue Opera.(Yang,2021)

Social value

Yue Opera originated in Shengzhou, Zhejiang province, China, so it is easy to explain why all the people in Shaoxing and Shengzhou can hum it and find pleasure in it. Obviously, in the region where It originated and developed, It has become a topic of conversation among the masses after dinner. In the folk, people are also used to organizing various performances and singing competitions of It to enrich their amateur cultural life. Therefore, in the traditional cultural matrix of Yue Opera, there is a kind of aesthetic value called social value, which has laid a solid foundation for extensive social communication among the masses. Therefore, Yue Opera gradually became a social means, which was of great significance in promoting social harmony and stability. Of course, with the continuous expansion of the overseas market of Yue Opera, it is also playing an important role in developing sino-foreign relations, consolidating sino-foreign friendship and realizing the combination of Chinese and foreign culture and art.(Jin,2012)

The Entertainment Value of Yue Opera.

As a unique type of traditional culture, History and culture have endowed it with a unique development environment, unique artistic charm, which make It a popular art form among the public. From the emergence and development of Yue Opera to its prosperity and growth, its entertainment value has been accompanied by it. Yue Opera can not only give people visual and auditory satisfaction, but also give the audience great psychological satisfaction, so as to relieve the pressure for the masses and delight the masses physically and mentally. A large number of excellent Plays of Chinese traditional Yue Opera, such as Butterfly Lovers and Peony Pavilion, brought people spiritual sustenance and was one of the important ways for people to interest their heart and soul at that time. For example, the twists and turns of the Story, the beautiful love story and the artistic stage design of the Yue Opera Peony Pavilion not only relieved people's living pressure, but also promoted people's self-cultivation.(Ye,2016)

The above research on the value of Yue Opera shows that this local opera has strong charm and development potential. Thus, we can see the reasons behind the "centennial brilliance" and strong influence of Yue Opera. Yue Opera has rich cultural value, including cultural creation value and cultural inheritance value. Shaoxing Opera also has certain social communication value, which can be called a social means. Yue Opera not only promotes social harmony, but even plays a great role in promoting the spread of Chinese culture and cultural exchanges. In addition, Yue Opera has its entertainment value. In daily life, it has enriched the lives of ordinary people and provided them with certain spiritual sustenance, which is of great significance.

The Inheritance and Development of Yue Opera

Yue Opera is one of the most important local operas in China. It has developed into the second most popular opera in China from the original Chinese Folk Rap. However, with the popularization of TV, the establishment of cinemas and the continuous expansion of the Internet, the influx of pop songs, European and American blockbusters and the change of modern people's value orientation, the traditional Yue Opera has been plunged into unprecedented crises. In today's era of vigorously protecting intangible cultural heritage and building a new socialist countryside, how to protect, inherit and develop folk Yue Opera is not only related to the survival of the opera itself, but also an important topic of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, as well as an important content to be studied in mass cultural work.(Zhang,2010)

Review the Inheritance Status of Yue Opera

Through visits to local cultural departments and literature review, we know that the performance of Yue Opera is faced with fewer and fewer audiences, and the troupe cannot survive. The number of professional Yue Opera troupes has decreased from more than 260 in the 1950s and 1960s to less than 35 now. Most folk yue troupes mainly cover the rural market, but because the market is small, they can not get a greater development. However, under the influence of various cultural and entertainment activities, the audience is mainly around 40 years old, and the younger generation is less interested in it. It can be seen that the audience of Yue Opera rarely come from the youth group, and the audience of Yue Opera is increasingly aging. Although Shengzhou is the birthplace of Yue Opera, its inheritance and development are not good. In terms of relic buildings, the original buildings about Yue Opera are very rare, and the original birthplace of Yue Opera for women can only be found in the only small village. The exhibition stand protecting the original Yue Opera props is also in disrepair and covered with dust. In terms of museums, most of the objects in the museum are restored by later generations. Props, costumes, Musical Instruments and singing stage are re-made by later generations.(Yang,2021)

Problems Faced by the Development of Yue Opera

From the early 1980s to the present, the significant reduction in the number of Yue Opera troupe is the primary problem facing the development of Yue Opera. In the early 1980s, there were seven professional Yue troupes and two professional folk Yue troupes in Jiaxing, while in the mid-1980s, there were only two professional yue troupes. Secondly, from the city to the countryside, the audience of Yue Opera is getting smaller and smaller, and the performance market is getting smaller and smaller. In the past, a company could put on a new play for two or three months. Now it can only put on two or three performances. The audience's enthusiasm for watching Yue Opera has also declined significantly. The third problem facing the development of folk Yue Opera is talent. The performance of Yue Opera has high requirements for talents. It not only requires actors to have beautiful looks and a loud voice, but also to be able to perform. Generally speaking, a good actor can play a role on the stage, no ten or five years is not out, that is to say, one minute on the stage, ten years of work off the stage. Now there is a shortage of talent in the field of Yue Opera. Fourth, repertoire creation is increasingly contracted. In the mass culture system, Yue Opera also received unprecedented cold. At present, cultural centers and art centers around the country mainly focus on the creation of music, dance and fine arts, and there is little interest in the Yue Opera of traditional Chinese opera. There are also few full-time cadres of Yue Opera of drama. In some cultural centers at the county level, full-time cadres of Yue Opera no longer exist.

The Reason Why Yue Opera Faces Confusion

Confusing in today's Yue Opera face of reason is various, but the main reason is that with the change of society and the continuous improvement of living standards. The broad masses of TV and home theater has been gradually into the people, families, people's interest constantly updated, more diverse cultural needs, and a variety of popular songs have taken young people's life. Culture is diverse, Yue Opera was gradually forgotten; Secondly, the propaganda of Yue Opera is not enough. Although the traditional Yue Opera has been quite popular with the masses, the propaganda is far less than that of Peking Opera in the whole country, which causes the dilution of Yue Opera in people's mind. The third is the lack of new strength of Yue Opera. Since the 1990s, fewer and fewer young people like Yue Opera, even fewer professional Yue Opera actors, and now the children basically do not even know what Yue Opera is; Fourth, the operating mechanism of the troupe is not working. It is far from enough for the professional troupe to rely on the financial allocation from the government alone. They have to perform outside to increase their income. (Zhang,2010)

Thoughts on Inheritance and Innovation of Yue Opera

1. Intensify Efforts to Cultivate Professional Yue Opera Actors

In the early 1950s, the period when Yue Opera flourished and developed was also the period when a large number of Art masters of Yue Opera came out. They internalized the art of Yue Opera into their lives, and their personalities and drama forms reached a harmonious unity, which became the highest condensation mode of Yue Opera art. Even when people at that time recalled the development of Yue Opera, the names of a large number of Yue Opera actors first appeared in their mind. Therefore, training a number of young actors to carry forward the Yue Opera with independent artistic life will be the first condition for Yue Opera to obtain its new development.

2. Intensify the Creation of Scripts for Yue Opera

In particular, the audience should choose the most concerned good subject matter, in the spread of "Butterfly Lovers", "Xianglin Sister-in-law" and other classic bridge based on the new culture and people's appeal, innovation. If shaoxing opera wants to get enough attention and attention in the contemporary era, it must have scripts that can reflect the values of The Times and express the demands of the people as a guarantee. This should give enough care and attention to the playwright, establish a long-term mechanism to stimulate and protect their creative enthusiasm.

3. Innovate the Promotion Method of Yue Opera

In the past, the art of Yue Opera was born as a kind of market culture of residents, but now, as a cultural heritage, Yue Opera is gradually transforming from popular culture to elegant art. Therefore, when it comes to effectively dealing with the cultural watch and spiritual breakout of Yue Opera, the first thing we need is to adjust our mentality towards the cultural phenomenon of Yue Opera. We do not advocate the Yue Opera itself directly to change to become a new culture, but should be advocated through the way of improvement and innovation make Yue Opera culture gradually in the masses of the people has the characteristics of a new era of traditional culture, such as development "Yue Opera" series of gen, create IP with Yue Opera character animation image, using new media communication way, Through a number of new channels, such as "live streaming of Internet celebrities", "school-enterprise cooperation" and "star endorsing", the new culture serves the traditional culture of Shaoxing opera and spreads the melody of Yue Opera among a wider social group. (Yang,2021)

Conclusion

As a traditional Chinese culture, Yue Opera has its own unique appreciation value. In today's multicultural world, we cannot abandon our traditional culture. We should try our best to inherit and carry forward our traditional culture, so that they can adapt to the changes of The Times and keep pace with The Times. But at the same time retain the traditional culture, let the world hear the voice of China.

References

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Terms and expressions

Yue Opera 越剧

Chinese Folk Rap 落地唱书

Pingju opera 评剧

Little Choir 小歌班

Shaoxing Civil Opera 绍兴文戏

Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭

Questions

1.What are the five major Chinese opera genres?

2.Where is the birthplace of Yue Opera?

3.How to inherit and innovate Yue Opera?

Answers

1.Peking Opera, Huangmei Opera, Yue Opera, Pingju opera and Henan Opera.

2.Shengzhou

3.Firstly, intensify efforts to cultivate professional Yue Opera actors.Secondly,intensify the creation of scripts for Yue Opera. Thirdly, innovate the promotion method of Yue Opera.