A study on the formation of colloquial Chinese in modern fiction and the interaction among literary genres: from the viewpoints of the westernization, the impact of dialect and classical Chinese

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25870629
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Chinese literature; Linguistics
• Research Institution: Kobe City University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: TSUMORI Aki 神戸市外国語大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (20609838)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 沈従文 / 文体論 / 詩化／散文化 / 文学形式 / 文学ジャンル / ジェンダー / ナショナリズム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study aimed to examine how Chinese authors adapted and developed colloquial Chinese style in their works from the 1930s to 40s. The study focused on Shen Congwen, who was a famous novelist as a “stylist”, analyzing his fictional techniques and arguing his position in the history of colloquial Chinese writings. I claimed three new points of importance for Shen’s literary styles in this study. First, Shen’s literary “experiments” in 1940s are tightly related to the poetic issues in modern China. Second, Shen’s fictional images of women opened up new possibilities for depicting the “others”. Third, Shen started his awareness of literary style through writing essays on poetics.
In order to activate international research exchange on this issue, I also launched a collaborative research group as well as started a series of workshops.

Free Research Field

中国文学