Language, Myth, Identity: The Chinese Vernacular Movement in a Comparative Perspective

FAIN: FT-55911-08

Gang Zhou
Louisiana State University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001)

This book examines a historical moment in Chinese literary history--when baihua (the vernacular) was elevated to become the national language, and wenyan (classical Chinese) was attacked and eliminated from many literary practices, thus overturning the long-established linguistic hierarchy. My principal argument is that the inauguration of the vernacular in early twentieth-century China embodies a monolingual ideal actively endorsed by an emerging nation-state. Imagining modern Chinese literature as strictly in the vernacular further enhances and institutionalizes the vernacular as the ideal while suppressing China's multilingual past and present.

Associated Products

Placing the Modern Chinese Vernacular in Transnational Literature (Book)
Title: Placing the Modern Chinese Vernacular in Transnational Literature
Author: Gang Zhou
Abstract: This is the first systematic study of the vernacular movement in modern Chinese literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the perspective of comparative literature. Drawing on the experiences of vernacular movements in other times and societies (Italian, French, German, English, Japanese, Indian, Arabic, Turkish, Vietnamese),and on the concept of world literature, this book is a new and radical rereading of the origins of modern Chinese literature. Examining the Chinese literary revolution in the context of vernacularization in Renaissance Europe, the genbun itchi movement in Meiji Japan, modern Turkish language reform, and the revival of classical Hebrew in modern Israeli society, this book situates the "triumph" of the vernacular in modern China in a truly global comparative setting.
Year: 2011
Publisher: Palgrave/macmillan
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780230109391
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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