A Diachronic Study Of The Language Of Lu Xun's Literary And Translation Works

During the period of the change of classical Chinese into modern vernacular Chinese, the language Lu Xun used in his literary creation and translation is changeable. The studies show that classical Chinese, ancient vernacular Chinese and a hybrid language simultaneously exist in his works. The hybrid language elements show the turning-points of change of Chinese during the period of social transformation. Before Lu Xun published his first modern novel A Madman's Diary, some modern vernacular Chinese elements can be found in his works in classical Chinese. Later, more complicated use of language appears in his modern works. In his reform of Chinese, Lu Xun adhered to literal translation, and even word-for-word translation, in hope of the exploration of the limit of Chinese inclusiveness. He drew on language resources, both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and applied them in his literary creation. His creative synthesis of diverse language resources made his writing deviate from the old or new linguistic rules, so his vigorous and fresh language took shape.The dissertation makes an exploration of how Lu Xun synthesized diverse language resources and what elements of the resources are contributed to construct modern vernacular Chinese, in the hope that the studies can help us more clearly come at facts about the development of modern Chinese language, and provide some help for the studies of Chinese, the standardization of Chinese, the development of literary language and Chinese information processing. Furthermore, the language in Lu Xun's literary works and the one in his translation works are considered as a whole, such studies can more objectively and concretely display the influence of translation on the construction of modern Chinese language, and Lu Xun's profound thoughts on the relations between translation and the reform of Chinese.The dissertation aims at the diachronic studies of the language of Lu Xun's literary and translation works from the perspective of linguistics. First, it examines the change of Lu Xun's viewpoints on language based on the theory of linguistic philosophy, then makes linguistic-semantic, cognitive and pragmatic investigation of words, grammar, text and rhetoric of Lu Xun's works. At the presentation of the change of Lu Xun's language, it analyses its historical causes, cultural connotations , and the transformation of culture and Lu Xun's cognition hidden behind the change of language form.At an early stage of his writing, Lu Xun believed that language was only a tool for the representation of one's views, but after the May Fourth Movement, his views on language had a great change. He thought language was an embodiment of national psychology. The change exerted an influence on the language of his literary creation and translation.The studies show that the form and meaning of some words are unstable in Lu Xun's works. It is manifested in the emergence of a large number of lettered-words, the instability of word form and morpheme combination, and the change of lexeme, but there is a general tendency of standardization of the form and meaning of the words. The alternation of classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese has a great effect on Lu Xun's choice of words and expressions, and his coinage of new words.During the period of transformation of language, in Lu Xun's works, there existed some old forms of classical Chinese and the transition state of word order, sentence structure and grammar. There also appeared more flexible word order, some new grammatical categories, such as gender, number and aspect, some new sentence structures and more precise grammar responsive to the needs of the times.In relation to Lu Xun's works in classical Chinese, there are some obvious changes in cohesive devices, topic structure and the construction of text structure in modern vernacular Chinese. It is manifested in orthographic markers, grammatical cohesion, lexical cohesion, patterns of topic progression and the construction of text structure.There is a lack of originality or spontaneity in the rhetorical devices of Lu Xun's works in classical Chinese, but his rhetorical devices in modern vernacular Chinese take on a new look because they contain the writer's personality. The changes are in his innovations of traditional rhetorical devices, such as metaphor, allusion, parody, and the use of color words, rhyme and rhythm, dream, gap and scalar rhetoric with his profound thoughts.In a whole, Lu Xun's language has experienced a process of dichotomy, ranging from enclosedness to openness, from purity to hybridity. The hybridity of Lu Xun's language is natural and a transition in the development of modern Chinese and it displays a contradictive tension in his personal identity and cultural psychology, and an attempt to synthesize and overcome the contradiction. Therefore Lu Xun's hybrid language developed as result of Lu Xun's creative synthesis of diverse language resources contained in the Chinese traditional and Occidental language. The hybridity of Lu Xun's language reflects the complexity of language change and Lu Xun's psychological contradictions, and the mega societal and cultural contradictions during the period of social transformation.