A Rhetoric Study On Contemporary Popular Songs In China

Any times and any people always own their special ways and strategies of cultural expression. As a new cultural configuration of contemporary society, popular cultures have been a very important position of social structure in contemporary. In the early of twenty century, there were some recreational popular cultures in Shanghai. And popular songs were an extensive and influential cultural configuration by movie and radio. Until late 1970's, some important changes of society made popular songs appearance again which have recorded and represented changes of everyday life because they are especially sensitive to social changes. That popular songs of Hongkong and Taiwan were extensively popular in China was not only a result of social changes, but also transformed cultural air and spiritual structure of contemporary society and deeply affected the way of living on ordinary people. Since then, popular songs have abounded in everyday life and become an important cultural fact and cultural being. With the limits of cultural habits and cognizance abilities, popular songs have been misunderstood, dishonored and decried by many people for a long time. Although popular songs have affected the life of several generations, which shaped and reconfigured the spiritual structure of society, the academic researches on popular songs of contemporary in China have been vacant. Since 1990, culture studies as a new research method have been accepted and used by academic circle at home, which has brought some chances for popular songs' studies. Popular songs as a new method of cultural representation have not only accurately recorded the course of social changes, but also reflected spiritual transformation of contemporary. For the generation who has been affected by popular songs, the witness who has grown up with the development of popular songs in contemporary, it is an incumbent responsibility to research popular songs in contemporary. Because any cultural practice always includes and develops in a special history, even it reside in the history. Popular songs are always closely related to the development and transformation of social structure in contemporary, which are a mirror of contemporary social life.Based on the General Economics Theory and the Notion of Nonproductive Expenditure that were raised by Georges Bataille from France, this dissertation deals with popular songs and its relevant cultural phenomenon. In thorough perspectives, the study is carried out from macroscopic rhetoric aiming at the complicated structural relations between popular songs and social reality of contemporary. As a whole method of cultural representation and expression, the room of rhetorical use and the possibility of cultural expression about popular songs are defined by its diversified of cultural texts. And the dissertation shows that the cultural characteristics of popular songs confine the choice of textual and working rhetoric, that popular songs are a new cultural expression way, an entertainment culture configuration, a cultural rhetorical strategy and a special economics form which can efficiently promote the development of contemporary society.This dissertation is divided into six parts. The introduction mainly shows the meanings of the subject, the basis of theoretical method and perspective. The chapter one principally deals with some basic theoretical questions about the dissertation. Firstly, it remarks some representative definitions of popular songs at home and abroad, then redefines popular songs. It assumes that popular songs are a new cultural expression method of contemporary society in order to define its borders and its emphasis. Secondly, it outlines the history of popular songs in contemporary and probes the relations between cultural spirits of popular songs and social changes. And then based on the Persuasion Theory of classical rhetoric in West and the Identification Theory of Kenneth Burke from U.S. A, it properly expands the rhetoric range, emphasizes the significance of selectivity and uncertainty for rhetoric, and offers a new rhetoric notion which claims that the essence of rhetoric is to choose and that rhetoric is a research on the rules, meanings and values of these choice ways and choice strategies. Lastly, it discusses the possibility and the necessity of the research on popular songs from the rhetoric perspective.The chapter two probes the textual rhetoric of popular songs in contemporary. Especially focusing on the most important cultural themes: love and nostalgia, it reveals the connection between the textual rhetoric of popular songs with the social reality of contemporary society and explains the cultural meanings of these choices. It insists that these choices are defined not only by particular rhetorical situation of contemporary society, but also by the essence of cultural characteristics itself. Without question, Love and nostalgia are safe politically and efficient economically for popular songs. The textual rhetoric of popular songs is a very important strategy to cater and satisfy people' s cultural needs in contemporary. Meanwhile, they make popular possible in cultural contents.The chapter three is the demonstration of the working rhetoric of popular songs. Theoretically, popular songs are an aural culture. Because single voice cannot satisfy people's needs, popular songs must explore all useful and available rhetoric means and strategies. In the course of commercial working, popular songs always try to enrich its discourse system and expand its rhetoric room with a lot visible methods. Stars and performances are the two most important of these, which have become the working rhetoric of popular songs. Popular songs through the star figures sale some special ideas and values such as luxury, entertainment, delectation, etc. The star's performance on which is based the body of star at present builds a peculiar hierarchy by means of some special space technologies. Also, the spatial hierarchy reflects special the power relation of cultural fields in contemporary society. Through the commercial working of the star and performance, popular songs secretly impact a rhetorical pressure on people, which often naturally transforms certain immanent cultural needs. As an entertainment industry, its rhetorical strategies must totally obey the rules of repetitive economics: the production is not any more important than the creation of needs, and its textual rhetoric is a main method to satisfy the cultural needs of the society, while its working rhetoric is another one to create these needs. And at last, both (the star and the performance) encourage a new notion: to make expenditure to the most.Based on the Field Theory of Pierre Bourdieu, a famous sociologist from France, the chapter four explores the shaping and dividing history of popular music field in contemporary and the cultural contradictions that it intertwines. It points that popular songs as a cultural heterogeneity impact on the cultural structure of China and that the history of popular music field expresses the struggle between all kinds of social power about cultural hegemony. It mainly probes three contradictions: popular culture and high culture, the youth and the society, and the native and the international. Certainly, these contradictions, which are mirrors of the disintegrated social structure, are not inherent in popular songs, whereas these are universal ones in contemporary society. As a paradoxical cultural existence, popular songs are a rhetorical expression of contemporary culture. In other words, popular songs are a cultural rhetoric of contemporary society.In conclusion, this dissertation discusses popular songs from the perspective of rhetorical relationship. It demonstrates that popular songs have been working the tension between certainty and uncertainty, and that any aspect of the rhetorical relation can apparently affects on the result of choices in order to respond the critique of Th. W. Adorno about popular music. For contemporary society, popular cultures such as popular songs are a rhetoric strategy, a rhetoric choice and a new economic form to promote social development.The values of the dissertation are following: first, it offers a new rhetoric notion which claims that the essence of rhetoric is to choose; second, because popular songs of contemporary hasn't been systematically studied at home, it try to fill this blank; third, it is particular that it discusses popular songs from the prospective of the macroscopic rhetoric, so it assumes a practical and contemporary value; last, it always concerns the relation between cultural themes and commercial working of popular songs to avoid the defects only from the content aspect or only from form one. The disadvantages of the dissertation cannot research the sound structure of popular songs.