Studies Of Words In Zhang Xie-the No.1 Scholar

Zhang Xie—the No.1 Schoolar edited by Wenzhou Book Associations, is the representative work of Southern Dramas of its initial stage and one of the oldest Southern Dramas existing, generally regarded as the origin of Southern Dramas in Ming Dynasty. It is characterized by its words, like dialects, slangs, proverbs & sayings and colloquial words, and these words present a vivid picture of the language at that time. Therefore, it is fairly reliable and worthwhile in resreaching on the language in the Southern Song Dynasty, and also of great value in linguistics, corpus linguistics and philology.In this thesis, systematical analyses are given to the words in Zhang Xie—the No.1 Scholar synchronically and diachronically, and meanwhile particular explorations are made to study its characteristic words. The main body of this thesis is composed of the following four aspects:First, analyses on words classification and distribution in Zhang Xie—the No.1 Scholar. The words in this drama partly reflect the development of Chinese before Southern Song Dynasty. Lexically, these words are classified into four kinds by level of usage: 3101 basic words, 1462 common words, 675 special words, and 34 marginal words, they taking up 58.9%, 27.7%, 12.8%, and 0.6% of the total respectively. Basic words and common words, the foundation and body of this drama, incarnate the developing of Chinese lexicon on a general basis. While special words consisting of dialects, colloquial words and drama words indicate the special role this drama plays in the development of Chinese lexicon. Second, studies of modern colloquial words. Analyses reveal that the modern colloquial words in Zhang Xie—the No. 1 Scholar are those constantly-renewed and informally-used ones, 240 words in all, 4.6% of the total. They are usded either in the drama's Dialogue or in its Libretto, either by the upper class or the lower class in the play, which shows the popularization of its language in Southern Dramas, and the same to its Libretto.Third, studies of drama technical words. The studies indicate that the drama words in Zhang Xie—the No. 1 Scholar refer to the specialized words only used in dramas, such as words of character, performance, music, script and scene, ect, altogether 92 words, 1.7% of the totle. They owe their emergence to the inner development of Chinese lexical system. Their application in this drama is linguistically immature as for the artistic feature of initial Southern Dramas.Four, studies of the dialects. The dialects in Zhang Xie—the No.1 Scholar refer to those used regionally but not generally in the Southern Song Dynasty. They are 1.2% of the total, altogether 62 words, most of which are only used in Yongjia (today's Wenzhou), in harmony with the fact that the initial Southern Dramas originate from Wenzhou. Meantime, by analyzing the dialects used in this drama, in this thesis I detect some theories and methods of research on dialects in historical documents.