The Study Of The Connection Between Language Form And Text Meaning In Chinese Modern Historical Stories (1917-1949)

The present study of Chinese Modern Historical Stories is mainly on the features of novels instead of short stories, from the angle of sociology and the ideology and on the works of few writers like Lu Xun, Shi Zhecun, Guo Moruo etc. In order to push the study further, the methods and angle of study should be changed. Some theories of stylistics provide us with new methods and angles. Style, belonging to a category of subject linking the forms and contents, refers to the outer forms concerning to the functions and contents of writings, mainly including the structure and language features of works. Based on this, it is suggested that Chinese Modern Historical Stories is different from Chinese ancient history and Traditional Chinese Historical Novels in the close connection of its language form and text meaning.In the first two chapters, transverse short forms and modern vernacular Chinese of Chinese Modern Historical Stories become the two basic points of our discussion in macrostructure, comparing with Chinese ancient history and Traditional Chinese Historical Novels.Transverse short forms is one of important modern characteristics of Chinese Modern stories, a successful try of Chinese modern short stories using historical materials and the explanatory base of text meaning.Modern vernacular Chinese, another modern characteristics of Chinese Modern Historical Stories, is the bearing of modern ideas of democracy and science. The new language form with its bearing supplies the modern writers with new ways of observing historical characters and events, which are the important catalyst forging the ancient into the modern in Chinese Modern Historical Stories.In the third and fourth chapters, language choice in specified works is the point at which the relationship between the Chinese Modern Historical Stories, historical context and writer's personal styles is observed in microstructure. The prudent choice in rhetoric, speech and sentence form is the important reason why the different text meaning is gained in different times and places. By this is the way how Chinese Modern Historical Stories proceeds with Chinese Modern Short Stories shown.Lastly, the ways of displaying, re-explaining, embellishing, filling-in and replacing how literary texts are made from historical texts are concluded, which are the ways how the creative labor of writers is done, how texts in this style are transformed to another, how one meaning is changed to another and also the viewpoints at which the writers consider texts.In conclusion, the connection between the language form and text meaning is not only the way at which the difference between Chinese Modern Historical Stories and Chinese ancient history and Traditional Chinese Historical Novels are observed in macrostructure but also the important angle from which the function and aesthetic features are discussed in microstructure.