A Contrastive Study Of Readability Of Original And Adapted Chinese Classics

Chinese classics play an important role in preserving and promoting traditional Chinese culture.Therefore,the reading of classics is of great practical significance.Since the quality of adapted versions of the classics varies considerably,it is important to conduct a systematic study of the readability of the original ones and their adapted versions.The traditional studies of readability have focused either on linguistic form or on psychological or cognitive factors,with little consideration of meaning.Studying readability from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL)attaches importance to the combination of linguistic form and meaning,and focuses on the study of meaning.Thus,it effectively fills the research gaps of previous studies.Within the framework of SFL,textual metafunction is the enabling function of language to dynamically construct the text based on a set of semantic choices,and is realized by the texture system including intertextuality,Theme,information and cohesion.It concerns various semantic relations such as intertextual,ideational and interpersonal Therefore,research based on textual metafunction can connect various semantic relations organically and interpret the textual meaning from a holistic perspectiveThis study takes the original and three adapted versions of San Guo Yan Yi—versions for foreign learners,Chinese primary school students and Chinese teenagers—as examples to analyze the different textual selections in varied contexts from the perspective of textual metafunction.It aims to identify the relationship between different realizations of textual metafunction and the readability of texts,and explore the factors that underlie those different realizations.Results show that textual differences between original classics and adapted versions are demonstrated in four subsystems,namely,intertextuality,Theme,information,and cohesion.The differences in intertextuality are found in intertextuality between the original classics and the adapted versions,intertextuality between the original classics and adapted versions as a whole and other texts or contexts,and the intertextuality within text of the original classics and adapted versions.The differences in Theme and information are found in the thematic structure of clause,hyper-Theme and macro-Theme of the text,thematic progression patterns,Theme chains,information structure,and the meaning of information units.The differences in cohesion are found in transitivity,mood,tense,reference,substitution,ellipsis,conjunction,reiteration,and collocation.For example,the amount of abstract intertextuality in the adapted versions is significantly less than in the original book.Among the three adapted versions,the amount in the adapted version for foreign learners is the least,the adapted version for Chinese primary school students in the middle,and that for Chinese teenagers the most.Most textual differences between the original classics and the adapted versions affect the readability of texts.The affecting factors can be classified into the levels of clause and below and the textual level.Factors at the levels of clause and below are intertextuality between words or clauses,thematic structure of clause,information structure,tense form,reference form,substitution,ellipsis,reiteration,and collocation.Factors at the textual level are abstract intertextuality between texts,intertextuality between texts and subtexts,hyper-Theme and macro-Theme,thematic progression patterns,Theme chains,meaning of information units,meaning connection of transitivity,mood connection,temporal relation,referential chains,and meaning of conjunctionsThrough a comprehensive analysis of the above factors,it is found that the readability of three adapted versions varies at different strata of lexico-grammar,semantics,and context.At the strata of lexico-grammar and context,adapted versions are graded by readability from the highest to lowest as follows:the one for foreign learners,for Chinese primary school students and for Chinese teenagers;at the stratum of semantics,the gradient is from the version for Chinese primary school students,for foreign learners to the version for Chinese teenagers.The different readability rankings at the strata of lexico-grammar and semantics indicate readability studies should focus not only on the analysis of formal features such as word length and sentence length,but also on the analysis of semantic factors;that is,readability studies should focus on both the text and the grammatical units such as clause.Since the text is the optimal semantic organization adjusted by the language system in the process of adapting to the context,the investigation of text generation mechanisms shows that the reasons for the different realizations of textual metafunction are rooted in contexts,including the context of culture and the context of situation(field,tenor,and mode).Specifically,the macro-level fields of the original classics and the adapted versions are basically the same.However,the original classics and the adapted versions involve different participants,namely,different rewriters and readers.Their tenors are different,which can cause different modes.The original classics and the adapted versions have different communicative purposes for different readers.Different tenors and modes cause differences in their fields at a more delicate level.Varied fields,tenors,and modes construct different situational contexts.Furthermore,the differences in cultural context such as the reading requirements in different times and different cultural backgrounds also potentially restrict the text.Through the process of text generation,the adapted versions are reconstructed to adjust to different contextsGeneral principles of rewriting from the perspective of textual metafunction are proposed to help the rewriters be aware of the changes in the texture system and their impacts on readability:the principle of situation,the principle of interaction,the principle of meaning consistency,the principle of graduality,the principle of explicitness,the principle of concreteness,the principle of concentration,and the principle of cultural adjustment.The study indicates that it is of great value to explore the readability of Chinese texts from the perspective of SFL.The study of readability in trems of meaning can comprehensively analyze the affecting factors at multiple levels.It not only provides new methods for the exploration of Chinese readability,but also inspires the study of classic rewriting and graded reading.