| At 14:28 on May 12,2008,a huge earthquake suddenly hit Wenchuan.Wenchuan earthquake as an event that has occurred in the past,automatically become history.The devastating Wenchuan earthquake will be an unforgettable memory for Chinese people.For such a traumatic public event,it is extremely necessary to construct a collective memory for all the victims,both from individuals and from the country.How to construct the collective memory of this historical event? Who constructs it?Remembering what? Halbwachs sees history and collective memory as opposing ways of remembering the past.History,with its ostensible demands for accuracy and objectivity,is seen as a single and truthful account of the past.History is the reconstruction and representation of events that no longer exist,recorded in writing or memorized in the memory of a culture or group.Collective memory,on the other hand,is a diverse,variable and even competing account of past events.Collective memory is considered to be fluid and dynamic,which is in constant change.Collective memory is always a phenomenon of the present and a bond that binds us to the present.It doesn’t matter whether the collective memory reflects an objective and real past,it can only accommodate those facts that are suitable for it.Collective memory is a dynamic process that is carefully crafted and reconstructed in dialogue with the political power,ideology and cultural needs of the moment.This dynamic,manipulable memory stands in sharp contrast to fixed,unitary notions of history,and in the same way,this plasticity of collective memory emphasizes that these constructed memories are largely open to competing,opposing,and modifiable.So,in that sense,to talk about collective memory in this way is to talk about a highly rhetorical process.In fact,the study of memory is primarily the rhetoric of memory.The way memories acquire meaning,the way they force others to accept them,and the way they are competed,subverted,and replaced by other memories are essentially rhetorical.Taking rhetoric as the main line and the construction of the collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake as the research object,this study shows that the construction of the collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake is a social process,and the collective memory is biased.The collective memory of different memory subjects for Wenchuan Earthquake is not a "pure" reflection of this history,and no memory contains all the information we know or may know,but is selectively reconstructed.The current collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake is largely determined by what we choose to remember and how to remember it.We give meaning to memories and stories by selectively keeping them alive,commemorating them,and passing them on to future generations.The collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake depends on the interests held by individuals and officials when endowing it with meaning.It needs to respond to the current needs and serve the current interests.It is often used as an ideological tool,because the process of constructing the collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake is always affected by various factors such as power,ideology,culture,etc.,so it becomes a rhetoric.The goal of the rhetoric of collective memory is to describe a common identity and endume history with a common meaning so as to form the shared memory of all group members,which is usually realized by material carriers and symbolic media.This study believes that the media that can evoke the collective memory of the Wenchuan Earthquake not only include the literature works and mass media reports related to the Wenchuan Earthquake,but also include the metaphors,symbols or memorial ceremonies and physical practice of the memorial sites,such as the Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial Hall,museum,and ruins.It is these different places,Spaces,objects,ceremonies and texts that connect the collective memory of the Wenchuan Earthquake.It makes the sharing of collective memory possible.In this study,mass media,literary works,commemorative sites and ceremonies are taken as the media to discuss respectively.One of the most effective means of reconstructing and evoking collective memory is the mass media.The media selectively constructs and remodels collective memory through the framework of "highlighting" or "covering".One of the most important and authoritative subjects in the construction of collective memory is the state and the government,which,through mainstream media and other channels,actively promotes specific histories that are seen as providing "appropriate" content for national identity.The Internet can be understood as a space of vernacular memories,and the Internet is becoming an alternative to official narrative of memory and official views.The second chapter is to explore how different memories are constructed by different media,how to build and shape the wenchuan earthquake of collective memory? What rhetorical framework is used? Did it have an effect? Based on an longitudinal section and a cross-sectional section,namely the reports of People’s Daily in the decade after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 and the reports of major media on the 10 th anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2018,such as the metropolitan papers especially on zhihu q&a platform.Using empirical research method,through quantitative analysis and content analysis,the article finds that People’s Daily,as an official media,has constructed a collective memory of eulogie-gratitude under the politics and power,eulogie-gratitude framework as a mnemonic agent in shape and reconstruct the public collective memory has a certain effect,It is the main media of the construction of collective memory.The official and mainstream media usually guide the direction of public memory under the influence of politics and power,but its role is not infinite.Personal memory platforms such as Zhihu present decentralized and more personal memory.In terms of the mutual relationship between individual memory and collective memory,individual memory is subject to collective memory,while individual memory may consciously reach a consensus with the contents of collective memory shaped by the state and the government,which reflects the collusion relationship between collective memory and personal memory.Individual memory may also form complementary and antagonistic to collective memory.The struggle for memory reflects a kind of power relationship,and the explanation and domination of memory reflect people’s social status.Personal memory is not in the external position of power,but has a variety of relationships with it,and they play a complementary relationship with the collective memory under the dominance of power.Collective memory often consist of reusable text,Through its content,symbols,representations and historical imagination,literary texts influence readers,shape memories and cultivate self-images that are helpful to stabilize and convey the collective.The trauma of the Wenchuan earthquake provides individuals with a symbolic connection and sense of belonging to the community.The third chapter analyzes how the poems of Wenchuan Earthquake sublimate the personal trauma and Wenchuan trauma into the trauma of the country,by using metaphors of motherland and the mother,and matches the metaphor of the individual’s tenuous survival in the suffering with the metaphor of a nation rising from adversity..Through the two-way metaphor,the collective traumatic memory finally transmutes into a part of the national identity of the Chinese people,and thus generates the identity of the country.Whether a catastrophic event can become a traumatic memory is the result of cultural construction.In the literature works related to Wenchuan Earthquake,especially in novels,the trauma of Wenchuan Earthquake is transformed to sublime,transformed into the noble spirit of fighting against disaster,as well as the dignity of life and the brilliance of human nature reflected in it,and it is elevated to the level of cultural memory,which constitutes the "cohesive structure" as the basis of the construction of cultural memory by Asmann.Witness literature is also a form of traumatic memory.Poets,novels and documentaries related to Wenchuan Earthquake,as the construction methods of traumatic memory of this disaster,restore the disaster memory of Wenchuan Earthquake from the individual perspective,experience and emotion,emphasizing the individual fate and personal memory in the disaster.Therefore,it is alienated from the grand narrative and official memory under the official ideology and political rhetoric.These personal memories fill the gap of official memory,restore the hidden historical facts,resonate with the public from the personal perspective through the testimony of texts or images,and preserve the historical facts and personal memories in the public memory.Thus individual traumatic memory is constructed as collective traumatic memory and collective experience.Oral history of traumatic and catastrophic events is an important way to communicate,spread and preserve traumatic memories.How can individual oral historical memories be integrated into and transformed into collective memories? In the oral history of Wenchuan Earthquake,personal experience and stories are "openly" connected by re-explaining the function of the framework of earthquake relief spirit.Personal oral memory is refined to form a common earthquake relief spirit because of the function of the framework.It is the confluence of the personal memories of different groups about Wenchuan Earthquake.It realizes the transformation from individual scattered memory to integrated memory,and also the collective memory that surpasses individual memory.In addition to text,collective memory can also be inscribed or attached in different ways to common places and Spaces such as monuments,memorial halls,ruins and sites,so as to continue the collective memory and spread it from generation to generation and enter new groups.The fourth chapter focuses on a number of memorial sites of Wenchuan Earthquake.For these sites,their symbolic meanings and emotions can effectively construct and evoke people’s collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake.This process of reconstruction and evocation is closely related to political identity and national identity,and becomes a site for reconstructing the collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake.To some extent,these memorial sites are political buildings with rhetoric.The memory displayed is selectively recalled and reproduced to selectively promote the historical memory dominated by political power,arouse people’s memories of the Wenchuan Earthquake,and erase or cover part of the memory.It is a means used by the state to internalize ideology into the minds of citizens.The sanctification and sublimation of place and site is an important dimension in the rhetorical construction of a nation’s collective memory.Beichuan County ruins was constructed as a symbol of the national implication of the dual theme of "suffering" and "earthquake relief efforts".The Wenchuan Earthquake Monument conveys the lofty and sacred power and spirit in the way of visual landscape.It has become a base for patriotism education,a part of the urban landscape,and a part of the materialized landscape ideology.The 5·12 Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial Hall serves its rhetorical needs by collecting,preserving and displaying utensils and exhibits,and maintains national ideology by reflecting and supporting the display of values needed by the country,thus generating the shared memory needed by the country.Can a consensus be reached between the public and the collective memory constructed in public Spaces such as carefully constructed memorials? Such rhetoric must be transformed into "shared" memories and experiences,otherwise heroism and sublimity,which are constructed as a memory of social control,cannot naturally find resonance in the hearts and minds of ordinary people.The disputes over the "Western Wall" and the vernacular nature of the Jianchuan Museum show that the collective memory constructed by the government is intertwined with the vernacular memory and the individual memory in a way of opposition,negotiation and complementarity.The fifth chapter holds that the commemorative ceremony of disaster event is a process of reconstructing collective memory.The public memorial ceremony is an act of public memory,and the public memorial and related ceremonies are carried out under the background of the power will,and are routine according to the related stylized actions,and have strong political characteristics.The ritual performance of this public commemoration is itself embedded with a political necessity,a will of power,which is the most powerful and covert expression of the persuasive instruments available.The public memorial ceremony is wrapped in political power and ideology,and the performance of the ceremony is the recognition of the political power and order of the country.From the Tangshan earthquake to the Wenchuan earthquake,the state power was "present" at the appropriate time and guided to ensure that the choice of memory and forgetting would not deviate from the political track of official memory,and was effectively controlled and utilized.The ceremony of national mourning on May 19 th contains powerful symbolic expressions--metaphors and symbols.Through the national mourning ceremony,the pain of Wenchuan earthquake is given national significance.Such a ceremony can be interpreted as a symbolic collective text.As a metaphorical symbol,the state uses it as an ideal and a powerful rhetorical tool to inspire social solidarity and civic loyalty.Through this sad ceremony,the state,on the one hand,endows the common people with respect and comfort,reunites the people,and further enhances the sense of identity of the individual to the collective.On the other hand,the state also uses the political practice of national mourning day,which is full of symbolic significance and ritualized actions,to reestablish,consolidate and strengthen the sense of political identity of the collective,or the authority and prestige of the leader,government and ideology,so as to avoid weakening the power of the state and the government due to the loss of some members.At the same time,the analysis of the speech in the ceremony of Wenchuan earthquake memorial activities,it is found that the speech in the ceremony can also be used as a rhetorical collective text,is also a powerful control tool.Bodnar believes that "public commemoration activities are usually to express official concerns rather than vernacular concerns".When individuals participate in public commemoration ceremonies such as the memorial ceremony of the national mourning day on May 19 and the one-year anniversary ceremony,they actually enter the social control system of power and discipline of order.However,civil actions and public memorial ceremonies,such as national mourning and online public memorial ceremonies,jointly reflect the "presence of the state" and "identity of the people" as well as the benign interaction between the state and the people to achieve a high degree of integration.Chapter six points out that the construction of collective memory is a dynamic process of media,instead of being separated and discrete between different media.First,news media reports become the first link to record history and construct memory.Then,short,concise and heartfelt poems can resonate with the traumatic memory of Wenchuan earthquake from our emotional perspective through metaphorical representation,making it a part of "our" collective memory or cultural memory.Next,the novel carries on the cultural representation through the narrative of the story plot and the shaping of the characters,and extracts the cultural memory with cohesive structure,so that the cultural memory can be transmitted and sustained.There will be a "quiet period" after the reconstruction of collective and cultural identities.Traumatic memories are materialized and written in monuments,museums,ruins and relics collections,and new collective identities and memories will be rooted in these memorial sites,transferring individuals from the traumatic shock of the event to the post-traumatic memorial space and forming in ritual practices.The rise,decline and marginalization of different media as dynamic components of collective memory have therefore become a key issue in the study of collective memory.This shift towards the dynamic nature of memory requires a new understanding of why certain collective memories are intentionally highlighted,or why some marginalized memories are highlighted in the public domain.The dynamism of collective memory makes us consider not only the role and influence of political,economic,cultural,ideological and other social factors and frameworks,but also the "media framework" of memory construction and the agendasetting role of the media in memory entering the public domain when thinking about the rhetorical construction of collective memory.Although our memory can never restore the true history,and there will always be various powers to influence the construction of historical memory,we can understand the truth of collective memory through the process of media reproduction of memory.To sum up,the rhetorical construction of the collective memory of Wenchuan Earthquake explains how this historical event is symbolized and symbolized,and how it plays a role as a mediator of meaning.However,the constructors of collective memory are not always able to successfully construct the images and meanings they want,and make people understand these images and meanings in the way they want.To some extent,a collective memory shared by all members needs to attract a certain degree of attachment from group members,making it a shared personal memory.This needs constant interaction and negotiation between the two sides of the construction.It is not only the memory presented in various texts,memorial sites,Spaces and ceremonies,but also exists in the interaction between the memory bearing media and the individual mind. |
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