| Chronotope is a cultural theory on folk culture which is studied by Mikhail Bakhtin in his later life, however this theory is involved in many aspects of literary creation and literary language. The author proposes carnival discourse theory based on Bakhtin's chronotope and discourse theory, and analyzed the characteristics of the theory, at last the author grossly compared carnival discourse theory,dialogism and polyphony for looking for the continuity of the three kinds of theories. This paper analyzed Bakhtin's theory of discourse which is actually a kind of linguistic expression type, and this linguistic expression type means an ideology. The discourse is a basic rule of thoughts and words existed in the social life under a certain historical condition, and it exists in literary creation and daily life. The discourse is a metaphor which can divide identity and social status, and the discourse can find some traces of ideology.The chronotope is the most important achievement in his later life, and he discussed the basic characteristics of medieval culture based on the Gargantua written by Francois Rabelais. The paper analyzed the characteristics of carnival culture from three aspects of history,literature and philosophy to delineate a historical context for the artistic characteristics of carnival discourse. From the perspective of history, carnival culture comes from medieval carnival festival, it is a religious festival of the masses of people, and in the festival, the masses of people and the ruling class formed an equal and temporary relationship between each other. The carnival folk culture derived from the temporary utopian world; Literature is the product of culture, and the presentation of social life and the culture of the masses, therefore the carnival culture inspired the creation of the renaissance writers, and they transplanted the carnival spirit into their literature. The behavior is not only the representation of the scene of carnival square, but also creates a carnival atmosphere in the literature and forms an unique artistic expression. Because of the new style of artistic expression, the author was inspired to discuss the influence of carnival culture on the literacy creation, and then this paper summarizes the carnival discourse. In the philosophy level, carnival culture is a utopian spirit of freedom and equality. In the medieval age, the spirit is particularly strong in the social hierarchy system. The carnival culture is the masses'revolutionary of pursuing freedom and a bottom-up parade against the hierarchy. From this point of view, we can understand the true meaning of ideology in the carnival culture.it has profound social significance because of its revolutionary demands of a class. The literature and the ideology make the chronotope and discourse theory come together and form a new theory:carnival discourse for better explain the problem of literacy creation. As a kind of discourse theory, the carnival has some characteristics as follows:first, the carnival is a kind of body writing, referring to the emphasizing on human feeling and consciousness in the works of carnival discourse. Gargantua is a history of giant's growth, and the natural attributes and physical feeling are the major part in the book. The pure biological senses and behaviors such as eating,drinking, producing,depositing,and sexing, are praised infinitely. The description of human feeling expresses the revolutionary spirit against theocracy and empire. Second, the carnival discourse reflects a vulgarity manner. Comparing to the religious literature and the royal literature which are elegant, noble, grave and solemn, the carnival discourse is a vulgar expression without rhetorical flourishes, perfect figure, lofty pursuit of spirit and logical normative structure. The figures of carnival discourse are the giants, dwarfs, fools and clowns, but they are all symbols of man's nature and perceptual condition of human nature. the most descriptions of scenes in carnival discourse are unbridled feasts,which represented the beautiful scenes of sharing labor and labor fruits in the primitive society among common people. It showed the free and equal relationship between people and it has great significance. The language in the carnival discourse is an out-and-out language among the masses, is a language for free chat, abuse, curses and swearing on the square. The language is the particular words for the masses during their produce and labor, full of simple and active energy without standard courtesy. Therefore, from the perspectives, the carnival discourse is a vulgar manner. Third, the carnival discourse has the characteristics of irony. The irony is the laughing culture of folk culture. The irony in the carnival discourse embodies the meaning of humor and irony, which is on the clown image and laughing culture. The clown image plays the important role in not only Gargantua but also Don Quixote. The clown image is sometimes gnomes; sometimes fools; sometimes frauds; the masses laughed at the clowns for their strange and stupid behavior. however, the clowns laughed at the masses for the reality that the masses were suppressed by social norms, and the clowns were mirror of social norms, religious tradition and feudal monarchies. The bidirectional behavior of laughing and being laughed, strengthened the irony of the carnival discourse. The most prominent feature of the irony is here. Fourth, the carnival discourse is a metaphor. The carnival discourse is from carnival culture, whose spirit is the essence of carnival discourse. The behavior of producing,depositing and drinking in the carnival discourse is against social orders actually. The real word is a up-bottom word, the masses are limited by the social status. However, the emphasizing on behavior such as depositing and sexing is against the suppression on body by religions. The masses want to create a new world, a bottom-up world. Fifth, the carnival discourse is a kind of parody. Parody has complicated meanings, and it refers to not only genre parody, but also context parody and speech parody or ceremony parody, and these forms of parodies all exist in carnival discourse. The parody has been in the literature for many years, for example, in humorous literature in the period of Roma and Greece, there are some humorous parodies on sacred language and sacred texts. Through the parody, they created a solemn appearance, but express the out-and-out joke. The contrast produce strong sense of irony, which is full of power of irony, became the characteristic of humorous text. There are also forms of parodying in carnival discourse:a king will be chosen in the carnival festival to finish the ceremony of coronation surrounded by the masses. This kind of parodying is related to the literacy parody and linguistic parody, and they are both to emphasize the irony through the contract between humorous content and serious form. So, parody is also the artistic characteristic of carnival discourse.After discussing the five characteristics of carnival discourse, the author compared the carnival discourse theory to the dialogism and polyphony, and drew a conclusion:the carnival discourse theory is the further complement of the other two theories. The three theories are based on the heteroglossia, and the dialogism focus on the conflict and compound between writers and narrators, and polyphonic theory focus on the internal contradiction among discourse, but carnival discourse theory is a compound of discourses. The relationship of the three theories shows the thought of Bakhtin's:the three theories are progressive. So, the carnival discourse theory is the further complement of dialogism and polyphony theory, is the new breakthrough of Bakhtin's theory, and is the new trial for his systematic theory. |
