The Relationship Between Sani Folk Song Communication Activities And Cultural Identity

Haiyi village is the region where the Sani minorities inhabit in. Sani belongs to Shilin Yi Autonomous County of Kunming, Yunnan. As one subline of Yi, the village enjoys the reputation of "First Music Village of Shilin Yi Autonomous County", which has a long history of music culture and profound deposits. Men with music talents come out in succession and villagers have great enthusiasm for the music. The author studies the representative village and explores the relationship between communication activities of Sani folk songs and the cultural identity.James Kerry considers communication as one rite, which does not focus on the spread of information, but maintaining the society. By taking Kerry's "Ritual View of Communication" as the theoretical perspective, this paper analyzes the communication activities of Sani folk songs in Haiyi village and the cultural significance. The author selects four typical communication activities of Sani in Haiyi village-- communication activities of folk songs in daily labor, communication activities of folk songs in wedding ceremonies, communication activities of folk songs in the Torch Festival, communication activities of folk songs in the unique "Pig Meal" banquet of Sani, and then specifically describes progress of these four activities, makes text analysis on the folk songs of Sani collected from different communication activities, sets up the relationship between communication activity and rite, makes investigations on the communication activities from the perspective of communication ritual view, and also explores how to form the cultural identity of Sani during the communication activities of folk songs.On the basis of exploring the formation of cultural identity, the author analyzes the cultural identity at different levels constructed in the communication activities.The most superficial cultural identity is to identify the folk songs of Sani considered as the cultural symbol. Secondly, the national nature of Sani folk song and national culture hidden behind the communication activities of folk songs isolate the Sani people from "others", further to realize the cultural identity of Sani people. Finally, by carrying out the text analysis on the lyrics of Sani folk song and exploring the social regulations behind the communication activities, the author constructs the cultural identity of Sani.Meanwhile, the "ubiquitousness" of Sani folk song communication creates the ritual chain of communication, "repetitiveness" strengthens the cultural memory of Sani, "participation" creates the imagined community of Sani, all the above three features mingle with each other, further to reinforce the value of cultural identity of Sani.