Research on the Literary Language of "Jin Ping Mei" (Revised Edition)

Author: Cao Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: The literary language of The Golden Lotus is divided into two parts: character language and narrative language, which are examined separately. In the character language section, we not only conduct a micro-examination of its most important and distinctive components—such as forms of address, abusive language, colloquial phrases, and idioms—but also provide a macro-analysis of the characteristics of character language formed by these components and their special functions in the work. In the narrative language section, we similarly select its most important and distinctive components—such as obscene words, verse, and occupational terms—for micro-examination, and also analyze the characteristics of declarative language, descriptive language, and critical language formed by these components, as well as the overall characteristics of the narrative language composed of these three types of language. To comprehensively demonstrate the uniqueness of The Golden Lotus's literary language from multiple levels and perspectives, we further examine the language of the work from the angles of non-verbal communication, the use of rhetorical devices, the refinement of words, the roughness in word choice and sentence structure, and the historical positioning of The Golden Lotus's literary language in the development of Chinese literary language. Through these macro and micro analyses, we have completed a preliminary study of the true linguistic significance of The Golden Lotus's literary language.