"Network Era "Dialects"

Author: Li Rui
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2002-10-01
Features: This collection of speeches is essentially about the issue of linguistic consciousness. Due to word count constraints and to articulate the issue more clearly, additional articles on language and writing styles have been included alongside the speeches. Compiling this collection of speeches also provided an opportunity to clarify one's own thoughts. If we date it from the 1988 essay "Modernism: A Profound Reality, Not a Righteous Ideology," it has been about fifteen years. The content of this book: Writers of my age and background in mainland China are often referred to as "sent-down youth writers," while historical accounts sometimes call this generation the "Red Guard generation." These two different names clearly convey distinct emotional and moral judgments. "Sent-down youth" refers to a group of innocent people who embrace hardship and adversity, while "Red Guards" are depicted as lawless, fanatical destroyers. Thus, we see how much difference there is in how history is remembered, and how much subjective self-selection plays a role. In reality, the millions of suffering sent-down youth were, in fact, the millions of fervent Red Guards at the time.