A Probe into the Conceptual Framework and Mechanism for Writing in Vernacular Chinese during the May Fourth Period: Focusing on the Three Schemes Proposed in New Youth

Abstract

Abstract: The magazine New Youth publishes three systematic schemes for vernacular Chinese during the May Fourth Period, and they were proposed by described by Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong and Fu Sinian to clarify, sort out and write down the views on the reforms on Chinese language. These schemes, to a considerable extent, define the appearance of modern vernacular Chinese, and the approach to transform the existing vernacular written Chinese through "Europeanization" and to achieve an ambiguity-free language for the practical needs in social communications results in the so-called "Europeanized Vernacular Language." The new vernacular Chinese functions to enhance cultural solidarity interrelate the sentiments of the people and provide a writing system of Chinese intellectuals, and thus it paves the road to the modernization of Chinese language. These three schemes also baptize vernacular Chinese with a "scientific discourse", helping to construct a unified and homogeneous written language in the context of dominating modernity, and thus initiating the one and only legitimate form of written language for general use in modern China in the process of nation-state formation.

Key words: construction, scheme, practical writing, science, Europeanization

CLC Number:

Deng Wei. A Probe into the Conceptual Framework and Mechanism for Writing in Vernacular Chinese during the May Fourth Period: Focusing on the Three Schemes Proposed in New Youth[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art.

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