Acoustic Dimension Textualization Techniques in Chinese Poetry of the 1950s through 1970s

Abstract

The paper presents an attempt to describe various methods of inscribing the audial into contemporary Chinese poetic text, which were widely used in poetry of the 1950s–1970s, at the peak of popular declamation during the period of its active regulation. An analysis of these texts makes it possible to see some general trends in the evolution of “New Poetry” (xin shi) towards a revival of certain techniques and characteristics of various forms of traditional verse, and to assess the relations of the oral and the written in a Chinese poetic text composed and articulated using contemporary diction. The author addresses such properties as the abundant use of interrogative sentences, including rhetorical questions; the employment of a large number of emphatic constructions that function as markers of the auditory orientation of the text; the frequent application of formulaic expressions, clichés and all sorts of quotes and the tendency to exploit a “nomination strategy” based upon rhetoric ascending series.