英文摘要
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Starting from late Qing period, unification of spoken (yan) and written (wen) languages has been an important goal of advanced intellectuals. In 1920s, vernacular of northern population has developed into Bei HuaWen, a writing system derived from oral dialects. However, leftists challenged the writing system very soon. They claimed that May-Fourth elites produced Bei HuaWen for themselves and neglecting vocal languages of public mass. In the background of Sino-Japanese war and civil war, dialects became more and more important. In late 1940s, there was another critical stage of modern China. Leftists fled to Hong Kong and initiated Dialect Literature Movement (DLM). By inheriting theories and goal of revolutionary literature in 1930s, they explored how dialects in Southern China, mainly Cantonese, can become resources in the process of "popularization of arts and literature". Although all leftists aimed at "popularization of arts and literature", their views regarding how to use dialects are very different. According to their arguments, there are two groups in DLM: The compromised leftists regarded dialects as supplementary elements in creative works while the radical leftists advocated purely usage of dialects for sake of illiterate mass. The former reminds us there is critical boundary between literature and politics while the latter contributes their passion in exploring limit of written Cantonese and other Southern Chinese dialects. By investigating three representative writers: Fu Gong-wang, Huang Gu-liu and Chen Can-yun, we can discover that how political belief and cultural background affects their choices in spoken and written languages. It is obvious that tension between spoken and written languages is still unneglectable in late 1940s. The imagination and experience of DLM is valuable resources for us to develop written forms of dialects. On the other hand, equilibrium of both form of languages is prerequisite in producing written styles of literary works.
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