Rethinking Languages, Vernaculars, and Vernacularization in East Asia from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Vernacular languages, especially vernacular writing, has been a focal point in East Asian studies. Scholars like Benjamin Elman and Shang Wei recently challenge the dichotomy between “the classical” and “the vernacular,” which has underpinned the historiography of vernacularization in East Asia. Probing further into the problematic of the vernacular, this panel examines the practice of vernacular languages in varied literary genres in twelfth- to twentieth-century China, Japan, and other East Asian societies. Particularly, we investigate the evolving meanings of the concept “vernacular Sinitic,” focusing on the relationships between the oral and written traditions, the elite and folk cultures, and the local and cosmopolitan worlds. Drawing from linguistics, literature, intellectual history, performance and translation studies, this panel explores the critical valence of the vernacular, thereby enriching the understanding of languages and literacies in East Asia.

Casey Schoenberger explores the origins of late imperial Chinese zaju and chuanqi, as well as Edo Kabuki drama, in medieval court music and popular storytelling, revealing how elite vocabularies influenced vernacular performance. Studying translations into vernacular Chinese by Edo Japanese intellectuals, Nan Hartmann focuses on vernacularization and the diversification of narrative literature in East Asia. Han Zhang examines how the literary and cultural practices of Wu dialect break linguistic and geo-cultural boundaries, shedding light on the process of vernacularization in late imperial China and the global present. Finally, investigating Hu Shih’s advocacy in 1915 of the vernacular as a modern written Chinese, Flora Shao enquires into the global context for the emergence of modern Chinese language.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizers

• Han Zhang, University of Chicago

• Flora Shao, Yale University

Chair

• Benjamin A. Elman, Princeton University

Individual Presentations

• Between Presentation and Representation: Storytelling and the Origins of East Asian Drama - Casey Schoenberger, University of the South

• Translations into Vernacular Chinese by Japanese in the Edo Period - Nan Ma Hartmann, Earlham College

• Breakout Vernacular: The Practice of Wu Dialect in Late Imperial China and the Global Present - Han Zhang, University of Chicago

• Script, Vernaculars, and a Chinese Experience of Literary Vernacularization - Flora Shao, Yale University

Discussant

• Benjamin A. Elman, Princeton University