Vernacular Sound: Vernacular Modernity and the 1930's Chinese Sound Film Culture.

摘要

This dissertation is focused on analysing the film culture of Chinese early cinema from the perspective of sound, from 1930 to 1937. The theoretical development of this dissertation is based around the concept of vernacular modernism, proposed by Miriam Bratu Hansen and developed by Zhang Zhen. I will not simply borrow this theory but use it within a critical framework. I attempt to rethink its meanings in the Chinese context, and on this basis, I will propose a new account of early Chinese sound film's vernacular modern history.;In the first part 'Poems·Music·Vernacular' (chapters 1&2), I draw upon intermediary and interdisciplinary research methods, to analyse the interrelationship between Hu Shi's vernacular poems and Li Jinhui's popular songs. Focusing on Li Jinhui's musical practices from the May Fourth to the 1920s and the 1930s, I try to analyse and summarize the two key features of Chinese vernacular modernism: intertextuality and hybridity, characterised by the mixture of different cultures and discourses (including urban popular culture, intellectual high culture, official culture, traditional folk culture and so on), and the dialectical relations between body and sense and enlightenment and education ('Entertainment with Enlightenment', Yu Jiao Yu Le).;In the second part 'Vernacular·Songs·Sound films' consisting of two chapters (3&4), I will analyse film magazines, such as Film Magazine (Yingxi zazhi), Movie Magazine (Dianying zazhi) and Modern Cinema (Xiandai dianying), film texts, such as Street Angel (Malu tianshi, Yuan Muzhi, 1937) The Big Road (Dalu, Sun Yu, 1934), Children of Trouble Time (fengyun er nuˇ, Xu Xingzhi, 1935), The New Year's Coin (Yasui qian, Xia Yan, 1937), etc., and I draw a picture of Chinese early cinema's vernacular scene, before and after the arrival of sound. Specifically, from the perspective of the musical tune and lyrics of film songs, I attempt to analyse the hybridity of Chinese vernacular embodied especially in left-wing films.;In part three 'Women·Song and Dance-Vernacular' (chapter 5), I deploy film textual analysis, focused on one female image--the sing-song girl, and in this part, I try to identify the differences and similarities of soft film and Li's soft songs and dances. From the perspective of women and on the basis of comparison, I try to study the hybridity of Chinese vernacular in left-wing films.;The dissertation has three main sections.