用词习惯与《红楼梦》作者的关系

Can We Judge that A Dream of Red Mansions is not a Single Writer's Work by Some Words in the Novel ?

作者从事文学创作时,一般会有他的用词习惯,因而有时也可从用词习惯来考察认定作品的作者。但在特殊情况下,则不能用这种方式,例如时间的先后;是不是经过另一人的修或改写。《红楼梦》的成书过程复杂,一百二十回不是在同一时间里一气完成,因而前八十回与后四十回在文字的使用上也有其特殊性,我们不能因前八十回与后四十回的文字使用有差异,从而认定不是出于同一作者之手。即使在前八十回,不同的回次,在用词习惯上也有差别,后四十回与前八十回的用词有差别也就更不能为据。

Generally, a writer has his word usage habit in writing; therefore, we can sometimes investigate and judge about the writer of a writing by the word usage habit. But this method is not available under some special conditions, for example, the author does not write the novel in a continuous period of time or the work may be cor- rected or rewritten by someone else. A Dream of Red Mansions was written in a complicated course and the total 120 chapters were not completed uninterruptedly in a same period of time, thereby the word usage of the first 80 chap- ters and that of the last 40 chapters has the particularity of their own. Consequently, we can not judge that these two parts of the novel were not written by a single person by the difference of word usage. Furthermore, even in the 80 chapters of the novel, the word usage habit is unlike in different chapters; therefore, the word usage difference in the last 40 chapters and the first chapters can not be regarded as argument to ascertain the writer.