潜能转化如何可能？——北美中国词学研究现状局外观

The Possibility of Potential Transformation:An Outsider’s Observation on the Study of Chinese Lyric Poetics by North American Scholars

北美学者的中国词学研究在最近20年延伸到民国词学、词的音乐史与文化史等方面,并呈现出两个趋势。一是对包括女性、说话人、语言结构、历史文化语境在内的研究话题的接续性质的讨论,同时将"场域""作者""景观"等文化理论引入词学研究。二是试图消解文本语言结构与历史文化语境。强调文本的历史性以及将根源于文本物质形态变迁的"变异"作为运用口头诗学与表演理论的切入口,用以挑战传世文本的权威并展开文本意义的重建,是其典型特征。而对歌词文本的理解方式则是从文本意义的"误读原点"出发、带有延迟性质的"放慢理解",亦即不同于立足于语言结构的"贴近理解"、以突出文本和取消作者为目标的"札束"式研究。北美词学研究在问题、方法、理论等方面已经形成自己的系统,其蕴藏的多层次、多面向的发展潜能是转化为"显能"并产生更多成果,还是在消解文本意义的过程中最终消解自身研究的意义,尚有待时间来给出答案。

The study of Chinese Ci by North American scholars began with J.J.Y.Liu’s comparative study of literature,Glen William Baxter’s study of the origin of Ci and James R.Hightower’s translation of works and historical documents.In the last two decades of the Twentieth Century,both the textual structure of words,the application of Western theories such as genre,voice,mask,gender,and even the textual criticism and translation of documents have become the research fields in which North American Sinologists have made remarkable achievements.In the last two decades scholars have extended the studies to Ci poetry in the Republic of China(1911-1949),music history and cultural history of Ci poetry.However,one of the main research trends is to discuss the continuing nature of research topics including femininity,speakers,language structures and cultural contexts.At the same time,without exception,cultural theories such as field,author and landscape have been introduced into Ci poetics.In contrast,another research trend is to try to deconstruct the structure of language and the study of historical and cultural context.Emphasis is placed on the historicity of the text,especially on the study of the historical reconstruction of the Tang culture by the Song people and its influence on the Song people’s own culture in the process of reconstruction;and on the variation originating from the change of the material form of the text as the entrance to quote the oral and performance theories to replace the traditional empirical study of the historical and cultural context,and then on.Challenging the authority of the text handed down from generation to generation and rebuilding the meaning of lyric texts are typical symptoms of this research orientation.As for the way of understanding the lyric text sentence,it has formed a kind of″slow-down understanding″with the nature of delay from the″misreading origin″of the text meaning.Because it is an attempt to disrupt the authority of the author,not to pursue the original intention of the author,and because the translation of classical Chinese poetry is not only the translation of the literal meaning,but also the reorganization of the text meaning;moreover,because the context of history and culture has been replaced by the performance context presupposed by theory,the importance of rhythm,style,textual tension and ambiguity of meaning disappears.At the same time,it uses the form of″grafting″text to carry out the argument,and ultimately realizes the rediscovery of the meaning of classical works and writers.Therefore,the prominence of text and the abolition of″shelf″study of author are completely different from close understanding based on linguistic structure.After more than half a century,Chinese Ci poetry studies in North America have formed their own system in terms of research issues,methods and theories,and also contain the potential to produce multi-level and multi-oriented results. Whether it will eventually be transformed into apparent energy and differentiate into more achievements,or go to the opposite of things,that is,to dissolve itself in the process of dissolving the meaning of the text,only time can give the answer.