晚清来华西人对塾师的多维书写与形象建构研究

Study on the Multi-Dimensional Writing and Image Construction of the Chinese Private Tutor by Westerners in China during the Late Qing Dynasty

晚清时期,来华西人出于政治考量、文化输出、传教需求等多种因素,对中国塾师群体给予了广泛的关注与书写,以满足对华认知的整体诉求,进而建构了塾师多维的“他塑形象”。19世纪早期至60年代以前是描述性介绍为主的早期阶段,主要关注塾师的经济状况、教学教法,是为获取对华认知信息服务,而主观性的文化价值判断色彩较弱;19世纪60年代至20世纪初,则对塾师进行了全方位观察与多维度书写,以文化价值判断为主导,运用特异化手法,建构了塾师“一体多面”的形象,呈现出塾师“专业素养不甚高明”的职业形象、“贫寒”的经济形象、“特异化”的外貌形象、“无知、疏懒、严厉”的人格形象。在塾师“一体多面”的形象之下,隐含了西方中心主义价值取向。而解构中国传统教育,最终以现实为指向则是晚清来华西人塑造塾师形象的重要文化动机。晚清来华西人主要通过倾向性地择取“写实”要素,运用特异化手法和构建微型教学展示空间,对塾师进行形象建构。作为异域文化的观察者,来华西人的塾师书写虽然存在歪曲和想像,却在一定程度上为观察中国传统教育提供了多维视角,促使国人从“他者”视域反思中国本土教育问题。

In the late Qing Dynasty,out of political considerations,cultural export,missionary purposes and other factors,Westerners in China paid extensive attention to and wrote about Chinese private tutors,so as to meet the overall demands of their cognition of China,and then constructed the diversified“other-shaped image”of the private tutors.From the early 19th century to the 1850s,it was the early writing stage,mainly focusing on the economic status and teaching methods of private tutors,so as to obtain cognitive information of China.The form was mainly descriptive,while the subjective cultural value judgment was weak.From the 1860s to the beginning of the 20th century,guided by the judgment of cultural value and using the method of specialization,the image of the tutors was constructed,which mainly presented the professional image of“poor professional quality”,the economic image of“poverty-stricken”,the appearance image of“specialization”,and the personality image of“ignorance,laziness and strictness”.The image of private tutors was also filled with the cultural concealment of Western centrism value orientation.Deconstructing Chinese traditional education and finally taking reality as the direction was an important cultural motivation for Westerners to shape the image of private tutors.The westerners mainly constructed the image of private tutors by selectively choosing the elements of“reality”,using specific techniques and constructing micro-teaching display space.As an observer of exotic culture,although Westerners in China had a certain degree of distortion and imagination in the writing of private tutors,they objectively provided a multi-dimensional perspective for observing Chinese traditional education,prompting Chinese people to reflect on Chinese local education from the perspective of“the other”.