Investigation of the Europeanized “被 (Bei) sentence” in Zhou Zuoren’s Writings and Translations During the May Fourth Period

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  • 五四白话文“被”字句考察 : 以周作人早期作品为中心

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The revolution in literary language and the birth of the modern vernacular way of writing literature began only during the May Fourth period. The May Fourth literary scholars translated and introduced foreign literary works and considered translation an important way to reform the national language. The trend of Europeanization of the modern Chinese grammar was strongly influenced by the May Fourth translation. Many researchers believe that the change in the Chinese 被(Bei) sentence is a typical Europeanization phenomenon. The reform of 被(Bei) sentence in the May Fourth period is reflected in its two aspects: the first one is the increase in the frequency of use and the other is the generalization of its semantic color. Zhou Zuoren, as one of the May Fourth literary scholars, was seeking a model for transforming the vernacular language while being exposed to foreign languages and thinking about the way the Chinese written language was formed. This paper examines Zhou Zuoren’s writings from 1900 to 1925 and translations of Japanese literature during the May Fourth period as a part of the research and investigates the changes in the vernacular language in the texts written by the May Fourth literary scholars after the Vernacular Movement, using the (Bei) sentence as the object of the research. Through the text analysis, I found that the 被(Bei) sentences in the Zhou Zuoren’s writings have Europeanized features in terms of number, length, sentence structure, semantic color, etc. The 被 (Bei) sentences have also common features in his translations of the same period. Therefore, it is believed that the Zhou Zuoren’s (Bei) sentences in the May Fourth period are characterized by Europeanization due to the influence of the works in translation, and there is a strong connection between the Europeanization of the language in the translations and the written language of not translated works to a certain extent, both reflecting the changing trend of the May Fourth vernacular.

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