Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2020

 

Reaffirming the Dream of “Writing for the Chinese Language”: On the Language Problem of Mai Jia’s Life Is Like Ocean

(Abstract)

 

Chen Peihao

 

Mai Jia’s Life Is Like Ocean shows a linguistic ambition of “writing for the Chinese language”. As a whole, the linguistic style of the work is from tight to loose, forming a “inverted horn” structure. At the same time, Life Is Like Ocean also presents a pursuit for pluralistic features of Chinese language, which is mainly reflected in the integration and activation of three language resources: classical Chinese, folk Chinese and contemporary avant-garde literature with conscious language awareness and self consistent stylistic structure. The writing practice of Life Is Like Ocean reaffirms the writer’s dream of creating a better mother tongue, and of building a poetic, diversified Chinese language through literature.