Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.8, 2014

Folk Literature: Textual Practice Drives a Change of Direction in Research

(Abstract)

Hu Xiaohui

Chinese scholars have long used cognitive methods to study the issue of textual practice in folk literature, in the belief that text and context bore little relation to one another. Most of them still see the performance theory and oral-formulaic theory introduced in the 21st century as a method of theoretical understanding and empirical research, and thus ignore the possibility that folk literature is becoming a practical science. From the perspective of practical research, folk literature texts actually involve people using different forms of folk literature in the act of narrative performance itself. Performance is the process of practice whereby the intertextuality of forms and narrative tradition is embodied in the dynamic text by the act of performance. Only by returning folk literature texts to the act of performance of forms and narratives can the form will common to the genre and the people, the ethics of responsibility of the performer and the audience, and the character of folk literature as practice be highlighted, and only thus can the relationship between “this” performance of folk literature and “this” collected and recorded text be clarified through practice.