Epistolary Knowledge for Mass Consumption : Letter Manuals in Late Qing and Republican China (ca. 1831-1949)
出版項
2020
說明
1 online resource (281 pages)
文字
text
無媒介
computer
成冊
online resource
附註
Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-10, Section: A
Advisor: Fong, Grace S.;Yates, Robin
Thesis (Ph.D.)--McGill University (Canada), 2020
Includes bibliographical references
This dissertation examines the understudied development of epistolary knowledge in China during the late Qing and Republican periods (ca. 1831-1949), when an increasing number of guides to letter writing were published. Attending to the ways letter-writing manuals transmitted epistolary codes and conventions for the betterment of Chinese society contributes to understanding how such manuals attempted to define effective written communication in social, emotional, commercial, and family life. This study aims to offer fresh insights into Chinese mass education as well as to situate Chinese epistolary culture within a global context.Model letters analyzed in this study are translated into English for the first time. Following the pervasive interest in maintaining epistolary communication during the late Qing and Republican periods, I focus on rhetorical devices and language in letter manuals and present three major arguments. First, the rules and guides of letter writing, a social practice traditionally implicated with power, helped both men and women writers establish and strengthen personal relationships, and these guides facilitated the masses' relentless pursuit of education, employment, and social refinement. Second, the ability to write letters, which entails literary competence beyond mere literacy, expanded the social influence of educated women by enabling them to become independent correspondents. Third, although sample letters were often dismissed by contemporary commentators as impractical teaching materials replete with formulaic phrases, a close reading of their content reveals new fashions in epistolary communication for incorporating complex concerns with nation-building and family reform. In the final analysis, letter writing became so central to people's everyday lives that rudimentary competence in epistolary forms was required for people who aspired to establish themselves in contemporary Chinese society
Cette these examine le developpement peu etudie des connaissances epistolaires en Chine a la fin des periodes Qing et republicaine (vers 1831-1949), lorsqu'un nombre croissant de guides de l'ecriture de lettres ont ete publies. La maniere dont les manuels de redaction de lettres transmettent les codes et les conventions epistolaires pour l'amelioration de la societe chinoise contribue a comprendre comment ces manuels tentent de definir une communication ecrite efficace dans la vie sociale, emotionnelle, commerciale et familiale. Cette etude vise a offrir de nouvelles perspectives sur l'education de masse chinoise et a replacer la culture epistolaire chinoise dans un contexte mondial.Les modeles de lettres analyses dans cette etude sont traduits en anglais pour la premiere fois. En etudiant l'interet omnipresent pour le maintien de la communication epistolaire a la fin des periodes Qing et republicaine, Je me concentre sur les dispositifs rhetoriques et le langage dans les guides de redaction des lettres et je presente trois arguments majeurs. Premierement, les regles et les guides de l'ecriture de lettres, une pratique sociale traditionnellement associee au pouvoir, ont aide les ecrivains, hommes et femmes, a etablir et a renforcer des relations personnelles, ces guides ont facilite la poursuite incessante des masses a l'education, l'emploi et le raffinement social. Deuxiemement, la capacite d'ecrire des lettres, qui implique des competences litteraires au-dela de la simple litteratie, a elargi l'influence sociale des femmes eduquees en leur permettant de devenir des correspondants independants. Troisiemement, bien que les modeles de lettres aient souvent ete rejetes par les commentateurs contemporains comme du materiel didactique impraticable rempli de formules, une lecture attentive de leur contenu revele de nouvelles modes de communication epistolaire pour integrer des preoccupations complexes en matiere d'edification de la nation et de reforme de la famille. En derniere analyse, l'ecriture de lettres est devenue si centrale dans la vie quotidienne des gens que des competences rudimentaires en formes epistolaires etaient necessaires pour les personnes qui aspiraient a s'etablir dans la societe chinoise contemporaine
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2021
