2026, Vol., No.102

A Study on the Meaning-Generation Mechanism of Bi-Xing in the Book of Songs: A Perspective from Representation Theory

REN HAIDUO(任海奪) | 2026, (102) | pp.5~29 | number of Cited : 0

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Bixing(比興), a key concept in Chinese poetics, has long been a subject of scholarly discussion. Previous studies have primarily examined it from the perspectives of rhetorical function and literary technique. However, such approaches have not adequately explained why the same bixing structure continuously generates new meanings and allows for diverse interpretations throughout its historical reception. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theory of representation and his encoding/ decoding model, this study reexamines bixing as a mechanism of meaning production. To this end, it investigates the historical reception and processes of re-encoding associated with bixing, while analyzing how meaning is generated in specific poetic texts, focusing on “Guanju”(關雎), “Jianjia”(蒹葭), “Caiwei”(采薇), and “Taoyao”(桃夭) from the Book of Songs(Shijing). The analysis demonstrates that bixing should not be understood merely as a rhetorical device. Rather, it functions as a structural mechanism through which meaning is produced through the interaction of natural imagery, emotional expression, and readers’ interpretive activities. Furthermore, the polysemy of the Shijing does not arise from interpretive inadequacies; instead, it derives from the openness inherent in the bixing structure itself and from the historical processes of re-encoding that continuously reshape its meanings. The fact that identical natural images have repeatedly acquired new meanings across different historical and cultural contexts indicates that bixing has functioned as a cultural mechanism that enables the production and negotiation of meaning. By reinterpreting bixing as a structure of meaning generation rather than merely a literary technique, this study offers a new perspective for explaining the enduring polysemy of the Shijing. It also contributes to exploring the possibility of a structural dialogue between classical Chinese poetics and contemporary cultural theory.

The Dual Writing and Internal Paradox of Ji Kang’s Two Letters on Breaking Off Relations

LI GUIHUA | 2026, (102) | pp.31~56 | number of Cited : 0

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The Blizzard-Swept Tavern in Shengjinge: A Metaphor for a Multi-Ethnic Society during the Little Ice Age

Yi Ji Eun | 2026, (102) | pp.57~80 | number of Cited : 0

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Ni Huanzhi as a Failed Bildungsroman: The Paradox of Educational Ideals and the Exhaustion of the Modern Subject

Yongtae Lee | 2026, (102) | pp.81~105 | number of Cited : 0

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This study examines Ye Shengtao’s Ni Huanzhi not as a conventional Bildungsroman, but as a failed Bildungsroman in which a modern intellectual committed to educational ideals is gradually exhausted through repeated confrontations with reality. While previous studies have discussed the novel in terms of the possibility of the Bildungsroman or the conflict between ideal and reality, this paper focuses on the paradoxical nature of Ni Huanzhi’s educational ideals. For Ni Huanzhi, education is not merely an occupation but a modern practice that promises self-realization, social reform, and the formation of a new human being. In this sense, his educational ideal reflects the optimistic faith in enlightenment shared by Chinese intellectuals after the May Fourth New Culture Movement. However, this ideal also functions ambivalently: it sustains him as a source of hope while driving him toward repeated frustration and exhaustion. To explain this paradox, this paper draws on Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism.” Ni Huanzhi attempts to transform students, the school, and rural society through education. Yet his enlightenment discourse is repeatedly undermined by the inertia and cynicism of fellow teachers, class hierarchy among students, the organized power of society, and the violence of revolutionary politics. Thus, his collapse should not be understood as the result of personal weakness. Rather, it emerges from the repeated failure of educational hope when confronted with concrete historical and social conditions. Ultimately, Ni Huanzhi assumes the form of the Bildungsroman while refusing its logic of maturity and integration. Ni Huanzhi passes through school, family, society, and revolutionary space, but these experiences do not lead to self-realization or reconciliation with the world. Instead, they reveal the impossibility of realizing his educational ideals and lead to the exhaustion of the modern subject. In this sense, the novel gives literary form to the limits of May Fourth enlightenment optimism and the difficulty of forming a stable modern subject in modern Chinese history.

The Motivations Behind Zang Kejia’s Classical-Style Poetry and Its Spiritual Connotations

WANG CHENGZHI | 2026, (102) | pp.107~126 | number of Cited : 0

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On the Writing of Life and Death in Mo Yan’s Big Breasts and Wide Hips

Zhang Xiang , KIM,MEE JEONG | 2026, (102) | pp.127~153 | number of Cited : 0

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Unfulfilled Subjectivity: The Paradoxical Mechanisms in the Construction of Female Subjectivity in Yu Hua’s New-Century Novels—Focusing on Lin Hong, Li Qing, Shumei, and Ji Xiaomei

Yin, Weiwei | 2026, (102) | pp.155~178 | number of Cited : 0

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Pedagogical Implications of AI-Assisted Translation in Undergraduate Chinese Language Education: A Study Based on Learners' Chinese-Korean Translation Activity Data

Kim YoungIn | 2026, (102) | pp.179~210 | number of Cited : 0

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A Generative AI-Supported Instructional Model for College Travel Chinese Based on Learner Experience and Needs

Lim Yeon-jung | 2026, (102) | pp.211~239 | number of Cited : 0

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Narrative Strategies and Audience Reception in the Reimagining of Chinese Mythology

XING ENHE , Park, Myung Jin | 2026, (102) | pp.241~270 | number of Cited : 0

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A Fracture in the Language of Recovery: Xie Fei’s 1980s Cinematic Idealism in Black Snow

Lee Boram | 2026, (102) | pp.271~303 | number of Cited : 0

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This article examines how Black Snow (本命年, 1989) exposes a fracture in the “language of recovery” that articulates Xie Fei’s 1980s idealism. Idealism denotes a post–Cultural Revolution commitment to restoring humanity, pursuing spiritual reconstruction, and affirming social responsibility; “language of recovery” refers to narrative and audiovisual forms connecting values found in damaged lives to characters’ choices and endings. Our Farmland (1983) gives damaged youth renewed meaning through ideals and devotion; A Girl from Hunan (1986) affirms Xiaoxiao’s desire and survival yet returns her to communal order. Despite their limits, both preserve the possibility of meaning within suffering. In Black Snow, however, Li Huiquan’s work, goodwill, and relationships do not cohere into a durable basis for ordinary life. Set amid an expanding commodity economy and destabilized values in late-1980s Beijing, the article analyzes urban space, shot duration, camera movement, dissolves, framing, and onscreen and offscreen sound. Readings of culpability, victimization and loss, social reintegration, or spiritual reconstruction illuminate aspects of Li’s life but cannot integrate his new start and death into a coherent recovery process. This mismatch is termed “non-subsumability,” a relational condition arising between Li’s life and the language of recovery rather than an inherent trait. “Méi jìnr” (沒勁兒) does not diagnose innate lethargy; it marks how Li’s efforts fail to support one another or sustain a future. In the final sequence, he remains visible, yet no one recognizes his need for urgent aid. His death is neither communally mourned nor transformed into moral instruction or redemption. Rather than reject Xie’s idealism, Black Snow tests the reach of the language of recovery. Its realist achievement lies in preserving the tension between the ethical impulse to restore meaning to damaged lives and Li’s life, which this language cannot fully organize.

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Journal of Chinese Language and Literature 2025 KCI Impact Factor : 0.33

2026, Vol., No.102