But from this short end, we have also gained a lot of enlightenment. Yesterday, I read a letter from Mr. Wang to Mr. Wei in Beiping Times, which was very interesting. When I received the notice of the meeting, I also wrote a short article explaining that reading teaching can promote the growth of "national language of literature". Now I have some supplementary comments, which are written here.
Since the Anti-Japanese War, people have advocated reading aloud, especially poetry. This kind of poetry reading was advocated before the war. At that time, it seemed to be an experiment focusing on poetic syllables; It is necessary to test whether vernacular poems are pleasing to the ear and which syllables in vernacular poems are more audible. This recitation campaign aims to establish a new style for vernacular poetry and prove that it can really replace old poetry. After the war, the poetry reading movement expanded a lot compared with that before the war, and its purpose also expanded a lot. This period paid attention to the propaganda function, education function, especially unity function of poetry, which was political. And this kind of reading, while reading and expressing, is also dramatic. This is really dramatic poetry. Dramatic poetry always adds something, which is not the whole essence of poetry. Moreover, many poems are not suitable for dramatization, so they are not suitable for this kind of recitation. So some people specialize in writing poems and reciting them. The pre-war and post-war recitation movements certainly included novels, essays and plays, but paid special attention to poetry; Because it is a refined language, it is flexible and the most difficult to recite.
The development of recitation is not only helpful to the teaching of vernacular poetry, but also helpful to the catchiness of vernacular poetry and the growth of "national language of literature". However, the recitation movement in these two periods was not aimed at Chinese teaching; Chinese teaching has not been greatly affected. Now both Mr. Wei and Mr. Wang are advocating reading teaching and advocating conscious efforts in this regard, which is very good. This goes hand in hand with the recitation movement and complements each other. The newspaper said that the reading teaching advocated by Mr. Li seemed to pay attention to the vernacular, but Mr. Wei's exposition included classical Chinese. This kind of reading teaching is naturally based on text, not poetry; Because there are many textbooks and exercises, there are still many applications. This is different from the starting point of the recitation movement.
Reading aloud is a teaching process, which aims to cultivate students' understanding and writing ability. In teaching, the teacher will read the model essay first, then the students will read along, and then the students will practice reading and sometimes recite it. Besides reciting, you can read books. Reading is reading, reading by yourself and reading by others. As long as you do some preparatory work and read it correctly on the spot, you can understand it without facial expressions and physical movements. This is similar to pre-war recitation, except that the audience can't see the original when reading aloud; Reciting after the war is much worse. Recitation is art, the audience is appreciating art, reading is teaching, and readers and listeners are practicing. These two things have different purposes. But recitation and reading are neither singing nor singing, but the tone of speech is the same.
Recitation and chanting are all about musicalization of articles, while recitation and reading are about meaning. Musicalization will bury meaning or let it slip away. Pre-war recitation can be said to have discovered the musicality of vernacular poetry, but musicality is not musicalization. For example, in a metrical poem, the arrangement of flat tones is musical, and it is musical when singing, but not when reading. What is important now is meaning, so don't be musical, don't sing. I have said elsewhere that "reading" should be like reading a document, but this sentence is not obvious. Mr. Li Changzhi said simply. He said, "The so-called reading can only be read in the tone of words (the tone of ordinary speech)." Reading a document is actually using intonation.
Although reading should use the tone of speech, it is not talking after all. Reading can't keep up with the fluency of speaking, but it is more affected than speaking. First of all, read clearly and pronounce clearly. Singing songs pays attention to articulation and reading clearly; Despite the ups and downs, clarity is always clear. Mr Li Changzhi pays attention to vocabulary reading, which is what he means. At the symposium, Mr. Pan Jiaxun pointed out that although children in private schools read two words, they also read word by word. We can often hear the pronunciation of Mencius-Zijian-Lianghui-Wang. About two words for a meal use neat syntax, such as reading thousands of words, hundreds of surnames, distinguishing English in long texts, studying in Qionglin, thousands of poems and so on. Word for word is used in uneven syntax, such as reading four books.
The former is musicalized, while the latter is read word by word with the same intensity, that is, let children clearly remember the shape and sound of each word, just like an emphasized speech. The latter kind of reading is very mechanical, unlike speaking, which can contain a few words or even swallow a few words, but it has posture and taste. What we want to read clearly is essentially close to the latter, but the number of words is not necessarily the same, and with cadence, it is more like talking. Reading the vernacular in a tone of voice is naturally the favorite way to talk, although there are always some differences between words and characters, which cannot be equated with speaking. But now the vernacular is Europeanized, and it doesn't read like talking. It is believed that reading can help to change the tone of speech after the implementation of reading teaching for a period of time. At that time, reading the vernacular was not equal to speaking, but it was almost the same. Reading vernacular poems is even less like talking now; Because poetry is refined language, arbitrary writing is worse to some extent, and Europeanization is naturally worse. Reading classical Chinese with a tone, whether poetry or prose, parallel prose or prose poetry, is naturally much worse; But it is closer to talking than singing or singing. Once upon a time, learning classical Chinese and even appreciating it seemed that you had to be able to sing. I think singing is beneficial, but reading may be more helpful. Probably, poetry and parallel prose are more musical, and musical singing can gain musical benefits, but in the sense of understanding and appreciation, singing is not as good as reading. As for the so-called ancient prose, it is originally based on the usual tone of speech. Although it is not spoken English after all, it is better to sing with music, but it seems useless. Only by reading can we see the true colors of this ancient prose. Therefore, it is classical Chinese, and the tone of reading should also prevail. However, reading must be read more and read more to be effective; "Song never leaves the mouth", so does reading.
Reading colloquial vernacular (also called vernacular), as well as reading dialogues and dramas in some novels, should be like talking, although it does not necessarily mean talking. Saying yes doesn't necessarily mean speaking, because speaking has a tone, always with some facial expressions and body movements. Although the written statement has these, it is not clear. To read this written speech, you have to read between the lines and the meaning. Although the author wants to include those, he may not be able to include everything; People who want to figure it out may not really get the most. This is not necessarily equal. Therefore, to play a play seriously, it is necessary to have a soundtrack, specify the tone in detail and so on. Zhao Yuanren's The Last Five Minutes mentioned by Mr. Li Changzhi is such a play. With this kind of drama spectrum, we have to rethink it. But the lines on the stage are still not equal to the usual speech. Because lines are not only a dialogue between people in the play, but also a dialogue to the audience, and they are fluent and clear. Therefore, performing requires professional training, which is more difficult than reading aloud. Writing in the vernacular is not equal to talking, and writing in the vernacular is not equal to talking. Writing and in the final analysis are two different things. In the era of classical Chinese, reading is helpful to the study of writing, but not to the study of oral English; On the other hand, oral English is of little help to the study of writing. At this time, it is not surprising that some highly educated people can write but can't write well, or they can speak but can't write well. But in the vernacular era, reading can not only help writing, but also help oral English, and oral English can also help writing; But some people can write, speak and write. This shows that writing and ultimately are two different things. Probably learning to write mainly depends on reading aloud, both classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese; You can't learn classical Chinese or vernacular Chinese just by talking. Nowadays, many students speak very well, but they can't write well in vernacular Chinese, just because they have read too little and don't know how the vernacular Chinese contains the tone of speech. Let them read their composition to others, which is full of truth, but others will not see it. They will speak to a certain extent, and when reading their own composition, they can add elements that are not in the composition, so they sound like others; They can do it when they see it with their own eyes. When others are reading, others can only give full play to what is contained in the composition with general reading habits, and can't make it out of nothing. This is the lack. As for learning to speak, it mainly means; Reading more familiar vernacular Chinese is more or less helpful and can be improved, but it mainly depends on spoken English. Paying attention to reading and writing while ignoring spoken English is naturally easy to become a person who can write but can't speak. As for Mr. Li Changzhi's reference to Mr. Lu Xun, that is another matter. Mr. Lu Xun can speak, but he doesn't speak Beiping dialect very well. He wrote the vernacular, not the vernacular.
At the symposium, Mr. Chang Zhi praised the True Story of Ah Q read by Mr. Gu Sui, saying that he "thought it was good for Mr. Lu Xun to use Beiping's spoken English". I wasn't there at that time, so I think half of it should be attributed to Mr. Gu's reading.
Besides, reading vernacular poems with the tone of speaking is not equal to speaking. As mentioned above, poetry is a refined language, which is naturally much worse than ordinary speech. Refinement depends on suggestion and overlap. It is suggested to rely on fresh metaphors and economic statements; Overlap is not mechanical, it must be changed and diversified. This is almost a song and a musical. This musicality is for the power of concentration, just like the unique lens in the movie. Only by paying attention can we go deep into every word and sentence and give play to its hidden meaning, which is why poetry is poetry. Don't musicalize vernacular poetry, which will cover up the individuality of vernacular poetry and wear away its twists and turns. Vernacular poetry will not have a fixed musical score, which I think is why. The same is true for vernacular poems to be read in a tone of voice. On the one hand, it is also possible to write vernacular poems in a normal tone, which has no musicality at all. But only suitable for short stories. Because short stories can be refined without overlapping, long stories can't. The poems of Russian Mayekovsky should have been said in the usual tone, but they are suitable for reading. His poems are short stories, and there are also efforts in this field in China, and Mr. Tian is one of them. Needless to say, this kind of poem should be read with an accent. It may be similar to the spoken vernacular, but it should be emphasized. Because of the short space, I read it too smoothly, so I finished it at once, so I have to slow down.
In fact, poetry reading is generally slower. On the one hand, it is flexible, on the other hand, it is difficult. The two recitation movements were mainly poetry, which was considered as an artistic attack. But reading is just a training skill, and we should start with easy reading.