Language, Writing, and Performance: Ritual Connotations of Nüshu

Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Research in Humanities and Social Sciences

Year: 2021

DOI:

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Language, Writing, and Performance: Ritual Connotations of Nüshu

Yuan Zhang

 

ABSTRACT: 

This paper consists of three parts. The first part briefly introduces the social, cultural and economic situation of Jiangyong County, Hunan Province,  the cradle of Nüshu and interpretes the important role of Nüshu in the historial formatuon of Jiangyong County. The second part, entitled “Analyzing the Ritual Connotation of the Nüshu Custom from the Perspective of Emotional System”, starts with the historical materials of “Goddess Belief” myths and legends widely existing in Jiangyong County and its surrounding areas, and introduces the specific occasions and purposes of Nüshu in history  combined with the results of field investigagtion. This paper analyzes the numerous festivals with humanistic connotation and strong carnival color popular spread in Nvshu and the hidden singing hall culture of Nvshu. And this reinterpretation of the diversity of women’s script in folk culture is difficult to express the ideological connotation in the ritual language. How participants from different levels deal with ritual language, from the passive acceptance of “female gaze” in the traditional patriarchal society to active display of “self-gaze”,  further construct the analysis of female beliefs and women’s  script customs. Meanwhile, this paper discsses the main consciousness of women in these cultural ceremonies by analyzing the relationshp between the local culture and tradition.

keywords: Language, Ritual, NuShu, Anthropology, Feminism.