Imagistic and propositional languages in classical Chinese poetry

John Lee, Yin Hei Kong

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We analyze the use of 'imagistic lan-guage' and 'propositional language' in Classical Chinese poems. It is commonly held that the lines in the middle of a poem tend to be imagistic, while those at the end tend to be propositional. Using features proposed by two literary scholars, Yu-kung Kao and Tsu-lin Mei, we report on the distribution of the imagistic and propositional styles in a tree-bank of Classical Chinese poems. We conclude that imagistic language is indeed rarely found at the end of poems, but propositional language may be more present in the middle of the poem than previously assumed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the International Conference on Asian Language Processing 2014, IALP 2014
EditorsRafael E. Banchs, Minghui Dong, Yanfeng Lu, Bali Ranaivo-Malancon
Pages99-102
Number of pages4
ISBN (Electronic)9781479953301
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes
EventInternational Conference on Asian Language Processing 2014, IALP 2014 - Kuching, Malaysia
Duration: 20 Oct 201422 Oct 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Asian Language Processing 2014, IALP 2014

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Asian Language Processing 2014, IALP 2014
Country/TerritoryMalaysia
CityKuching
Period20/10/1422/10/14

Keywords

  • Classical Chinese
  • imagistic
  • poetry
  • propositional
  • style
  • treebank

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