Huajixi, Heteroglossia, and Maoist Language

Abstract

Huajixi is a genre of farcical performance originated in Shanghai and the surrounding areas in the early twentieth century. The encounter with alien cultures and the influx of population imbued huajixi with an inherent heterogeneity. The abundance of linguistic miscommunication, discordance, and dissonance that elicit laughter in huajixi signifies, in Mikhail Bakhtin’s term, the heteroglossia of language, resulted from the disassociation between language and intentions, language and thoughts, language and expressions. As the content of huajixi had to undergo heavy-handed reform in the early years of PRC, its heteroglossic language remained relatively untouched. In fact, through curating the heteroglossia in huajixi, Maoist discourse showed its willingness to relativize and decenter language consciousness so as to continue the modernization of Chinese language that started in the May Fourth period.