Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 6, 2025

Oral Tradition, Hybrid Texts and the Rethinking of Ethnic Literary Criticism

(Abstract)

Li Changzhong

Ethnic literature is deeply intertwined with oral tradition. Ethnic literary criticism must no longer be confined by the paradigms and discursive inertia of writer-centered literary criticism, nor should it be subordinated to the hierarchical logic of “oral/written” distinctions. Taking as its starting point the hybrid texts that emerge from the mutual embeddedness of ethnic literature and oral tradition, this essay calls for a critical reexamination of the prevailing reliance on written and author-centric critical frameworks. Advocating a method rooted in the “oral dimension” offers a vital pathway for deepening and advancing the epistemology and methodology of ethnic literary criticism. Theoretically, a “grand literary view” and “grand critical view”—which emphasize both “vertical integration” and “internal-external coherence”—can help to grasp the hybrid textual features and production mechanisms of ethnic literature, situating them within broader social and historical contexts. Literarily, exploring the genealogical ties between folk and ethnic literature can help identify grounded, locally rooted paths for the global engagement of ethnic literature. Culturally, this approach offers a literature-based model for the living transmission of folk traditions. At the level of discourse, it emphasizes the critical transformation of oral poetic heritage and the development of a Chinese school of oral poetics.