I don’t know how to express his talent. The following is a very appropriate evaluation of him that I have seen. I hope it will be helpful to you.
The unconstrained "Soda Ci"
——A brief analysis of Wu Qingfeng's rhetorical art
(This is a graduation thesis.. Source: Graduation Thesis A brief analysis of Wu Qingfeng's rhetorical art)
In this rapidly changing technological era, due to the strength of media platforms, pop song lyrics have become the most popular and visible text today. Nowadays, many middle school and high school Chinese language teachers have taken full advantage of this phenomenon, using an entertaining and educational approach, and have begun to incorporate popular song lyrics into test questions. This move greatly mobilized students' enthusiasm for learning, and thus also attracted great attention from the Chinese textbook compilation team. Taiwan is an important town for pop music. There are countless outstanding lyricists in Taiwan, and excellent lyric works emerge in endlessly. Recently, many excellent songs have been selected into Taiwanese language teaching materials. After Jay Chou's favorite lyricist Fang Wenshan, another musical talent has emerged in Taiwan. His lyrics have been selected into Taiwanese Chinese rhetoric textbooks several times because of their vivid and vivid diction. He is Wu Qingfeng, the lead singer of the Taiwanese independent music group Sodagreen.
1. Wu Qingfeng and "Soda Ci"
Sodagreen is an independent music group in Taiwan. It was formed in 2001 by students from National Chengchi University and was established in 2003. The current six-man lineup. Such a highly educated orchestra, with a precocious attitude and technology that is rare among young Taiwanese orchestras, has become a frequent winner of various music awards and has also achieved miracles in the history of music. Even the orchestra is composed of Luo Dayou, Li Zongsheng, Zhou Huajian and Zhang Chenyue. The "Longitudinal Line" band also claims to be here to fight Soda Green.
Just like Jay Chou cannot live without Fang Wenshan, Soda Green cannot live without Wu Qingfeng. Wu Qingfeng is not only the lead singer of the band, but also the soul of the band. This top student who graduated from the Chinese Department of National Chengchi University in Taiwan is a talented singer and songwriter. Before forming the band, Qingfeng had won many awards for his works. Since their debut, all the songs released by Soda Green have been composed by its members, and up to 90% of the songs were composed by Qingfeng. In addition, Qingfeng has also composed more than 30 songs for more than 20 stars such as Eason Chan, Zhang Huimei, and Rene Liu. The lyrics written by Qingfeng have no deliberate writing and no false appeals, but they are extremely sincere and kind, just like a bird dancing ballet forgetfully. The music industry affectionately calls his lyrics "soda lyrics".
As the saying goes, "Experts watch the door, but laymen watch the excitement." The booming soda green has attracted tens of millions of "soda powder". While they are madly in love with soda green music, they are also confused by the unconstrained imagination of "soda lyrics". On Soda Green’s Baidu Tieba, there are often posts where many fans enthusiastically discuss the meaning of Soda Green’s lyrics. They even conduct a "voting for Sodagreen's most difficult song" on the Internet. But "Soda Ci" is like this. Although it is difficult to understand, it makes fans fall in love with it more and more, and even can't stop.
That’s it, the pop style represented by Soda Green, or more precisely, the pop style typified by Qingfeng’s lyrics, is becoming popular in a unique way of “seemingly understanding but not understanding”. Young fans flocked to it, but they were also puzzled. What kind of magic is behind the incomprehensible "soda words"? Next, this article will start from the perspective of rhetoric and analyze the rhetorical art of "Soda Ci" based on the characteristics of Wu Qingfeng's word usage, and uncover the defamiliarization of "Soda Ci".
2. The defamiliarization of "soda words"
Tasting soda green music is like drinking a cup of unknown soda, very light, but after swallowing it, you feel Bubbles kept burping. "Soda Ci" is exactly like this, fresh and mysterious, strange and irresistible. The reason why "Soda Ci" is unfamiliar is mainly due to the characteristics of Wu Qingfeng's diction. In the current sluggish record market, Qingfeng will not be bound by too many market baggage. He simply breaks free from the shackles to create, so his personality is more public and his creation is freer. For example, if he wanted to express the meaning of "the clouds are floating," he might write "the clouds are jumping." It may sound strange at first, but if you compare it carefully, you will find it interesting. Both "floating" and "jumping" can be used to describe the "movement" of clouds, but obviously, the latter is more interesting.
In "Soda Ci", Wu Qingfeng is good at breaking down the inertia of language use. He always uses playful rebellion to constantly challenge people's language habits. He achieves the effect of "defamiliarization" by using a series of rhetorical figures such as transference, transference, connection, borrowing, word analysis and puns.
(1) Category transfer - making use of the grammatical properties of words
According to the needs of contextual expression, the part of speech is deliberately temporarily changed to play a role that it cannot usually play. , this kind of rhetorical figure that changes the part of speech for special use is called transformation. Wu Qingfeng is a master of flexible use of parts of speech.
In his lyrics, the parts of speech of nouns, verbs and adjectives can be converted at will and naturally, as shown below:
Example 1: "He Summered the Summer" - Album "Summer Fever" < /p>
Example 2: The pain when we suffer/comes from his enjoyment - "Royal Garden"
Example 3: Is it sharp enough/Look at my scars/Covered with tenderness Brave/Give you a smiling face when you are panting - "This Day"
Example 4: A drop of seedling/How to green a pond of fruit/Or a song of me/If you don't forget the beginning, you won't be afraid of the future - "A Thousand Seats" Fountain"
Example 5: The remaining night hooves / disappear in the thinness / the selfless innocence / disappear in the smoke - "Daylight"
Example 6: Keep your cat Such a move/lose your tank face - "After Play"
In Example 1, "He Summered Summer" is a song title from Soda Green's latest album "Summer Fever". When most people see this song title for the first time, they find it novel and cannot understand it. This is because Wu Qingfeng cleverly uses the rhetorical figure of class transfer here. Compared with the second word "Xia" in the song title, the first word "Xia" has a clear change in the part of speech, from the original noun to a verb. The flexible use of the word "summer" here is mainly to set off the restless atmosphere throughout the summer and exaggerate the fanatical atmosphere of this album. This can be said to be a stroke of genius and plays the finishing touch.
The word "enjoyment" in Example 2 is originally a verb, but is used as a noun here, referring to the king's extravagant and lustful life, which is in sharp contrast with the "pain" of the common people.
The word "gasp" in Example 3 "give you a smiling face when you pant" was originally a verb, but this time it was converted into an adjective, used to modify the frightened "you" after "look at my scar". The words "gentle" and "brave" in this lyrics, like "thin" and "innocent" in Example 5, are adjectives transformed into nouns. This makes the description of the entire sentence appear concise and concise, but also contains rich linguistic implications.
Example 4 "How does a drop of seedling grow into a pool of fruit?" The "green" is originally an adjective indicating color, but here it is used as a verb, which means to make a drop of seedling grow into a pool of fruit, fully expressing The vitality of spring.
In Example 6, "tank's face" and "cat-like behavior" in the first half of the sentence reflect each other, but Qingfeng omits the "like" in "tank-like" in the second half of the sentence and directly uses the noun The sexual "tank" is translated into adjective use. This is not only concise and clear, but also gives "tank" a novel usage, and more vividly modifies the majesty and ferocity of the face.
In Wu Qingfeng’s lyrics, the transformation of words can be seen everywhere. This not only breaks the inherent fetters of word categories and opens up new ways for the flexible use of words, but also gives words new meaning and new interest.
(2) Transfer - break the modification convention of words
When describing things, deliberately move the modifiers that describe the characteristics of thing A to describe the characteristics of thing B. This This figure of speech we call transference. Transposition is a unique figure of speech. It can give perceptibility to abstract things, make dull things visual and real, and can also add interest to the things being described. Wu Qingfeng created a new way of combining words by transferring this figure of speech, making the "soda words" have a defamiliarizing effect.
Example 7: Can AC and DC flow only through hands/love/I can’t find a strong enough socket
I still have traces of spring/dusty Memories have begun to wither - "Frequency"
Example 8: Make an adventurous performance / Walk through the lonely clouds and smoke for thousands of years - "Blue Eyes"
Example 9: Empty house/wet shoes/dirty socks/sink stacked with dishes/and
unfinished lunch/garbage not taken out/potted plants that are about to die/and< /p>
The empty body/the wet past/the dirty memories/the unhappiness that fills the heart/and the self-inflicted trouble/the endless garbage/the head that is about to die of suffocation ——"I don't care"
The "socket" in Example 7 was originally a dull and boring thing, but the "strong socket" immediately made the "socket" come alive and filled it with energy. angry. "Memory" is originally a relatively abstract thing, but by using the word "memory" to write it as "dusty memory", it becomes easier to perceive and gives people a heavy and long-lasting feeling. Example 8 "Cloud smoke" is originally a heartless thing, but "lonely cloud smoke" makes the lifeless "cloud smoke" become emotional. Example 9 is a more classic transfer phenomenon. Qingfeng uses the rhetorical figure of Liejin here. The first half depicts a chaotic living environment, and the second half outlines an extremely bad living condition. In the first half, "empty house", "wet shoes", and "dirty socks" are still in common usage, but in the second half they evolve into "empty body", "wet past", "dirty" memory". The modified objects of "empty", "wet" and "dirty" have changed here, from the concrete and sensible "house", "shoes" and "socks" to the abstract concepts of "body", "past" and "memory" ”, making abstract concepts concrete and perceptible. This is the charm of moving, and also the charm of "soda words".
(3) Linking - closely following the descriptive effect of words
When mentioning two things A and B, deliberately use the verb that is only applicable to describing thing A. Describe thing B. This kind of rhetoric is what we call Nianlian. In "Modern Chinese Rhetoric", Professor Zhang Gong calls it "lianwu", that is, using the same verb to connect two originally unrelated things to describe them.
Nianlian, this is another figure of speech that Qingfeng is good at using. It has certain similarities with migration, in that they both use words to describe another unrelated thing. However, what is appropriated by transfer is limited to nouns and adjectives, which serve as attributives in the sentence. Nianlian is the appropriation of verbs to serve as predicates in sentences. Because Nianlian uses one verb to describe several things at the same time, this makes the "soda word" sentences closely connected and semantically related. The momentum runs through.
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Example 11; Time rushes forward/disperses you and me/disperses the heartbeat and pulse/memory storage window
Hold your left hand/what is scattered in my hand is tenderness
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I have given you too much/I will always be broad after being sad
Holding your tenderness/What is scattered in my heart is miss
I need loneliness to touch/In the rainy season The silence after the flowers withered - "Left Side"
In Example 10, Qingfeng used the word "see" to describe six different things, describing what the "flying fish" saw during its flight. . Because the tone of this song is based on Aomine's romantic imagination, the first "Heaven" is considered realistic compared to the subsequent "Happiness", "Flowers", "Travel", "Silence" and "Eardrum", while " Everything after "The Kingdom of Heaven" are all conceptual and abstract things, which can be regarded as fictitious. But using the word "see" to connect them makes them concrete and actionable. The concatenation of the word "look" also makes the language before and after the sentence coherent, compact, concise and clear.
In Example 11, there are three characters "Chong". The first one writes about the passing of "time", which is vividly represented by the word "Chong"; the second one writes about the separation of "you and me", which is produced by time. The distance is dispersed; the change in the third word "heartbeat and pulse" is due to the longing caused by separation, which makes the heartbeat and pulse disordered. These three words "Chong" make these three sentences interlocking, creating an inseparable and unified relationship in the structure and semantics of the sentences. For the other two words "hold", the first one is "left hand" and the second one is "gentle". "Tenderness" is the abstract thing that remains in the hand after holding it with the real "left hand". This is what Aomine really wants to depict. It profoundly expresses the deep longing and empty loneliness after separation.
(4) Borrowing - Expand the scope of use of words
Some words have an unusual usage and are appropriated from one usual scope of use to another new scope of use. . Regarding the idiomatic usage of words, the appropriation of words is a creative use. We call this figure of speech borrowing.
Qingfeng often breaks the convention of general word usage by borrowing this figure of speech, bringing novelty, vividness and some unique fresh meaning, or simply giving the word a new meaning, making these borrowed words Words don't create interest, they open up new worlds.
Example 12: The moment you look at me/I am willing to be stranded without complaining - "Floating"
Example 13: Watching the floating clouds in the sky/I am envious of my lack of freedom ——"Frequency"
Example 14: Cold-blooded hands/Planting tall buildings/The forest is carried away
The pulse of the land/Handcuffs and big locks/The sun never sets— — "Fanatical"
Example 12 The original meaning of "stranded" is that the ship enters shallow water and cannot move. It is a metaphor for things being hindered and stopped midway. It is generally used with "ship", "project", "Plan" and other inanimate things collocation. But here it is borrowed to match the living "I", which shows the obsession of "I", because just one look at you will make you willing to stop whatever you are doing. Example 13 "Youyou" expresses a state of contentment and freedom, and the object depicted is usually people or animals. Qingfeng is appropriated here to depict "floating clouds". The contrast between people and clouds strongly highlights my envy of freedom. The two words "kind" and "carry" in Example 14 are borrowed just right. Conventionally, tall buildings can only be "built" and forests can only be "removed", but it would be too banal to express it this way. Because "strange hand" was mentioned earlier, the "plant" and "carry" at the end immediately strengthened the magical meaning in the words.
(5) Word analysis - separating the structural form of words
In order to meet the needs of expression, the fixed structural relationship within the word or idiom is deliberately changed to achieve a special expression effect The figure of speech is called parsing. According to the requirements of vocabulary standardization, the structural relationship of ordinary words cannot be broken down casually. If the structure is broken down casually, it may lead to the linguistic problem of coining words. However, as a rhetorical device, temporarily dismantling its structure to suit a special context is allowed and complies with the requirements of rhetoric. In "Soda Ci", according to Qingfeng's word analysis method, they can be divided into the following three categories:
1. Isolation method.
That is, inserting other words into the middle of compound words or idioms to deliberately break up its structure.
Example 15: Who said that life is meant to be lived/who said that sadness must be lived through - "Flying Fish"
Example 16: Countless hungry pupils/than the moon Even brighter
The desire for self-satisfaction/Want more than a dream - "The Applause Falls"
In Example 15, the morpheme is inserted into "life" to become "Born to live" ", an alternative interpretation of the true meaning of "life". But Qingfeng used rhetorical questions here, denying this interpretation and reflecting his rebelliousness. Example 16 uses the isolation method to separate the two words "moon" and "dream". Although the form is isolated, it makes the meaning of these two words more accurate and better modifies "pupil" and "desire".
2. Reversal method. That is, reversing the order of the components of a compound word or idiom.
Example 17: Who can sing the soft voice of an angel in the morning/Conquering the north and south on the burning battlefield - "Relativity IV"
Example 18: You frowned and talked at the window Talking about the sky/My pulse here even makes the wound uncomfortable - "OH OH OH OH"
The term "conquering the south and conquering the north" comes from the first chapter of Zhu Kai's "Haotian Tower" of the Yuan Dynasty: " I remember that when I was a child, I conquered the south and the north, wandered east and west, and even today I have a spring dream." In Example 17, Qingfeng reversed it to "Northern Conquest and Southern Conquest", mainly to rhyme with "Angel Singing" and keep the song coherent and smooth. The term "talking about the world and talking about the earth" comes from the second chapter of "Yu Jie Climbing the Tower" by Zheng Dehui of the Yuan Dynasty: "Talk about the earth and talk about the world with great eloquence, and your ambition to subdue the tiger and subdue the dragon will not change." In Example 18, Qingfeng reverses it into "talking about the sky", which more vividly describes "you"'s endless casual talk.
3. Learn how to use it. That is, one or two morphemes are picked out from compound words or idioms and used independently.
Example 19: The raindrops are falling/the moon is shining/forming meaning/falling in the palm of your hand - "Symbol"
Example 20: The past keeps going/the future keeps coming/there is only now - — "Near Future"
Example 19: From the words "raindrop" and "moon", "drop" and "bright" are used independently to make these two static nouns lively Dynamic. Example 20 picks out the "go" and "come" of "past" and "future" respectively, expressing the emotion that yesterday is gone and there are so many tomorrows. It suddenly has the effect of spurring and warning, telling people that they should live in Enjoy the present moment.
Qingfeng uses the rhetorical figure of word analysis to make surprising innovations based on old words. It reverses the direction of conventional thinking, turns familiarity into life, and decay into magic, and has the effect of making promises and meanings.
(6) Pun - increasing the illocutionary meaning of words
In a certain language environment, using phonetic or semantic conditions, the sentence is intentionally made to have dual meanings at the same time. On the surface, it means one thing, but in fact it means another meaning, and the other meaning is the speaker's true meaning. This figure of speech is called pun. According to the conditions of pun formation, puns can be divided into two types:
1. Semantic puns. That is, puns formed by using the polysemy of words.
Example 21: When Chunli set the benchmark for separation/I had a dream
I dreamed that I turned into a human/went to the grassland/looking at myself Flying around
The rain wets the wings/but makes the fragrance of flowers clearer
Although Guyu is cold/it makes the bright colors more majestic - "Stop at Each Stop"
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This is a typical example of pun in "soda words". "Stop at Each Station" is a song composed by Qingfenghua based on the allusion of "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies". The song creates the distant meaning of a dream and is full of classical charm. The lyrics are literary and artistic but not deliberate, and are profound in their simplicity. At first glance, there is nothing unusual about the lyrics of Example 21, but when you slowly figure it out, you will find Qingfeng's hidden meaning. Using "Qingming" to modify "flower fragrance" may seem like a simple transfer at first, but after contacting the context, you will find "rain", "grain rain" and "spring equinox" using analytical rhetorical figures. These all belong to the twenty-four solar terms. Qingfeng cleverly hides the four solar terms here, which not only makes us deeply feel the flow of time, but also reflects his learned and versatile side.
2. Homophone pun. That is, puns formed by using the same or similar sounds of words.
Example 22: "Cicada's Thoughts" - Album "Summer Fever"
"Cicada's Thoughts" is a song in Soda Green's latest album "Summer Fever". The song uses As the main image, Xia Chan quoted the story of Madam Butterfly, which is about the self-trial of a love betrayer. "Cicada" sounds similar to "cicada" and "Can't think". Qingfeng actually expresses the dual meanings of "cicada" and "Can't think" through "Cicada". The so-called "cicada sound" is to summer as roses are to spring, and fountains are to spring as an indispensable element of summer artistic conception. It expresses a kind of existence that only expresses its existence by shouting in an instant, regardless of the past and future. The feeling of being in the moment. The so-called "remaining thoughts" are the remaining thoughts about Madam Butterfly's love tragedy, which expresses the discussion of the issues of love and betrayal.
Pun can implicitly express emotions and show exquisite literary talent. It is a rhetorical technique commonly used by Qingfeng when expressing his ideas.
Because puns refer to borrowed meanings from things, there are overtones, which also makes "Soda Ci" appear hazy and ambiguous.
3. Remaining remarks
Wu Qingfeng made full use of rhetorical techniques in the process of writing lyrics, breaking away from the limitations of word use and creatively combining words. He uses transfer to make use of the grammatical properties of words, uses transfer to break the modification convention of words, uses conjunctions to closely connect the descriptive effects of words, uses borrowing to expand the scope of use of words, uses parsing to separate the structural forms of words, and uses puns to increase the number of words. The implication. Through the comprehensive use of these six figures of speech, Qingfeng was able to successfully create an atmosphere of defamiliarization of "Soda Ci" and create a unique "Soda Ci". Of course, in addition to the unfamiliar words used in "Soda Ci", Qingfeng's unique description, flowing sentence structure and harmonious and smooth rhythm are also worthy of our scrutiny and study.
To sum up, lyrics as a rhyme style continue to improve with the changes of the times, and young people have "traditions" that are dissatisfied with the previous generation. The maverick Wu Qingfeng used "anti-traditional" rhetorical techniques to create the unconstrained "Soda Ci". This is a strange flower in the history of popular music today. It may not be the best, but its exploration is definitely valuable. The emergence of "soda lyrics" has brought people back their attention and importance to pop music lyrics, and once again recognized that lyrics, as a special language art form, are the most widely used and active areas of rhetoric.
It can be said that Wu Qingfeng opened up a new era of lyrics with "soda lyrics"!
Source: Zhihu
Author: Wang Yiwen