Ma Dakang: A Leading Figure of the Academic World

Ma Dakang was born in 1947 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang. In 1981 he was admitted to the Chinese Department of Hangzhou University, where, under Professor Lü Moye, he pursued graduate study in the field of modern Chinese literature; he graduated in 1984 with a master's degree in literature. In the same year he went to teach at Wenzhou Normal College, undertaking teaching and research in modern Chinese literature, aesthetics, and the psychology of literature and art. In 1992 he was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences under Professors Qian Zhongwen and Du Shuying. In 1993 he was promoted to full professor. He has served as President of Wenzhou Normal College, Director of the Academic Committee of Wenzhou University, Director of the Center for the Study of Literary Theory at Wenzhou University, and Standing Council Member of the China Literary Theory Association. He has successively led the National Social Science Fund of China projects "A Study of Poetic Language," "A Study of the Problem of Literary Fiction in the Horizon of the Modern and the Postmodern," and "New Horizons of the Semiotics of Literature and Art," as well as Zhejiang Provincial Social Science Planning projects. He has published the scholarly works The Intoxication of Life, The Aesthetic Utopia, A Study of Poetic Language, The Rebellious Eye, A Study of Literary Time, On Literary Activity, A Study of Literary Fiction in the Horizon of the Modern and the Postmodern, and On the Literary Act, among others, and has published more than 130 scholarly articles in journals such as Literary Review, Foreign Literature Review, Literature and Art Studies, and Theory and Criticism of Literature and Art. He has five times received Outstanding Research Achievement Awards conferred by the People's Government of Zhejiang Province; among them, the monographs A Study of Poetic Language, A Study of Literary Fiction in the Horizon of the Modern and the Postmodern, and On the Literary Act received, respectively, the First Prize of the Fourteenth, Eighteenth, and Twentieth Zhejiang Provincial Awards for Outstanding Achievements in Philosophy and Social Sciences. He has received the Zeng Xianzi National Award for Teachers of Higher Normal Institutions and the State Council Special Allowance.

His monograph A Study of Literary Fiction in the Horizon of the Modern and the Postmodern combs out, analyzes, and critiques, along the three threads of epistemology, ontology, and the philosophy of language, the various views and disputes in the Western academy since the modern period concerning "literary fiction," and, on this basis, makes a new interpretation of literary fiction from the angles of phenomenology and pragmatics respectively, revealing the reasons behind the divergence of views and clarifying this highly contested theoretical problem, thereby laying a solid foundation for literary theory. The monograph not only reinterprets the problems of literary fictionality, literariness, truthfulness, criticality, and ideological character, and analyzes the differences and transformations between the discourse-act models and functions of literary narrative and of historical narrative, but also, on the basis of the complexity, multidimensionality, and changeability of the discourse-act, effectively resolves the long-standing disputes among the various contradictory views concerning literary fictionality versus truthfulness, independence versus ideological character, and aesthetic autonomy versus social utility, and deeply dissolves the inner mechanism and characteristics of literary activity.

Since the twentieth century, constructing literary theory with the notions, paradigms, and terminology of linguistics has been the dominant tendency in the Western literary-theoretical world; even cultural criticism, and the current "post-theory," have not departed from this foundation. The monograph On the Literary Act revises and remolds Western semiotic theory, absorbing and integrating the theories and methods of cultural anthropology, pragmatics, aesthetics, psychology, and cognitive science. Taking human activity as its logical starting point and focusing on the symbolic character of human behavior, it puts forward the proposition of "behavior-language," for the first time making a distinction and clarification of the distinctive natures, modes of enactment, and functions of "behavior-language" and the "speech-act," breaking down Western logocentrism and placing all cultural activity—including literary activity—within the process of the mutual cooperation of "behavior-language" and the "speech-act." It changes the existing theoretical premises and modes of thinking of literary theory, effectively expands the research horizon and depth, puts forward a series of innovative views, and reveals the inner mechanism by which experience and cognition, the sensuous and the rational, the unconscious and the conscious, autonomy and historicity, and the aesthetic and the utilitarian mutually merge in the process of literary activity. At the same time, it makes a persuasive clarification of the root of the differences between Chinese and Western literary theory and of the concrete path for their fusion and reconstruction, providing a brand-new foundation for literary theory and even for the humanities.

The most important notion of the monograph Cognitive Semiotics: A New Path for Aesthetic and Literary-Artistic Research is that it regards the sign, first of all, as the relational model between human and world. The human must establish a particular relational model with the world (modeling) in order to perceive, feel, and grasp the world, and the representational role of the sign is grounded in this relational model; therefore the monograph calls this semiotics "cognitive semiotics." From this angle, the sign not only expresses meaning but also embodies the human's mental structure and the structure of human culture. The monograph expounds, respectively, the different modes of enactment, natures, and functions of behavior, language, and the various other types of sign, and the different models by which they connect with the world; it absorbs the essence of ancient Chinese thought and transcends the dualistic thinking within Western semiotics. The diversity of the sign's nature and the complexity and compositeness of its modes of enactment fundamentally change the theoretical premises of aesthetics, poetics, and hermeneutics, and on this footing rethink aesthetics and literature and art, clarifying many contested basic theoretical problems and, further, revealing from the semiotic angle the root of the differences between Chinese and Western culture.