Chapter 9 Elliptical Forms (Middle): Abbreviation
Section One, Abbreviation
I. The Definition and Function of Abbreviation
“Abbreviation is a rhetorical method in which certain overly long words are deleted or merged in order to pursue concise and forceful discourse as well as coordinated rhythm.” 1 “Abbreviation” includes two types: “truncation” and “contraction.” Its characteristic is “to shorten multisyllabic words into disyllabic or monosyllabic words, or to contract two-syllable words into a single syllable.” 2 This rhetorical device focuses on simplification in sound and form, without significant increase or decrease in meaning. When used in rhymed literary forms such as poetry and lyrics, it can regulate syllables and tonal patterns, strengthening the phonological beauty of verbal expression. 3
“In order to make language concise and sentence patterns orderly, syllables within words are shortened or contracted.” 4 Compressing and shortening multisyllabic words mainly serves the rhetorical functions of: (1) making language concise and brisk, and (2) facilitating the coordination of syllables. 5
II. The Historical Origins of Abbreviation
In classical poetry and lyrics, due to restrictions imposed by fixed forms (line count and character count) and tonal patterns (level and oblique tones, parallelism, rhyme endings), abbreviations were often used when encountering personal names, place names, book titles, and similar expressions in order to achieve conciseness and harmonious rhyme. Abbreviation concerns the “characters” within sentences. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, “Melt and Trim,” Liu Xie said:
“If a sentence can be cut away, this reveals its looseness;
Only when characters cannot be reduced does density appear.”
He also said:
“One skilled in revision is skilled in deletion;
One skilled in deletion removes characters while preserving meaning.”
These statements indicate that the standard for appropriate deletion and trimming is that when sentences contain looseness or redundancy, they may be reduced; however, during reduction one must ensure that “characters are removed while meaning remains,” without harming the original meaning.
In the matter of contracted expressions, for example, Tang dynasty poet Du Fu in “Composed Playfully as Six Quatrains, Number Two” wrote:
“Wang, Yang, Lu, and Luo embodied the style of their age,
Yet the frivolous still mocked their writings without cease.
Though your bodies and names shall perish together,
The rivers shall still flow eternally.”
In the first line, “Wang, Yang, Lu, and Luo” refers to the Four Great Masters of the Early Tang: Wang Bo, Yang Jiong, Lu Zhaolin, and Luo Binwang.
Li Bai in “Song of the Hero of Fufeng” wrote:
“Yuan, Chang, Chun, and Ling in the age of the Six States,
Opened their hearts and expressed themselves, as you well know.”
This line abbreviates the titles of the Four Lords of the Warring States Period: Lord Mengchang of Qi (Tian Wen), Lord Chunshen of Chu (Huang Xie), Lord Pingyuan of Zhao (Zhao Sheng), and Lord Xinling of Wei (Wei Wuji).
Another example is Song dynasty writer Su Shi in “River City Song · Hunting at Mizhou”:
“This old man indulges for a while in youthful madness,
On the left he leads Yellow, on the right he raises Blue.
In brocade cap and sable fur,
A thousand riders sweep across the plain hills.
To repay the city that follows its governor,
I myself shall shoot the tiger, like young Sun Lang.”
The allusion within the lyric concerns Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms era hunting accompanied by his wife Da Qiao. “Yellow” and “Blue” are shortened forms derived respectively from “yellow dog” and “blue hawk.” This resembles the “substitution by characteristic” within metonymy, yet it is not actually metonymy.
Another example is Song dynasty poet Xin Qiji in “Southern Country Song · Reflections While Ascending Beigu Pavilion at Jingkou”:
“Where may one gaze toward the divine land?
All the scenery fills Beigu Tower.
How many affairs of rise and fall through a thousand ages?
Endlessly,
The Yangtze River rolls on without end.
In youth they wore ten thousand helmets,
Holding the southeast while wars never ceased.
Who beneath heaven could rival those heroes?
Cao and Liu.
To bear a son, one should bear one like Sun Zhongmou.”
“Cao and Liu” is an abbreviation of Cao Cao and Liu Bei. After abbreviation, the phrase satisfies the requirements for equal character counts and proper rhyme positions within corresponding sections of the lyric. Because this type of abbreviation possesses corresponding historical background material, the meaning of the lyric is not misunderstood.
In contracted expressions, ancient writers often condensed historical allusions or earlier poetic lines for use within their own poetry and lyrics in order to conform to character count and tonal regulations. For example, Du Fu in “The Chancellor of Shu” wrote:
“Where may one seek the Chancellor’s shrine?
Outside Brocade City the cypresses stand dense.
Green grass reflects the steps in spring color,
Orioles beyond the leaves sing beautifully in vain.
Three visits repeatedly troubled the plans of the realm,
Two dynasties were aided by the loyal minister’s heart.
Before victory was achieved, he died first,
Long causing heroes’ robes to fill with tears.”
“Three visits” is an abbreviation of “three visits to the thatched cottage.” Because the allusion of “three visits to the thatched cottage” is universally familiar, readers do not misread it even when abbreviation is employed.
Section Two, The Formal Structure of Abbreviation
The objects to which “abbreviation” applies are multisyllabic expressions, including personal names, place names, historical allusions, earlier poetic lines, and similar forms. Within modern vocabulary, the use of “abbreviation” is extremely common. For example, “underground railway” is shortened to “metro,” “supermarket” becomes “superstore,” “Beiyi Expressway” becomes “Beiyi Highway,” “Dajia Mazu Temple” becomes “Dajia Mazu,” “Ketagalan Boulevard” becomes “Ketagalan Avenue,” and “Western Coastal Highway” becomes “Western Coast Road.”
(1) Original Form: the multisyllabic expression before abbreviation, that is, the abbreviated form together with the deleted portion.
(2) Abbreviated Form: the short-syllable expression remaining after abbreviation, possessing a suggestive function.
(3) Deleted Portion: the component of the multisyllabic expression that has been removed.
Section Three, The Forms of Expression of Abbreviation
“By contracting and abbreviating words and sentences, characters are removed while meaning remains, and the simplified expression instead reveals concise and forceful power.” 6 Abbreviation is divided into two forms of expression: “truncation” and “contraction.”
I. Truncation
“Truncation,” also called “abbreviated naming,” refers to “deleting and shortening the syllables of multisyllabic expressions, making sentences concise, orderly, smooth, and rhythmically harmonious.” 7 It is further divided into the following two subcategories:
(1) Truncation of Compound Words
This is further subdivided into “head truncation,” “tail truncation,” and “middle omission.”
- Head Truncation
“The Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li” is head-truncated into “Great Wall”; “Sima Xiangru” and “Zhuo Wenjun” are head-truncated into “Xiangru and Wenjun.” In regulated verse, examples include Li Shangyin’s “Maoling”:
“Stealing jade peaches, poor Fang Shuo,”
and “Viewing Changqing Mountain from Zitong, Then Again Thinking of Qiao Xiu in Baxi”:
“In Zitong one no longer sees Ma Xiangru.”
These are abbreviated forms of “Dongfang Shuo” and “Sima Xiangru” after head truncation, employed in order to satisfy the character-count requirements of seven-character quatrains.
Xi Murong, “Song of Leaving the Frontier” 8
Please sing for me a frontier song
In that ancient language long forgotten
Please use beautiful trembling tones to softly call forth
The magnificent rivers and mountains within my heart
The scenery found only beyond the Great Wall
Who says the melody of frontier songs is too sorrowful?
If you do not love to hear it
It is because the song contains none of your longing
And we must always sing it again and again
Like the prairie stretching a thousand miles flashing with golden light
Like the wind and sand whistling across the great desert
Like beside the Yellow River, beside the Yin Mountains
Heroes riding horses in strength, riding horses in glory returning home
During the “campus folk song” movement of the early 1980s, this poem was adapted into a song and performed by folk singer Tsai Chin during that era filled with “cultural nostalgia” for historical China. Within this poem, two examples of “head truncation” are used: “Great Wall” and “prairie.” The original expressions were “The Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li” and “Mongolian prairie.”
- Tail Truncation
“White-collar class” is tail-truncated into “white-collar”; “Compendium of Materia Medica” is tail-truncated into “Materia Medica.”
Ya Xian, “Theater · Farewell Again” 9 (excerpt)
Walking out from thread-bound Yuan dramas,
Walking out from Shakespearean ballads in Western dress,
Walking out from incomplete Agamemnon, Frogs, the House of Menon, and Lana,
Walking out from Greece’s grape harvest season and Rome’s carnival festivals,
Walking out from the theater.
Saying: theater, theater! Farewell, farewell!
Within this passage, the forms include the “expanding and contracting tattoo” of the rhetorical device of “complex variation” (lines one through five), “heterogeneous recurrence” (line three), the “continuous repetition” of the rhetorical device of “iterative layering” (line seven), and also the rhetorical devices of “abbreviation” (tail truncation) and “renaming.” “Shakespearean ballads” refers to Shakespeare’s sonnets. The rhetorical richness may truly be described as dazzling and abundant.
Ya Xian, “Short Song Collection: Meteor” 10
The delicate consorts carrying glazed palace lanterns
Crossed the Milky Way in dim stillness
A girl named Hui
Cried “Ah!” and slipped
“A girl named Hui,” the character “Hui” is a tail-truncated form of “comet.” After undergoing tail truncation, “comet” and “Hui” become homophonous and visually similar in written form, turning into a feminine name. The poet is able to handle even such small details with remarkable delicacy and exquisite craftsmanship.
- Middle Omission: “Minnan language” undergoes middle omission to become “Min language”; “Freeway Bureau” undergoes middle omission to become “Freeway Bureau abbreviation”; “Joint Entrance Examination” and “High-Speed Railway” undergo both middle omission and tail truncation to become “Joint Exam” and “High-Speed Rail.”
Zheng Chouyu, “Chance Encounter in the Mountains” 11 (excerpt)
The man came from Latin America, the woman came from the Middle East
At the moment when each of their homelands had sunk into the shipwreck of revolution
They instead met in North America
“We began as comrades,” the man said.
“But ended as lovers… a sorrowful ending,” the woman sighed.
“Latin America,” “Middle East,” and “North America” are all abbreviated expressions. Their original forms are respectively “Latin America,” “Central Asia and the Near East,” and “North America.” “Latin America” and “North America” are examples of tail truncation, while “Middle East” is an example of middle omission.
Yu Guangzhong, “Travel Notes Beneath an Umbrella” 12
How fast exactly is the bullet train?
Is tempura tastier, or sushi?
“Bullet train” is a middle omission form of “bullet railway train.” The poet traveled in Japan and brought back souvenirs such as Kiyomizu pottery, Noh theater masks, and Kyoto folding fans. The children curiously asked about Japan’s bullet trains, tempura, sushi, and other local specialties.
(2) Truncation of Phrases
The first character of parallel components is extracted. For example, “Grand Historian Sima Qian” is truncated into “Shi Qian.”
II. Contraction
Contracting multisyllabic words into monosyllabic words. For example, “zhu” is a contraction of “zhi hu,” while in Taiwanese dialect “wu hui” is a contraction of “not” and “able.”
Section Four, The Distinction Between Abbreviation and Similar Rhetorical Devices
I. Abbreviation and Metonymy
- Different Objects of Use
The object of use in “abbreviation” is multisyllabic vocabulary. After abbreviation, there still remains an identifiable “abbreviated form.” For example, in Li Shangyin’s “Maoling”:
“Stealing jade peaches, poor Fang Shuo,”
from the abbreviated form “Fang Shuo,” one may know that it refers to “Dongfang Shuo.”
“Metonymy,” however, means using “B” in place of “A.” Between substitute term B and original term A there exists a “close relationship,” and semantically both refer to the same thing. For example, Su Shi in “Prelude to Water Melody” wrote:
“I only wish that people may live long,
Though a thousand miles apart, we may share the moon’s beauty.”
The original object is “the moon,” while the substitute term is “graceful beauty.” Originally it meant “beautiful woman,” but here it refers to Chang’e in the moon, and is used to stand for the moon itself. The “original object” does not appear within the poetic line.
- Different Purposes of Use
The use of “abbreviation” is intended to simplify vocabulary so as to adapt to sentence patterns (character count) and conform to syllabic or rhythmic requirements (level and oblique tones, antithesis, and rhyme endings). Although the wording is abbreviated, the “abbreviated form” remains, and the meaning itself does not change.
The use of “metonymy,” however, is intended to endow vocabulary with intricate variation, creating a fresh and lively feeling rather than stiffness and monotony. When using metonymy, one must ensure that the substitute term is appropriate, representative, possesses a substitutive relationship, and is capable of inducing traceable associations in the reader.
II. Abbreviation and Concealed Words
The vocabulary of “abbreviation” and “concealed words” both exhibit reduction in outward appearance, and their forms possess certain similarities.
- Different Forms
“Abbreviation” consists of the truncation and contraction of multisyllabic words. On the surface there still remains an “abbreviated form” through which traces may be followed.
“Concealed words” hide the original word, using another part of the sentence to “conceal the word” and substitute for the original expression. For example, in “the heart of Sima Zhao,” the phrase “known to every passerby” is concealed.
- Different Rhetorical Functions
The rhetorical functions of “abbreviation” are: (1) making language concise and brisk, and (2) facilitating coordination of syllables.
“The expressive function of concealed words is to avoid excessive directness, making language concise and implicit, adding elements of wit and humor, and strengthening the expressive power of language by stimulating the reader’s associations.” 13
- Different Structural Relationships
Abbreviation is merely the truncation and contraction of the original expression. What remains are representative components, while secondary components are omitted. Between the abbreviated form and the original form there still exists a relationship of semantic equivalence.
The focus of concealed words lies in “concealing the expression one wishes to convey.” If what is concealed is not “the expression one wishes to convey,” then it does not belong to “concealed words.” Between concealed words and the original expression there often exists a causal or conditional relationship.
Notes
- Liu Huanhui, Outline of Rhetoric (Revised Third Edition), Nanchang: Baihuazhou, 1991, p. 366.
- Lu Jiaxiang and Chi Taining, editors, Dictionary of Illustrative Explanations of Rhetorical Methods, Hangzhou: Zhejiang Education, 1990, p. 46.
- Same as Note 1, p. 366.
- Same as Note 2, p. 46.
- Cheng Weijun and two others, editors, Comprehensive Mirror of Rhetoric, Taipei: Jianhong, 1998, p. 751.
- Huang Yongwu, Methods for Refining Words and Sentences (Revised Third Edition), Taipei: Hongfan, 1986, p. 115.
- Same as Note 2, p. 119.
- Recorded from Xi Murong, Seven Mile Fragrance, Taipei: Yuanshen, 2000, pp. 168–169.
- Recorded from Ya Xian, Collected Poems of Ya Xian, Taipei: Jiuge, 1986, p. 271.
- Same as Note 9, p. 277.
- Recorded from Zheng Chouyu, The Possibility of Snow, Taipei: Hongfan, 1985, p. 105.
- Recorded from Luo Men and Zhang Jian, editors, The Infinite Blue of the Starry Sky, Taipei: Jiuge, 1986, p. 174.
- Yang Chunlin and others, editors, Great Dictionary of the Art of Chinese Rhetoric, Shaanxi People’s Publishing House, 1996, p. 931.
