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Quantitative Study of the Ethnic Creation Epic Hnewo Teyy from the Perspective of the Chinese National Community

Author(s)

Yuan Li, Xiaojin Zhang*

Affiliation(s)

School of Foreign Languages, Northern Minzu University, Yinchuan, Ningxia, China *Corresponding Author.

Abstract

Under the perspective of the community of the Chinese nation, this paper employs Quantitative Linguistics to analyze the word frequency, animal vocabulary, plant vocabulary, ethnic names, and formulaic expressions in the Yi epic Hnewo teyy. The aim is to reveal the sense of community for the Chinese nation and formulaic characteristics presented in the epic through lexical and sentence-level studies. The analysis results indicate: 1) Word frequency statistics and lexical clustering results show the epic Hnewo teyy has distinct colloquial features; 2) The high-frequency word distribution of Hnewo teyy conforms to Zipf's law; 3) Hnewo teyy displays rich formulaic characteristics in its narration, while also creating a harmonious scene of coexistence among all things. These complex elements naturally and smoothly blend together in the epic, highlighting the unique charm of Yi epics.

Keywords

Sense of National Community, Quantitative Linguistics, Formulaic characteristics, Hnewo Teyy.

References

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