University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Portuguese

Wei and Chin Dynasties had been viewed as the most chaotic period characterized by changeable political situations, continuous wars, and difficult lives. In this period, the decline of classical studies and popularity of Daoism and Buddhism studies contributed to a very active world of ideas. Living in such a special time, scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties could thus liberated their spirits, owned freedom of thoughts and beliefs, acted freely, and created arts with enthusiasm. In addition, they concretely built up a kind of distinguished and unique beauty of arts. This kind of special craze for the beauty of countenance and deportment as well as the beauty of inner verve not only shows certain historical characteristics and aesthetic perspectives during those periods, but also serves as a very important part of Chinese cultural history, and is therefore worth further investigations. This thesis looks deeply into Shih-Shuo Hsin-Yu, which vividly portrayed behaviors and appearances of famous scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties. Based on literary documents talking about the real significance of ¡§famous scholars¡¨ in Wei and Chin Dynasties, this thesis concludes certain primary elements of being a famous scholar, which are ¡§superior knowledge,¡¨ ¡§unique personality,¡¨ ¡§ strict morality and magnanimity,¡¨ ¡§affections with wisdom,¡¨ ¡§free spirits,¡¨ and ¡§delicate appearance and behavior.¡¨ Also, famous scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties can be divided into several types, which are ¡§free-spirit,¡¨ ¡§talkative,¡¨ ¡§physical and mental beauty,¡¨ ¡§encyclopedic,¡¨ and ¡§virtuous.¡¨ What¡¦s more, there are four attributes that can present the beauty of outward semblance, namely ¡§tall and slim,¡¨ ¡§beautiful face,¡¨ ¡§elegant expressions and delicate behaviors,¡¨ and ¡§fashionable clothes.¡¨ Last, in order to highlight the inner verve and noble spirits of those famous scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties, they put emphasis on the aesthetic of ¡§portraying the inner verve from the semblance,¡¨ and ¡§observing the semblance to grasp the inner verve.¡¨ Even though famous scholars pursued physical beauty, they did not judge people from their appearance. Instead, they stressed the inner beauty of spirits which reflected from delicate semblance and behaviors. Therefore, anyone who ¡§acted without vulgarity,¡¨ ¡§owned handsome appearance and good shape,¡¨ ¡§ stood out above the rest,¡¨ ¡§possessed wisdom and generosity,¡¨ ¡§maintained cleanness and brightness,¡¨ and ¡§made resolute decisions¡¨ could be categorized as a famous scholar. Even a person who had ¡§ugly appearance but fine verve¡¨ could also be a famous scholar. As a result, throughout the study on the physical beauty and spiritual beauty of the famous scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties, this thesis not only displays the countenance, inner spirits as well as the true significance behind the seemingly superficial quest for beauty of the famous scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties, but also clearly represents the historical characteristics and aesthetic trends by examining the way how the famous scholars in Wei and Chin Dynasties established the beauty of outer appearance and inner verve.

Li Yu¡¦s Theory of Chinese Opera Abstract Li Yu (1611-1680) is a renowned Chinese opera writer in the early Qing dynasty. His work ¡§Ten Operas¡¨ features surprising plots and easy-to-understand scripts, criticized as ¡§intended to make common¡¨ and ¡§simple to comprehend¡¨, reflecting his writing attitude and style in developing popular and entertainment culture. This deviates himself from the literary direction of drama (chuanqi) writing since the mid-Ming dynasty. In addition, Li Yu is also a Chinese opera critic. The ¡§script¡¨ and ¡§play act¡¨ sections in his ¡§Xian Qing Ou Ji ¡¨(Journal of Leisure Time) discussed mainly the writing and performing of Chinese operas. The journal was written after the publication of the ¡§Ten Operas¡¨, which can be regarded as a summary of Li Yu¡¦s seasoned experience in writing Chinese operas. The journal is also a main research subject of this study. Literature on Chinese operas in Ming and Qing dynasties is rich. On the format, some focused their discussions in a specific book while some discussions were found scattered in anthologies and critics¡¦ notes. On the content, some examined the stories from historical perspectives, some centered on the wording as well as on tones and singing skills; or some were precise investigations on the development of Chinese opera history. The literature is documented with quite a few unique perceptions on the presentations of Chinese operas. These critiques, even as specific works, only present checklist style discussions. Some greater volumes manage to categorize various works but yet to conclude a coherent theory on Chinese opera. The results are usually unsystematic. Li Yu¡¦s theory is distinguished as having a subjective intension to establish a critique system on Chinese operas. In other words, he intended to construct the foundation and writing principles that ¡§others can follow¡¨ and clearly control the essence and development of Chinese operas. His emphasis of ¡§structure¡¨ in making critiques is the result of fully understanding the ¡§dramatic characteristics¡¨ in Chinese operas. Li Yu presented his theory mainly in the ¡§Xian Qing Ou Ji¡¨ with the ¡§script¡¨ and ¡§play act¡¨ sections, the ¡§script¡¨ section stressed on the writing theory while the ¡§play act¡¨ on the presentation. ¡§Dramatic presentation¡¨ is related to the professionalism of actors, not judged by writers¡¦ imagination, thus there are not many discussions on the performance. Li Yu doubled himself as writer and director and developed a system of perception and opinions of his own towards performing Chinese operas. Comparing his writing and presenting Chinese operas, the latter is weaker in depth than the former. Some of the discussions on presentation focus on how to handle scripts on stage and can be regarded as the extension of script writing. Therefore this study is led to focus on Li Yu¡¦s writing. Although Li Yu intended to establish a theory and principle of Chinese opera writing in the ¡§Script section of the Xian Qing Ou Ji¡¨, he only managed to reinforce the importance of the ¡§structure-first¡¨ principle and categorized rhetoric system, tonal pattern, rhyme scheme, conversation and humorous acts with the supplementary discussions of Chinese operas¡¦ ¡§forms¡¨. His categorization seems yet to reach a literature theory defined by modern literary norms. Actually Li Yu produced versatile discussions on Chinese operas. Some of his discussions are related to the fundamental definition, characteristics and functions of Chinese operas. Some belong to the construct of literary principles of Chinese opera. Some are the exploration of the principles and practical skills of Chinese opera writing. Furthermore, there is some comment on some specific works, as well as the discussion of different presentation styles in terms of the development in literary history. Li Yu made a clear intension in constructing the theory of Chinese opera, yet there is quite some space for adjustment in certain areas. Thus this study tries to integrate and summarize Li Yu¡¦s theory on Chinese opera, in a hope of re-constructing and re-translating from modern literary perspectives for eliciting more meaningful implications. During the process, the most important task is to analyze and formulate a theory structure on Li Yu¡¦s perspectives as three major aspects: fundamental theory of Chinese opera, theory of writing Chinese opera and theory of presenting Chinese opera. Fundamental theory of Chinese opera discusses the basic features of Chinese opera as the fundamental basis to construct theories on writing and presentation. These theories also project that his emphasis on the special formulation of Chinese operas and stagecraft. These distinguish him from other theories on Chinese opera in his contemporary era. This study develops as the following structure: Chapter one ¡§Introduction¡¨ states the research motives, scope, methodology and thesis summary in addition to the description of Li Yu¡¦s life and his literary achievements. Chapter two ¡§General Discussion¡¨ explores Li Yu¡¦s fundamental theory of Chinese opera, including the discussions on the artistic characteristics, position of Chinese operas in literature, the essence of Chinese operas, core values in appreciating Chinese operas and functions of Chinese operas ¡Ketc. Chapters three to seven are on theory of Chinese opera writing. Principles and standards in writing Chinese operas are discussed in terms of specific elements that compose Chinese operas. Chapter three ¡§Plot¡¨ redefines viewpoints on the structure in Li Yu¡¦s theory of Chinese opera. Chapter four ¡§Format¡¨ describes the regular formation of traditional Chinese opera presentation after the discussion on structure because set formation results in certain impact on the presentation. Chapter five ¡§Characters¡¨ is on the roles in Chinese opera. Li Yu embedded character formation in the design of plot structure, without independent character theory. The chapter is limited to the relationship among the language of characters, character descriptions and roles. Chapter six ¡§Language¡¨ discusses the common features of opera languages: rhymes and scripts, including the characteristics of representatives in Chinese operas and the standard the opera language should have. Chapter seven ¡§Rules of Tones and Rhymes¡¨ is divided as rhyme scheme and tone patterns with rhyme scheme as the main theme for discussion. The chapter also establishes the common principles of ¡§rule abiding¡¨ and proposed concrete suggestions on handling the rhymes and tones. Finally the thesis discusses Li Yu¡¦s theory of Chinese operas presentation in terms of scripts processing before performance, actor training and guiding and stage presentation. These concluded chapter eight ¡§Performance¡¨. It is hoped, through this thesis, to establish a specific theory structure of Li Yu¡¦s works on Chinese opera.

The objective of this study is to investigate and characterize the mechanism of the island wake behind an island called Liu Chiu Yu off the southwestern Taiwan coast based on the in-situ data of Sb-ADCP, CTD and satellite images. The findings suggest that a counter-clockwise eddy and a clockwise eddy both are with 0.01 S vortice appears in the wake of Liu Chiu Yu when the background flows are toward the northwest. The system of two eddies with opposite rotation and a central return flow develops an unsteady eddy shedding. On the other hand, when the background flows are toward the southeast, island wake generated in the lee of Liu Chiu Yu is attached system of two eddies with opposite rotation and a central return flow. The Sb-ADCP data shows that the flow pattern in the northeastern coast of Liu Chiu Yu is mainly semidiurnal. The major axis of the ellipse of the semidiurnal current is parallel to the orientation of the coast line (northeast to southwest) and the shape of the ellipse is quite long and narrow. The amplitude of the semidiurnal current is approximately two times that of the diurnal current. Generally, the currents are stronger and the occurring probability of the island wake is higher during spring tide. The CTD data shows that the eddy center appears to be divergent and upwelling occurs in the areas under the influence of island wakes. The upwelling pumps deep seawater to the surface and results in low temperature, high salinity, high oxygen concentration and low chlorophyll concentration. On the other hand, in the eddy edges, downwelling occur causing high temperature, low salinity, low oxygen concentration and high chlorophyll concentration. Strong shear was formed at the depth of 60m inside the island wake which generates thermocline so that the mixing phenomenon is quite obvious there. Moreover, in the regions without the influence of island wakes, the stratifying effect is clear and the horizontal variation of temperature, salinity and oxygen concentration is small. Therefore, neither upwelling nor downwelling occurs there. Furthermore, along the edge between blocking and free-stream areas, the shear stress increases and the mixing phenomenon arises to a certain degree. The satellite images show that an island wake appears in the southeastern Liu Chiu Yu during spring tide. The island wake develops a phenomenon called von Karman vortex street. At the same time, a counter-clockwise eddy with heavy suspensions appears in the northern Liu Chiu Yu. The radius of the eddy is around 4 Km. The area of the lowest chlorophyll concentration is located at the center of the eddy. By analyzing all these data, it is concluded that the island wake in Liu Chiu Yu usually appears during spring tide.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

The ability to extract frequent pairs from a set of transactions is one of the fundamental building blocks of data mining. When the number of items in a given transaction is relatively small the problem is trivial. Even when dealing with millions of transactions it is still trivial if the number of unique items in the transaction set is small. The problem becomes much more challenging when we deal with millions of transactions, each containing hundreds of items that are part of a set of millions of potential items. Especially when we are looking for highly correlated results at extremely low support levels. For 25 years the Direct Hashing and Pruning Park Chen Yu (PCY) algorithm has been the principal technique used when there are billions of potential pairs that need to be counted. In this paper we propose a new approach that allows us to take full advantage of both multi-core and multi-CPU availability which works in cases where PCY fails, with excellent performance scaling that continues even when the number of processors, unique items and items per transaction are at their highest. We believe that our approach has much broader applicability in the field of co-occurrence counting, and can be used to generate much more interesting results when mining very large data sets. / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the approaches identified for the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin dialogues into English subtitles is different from those described in research studies which examined the translation of English film dialogues into Mandarin subtitles using data gathered from a Taiwanese movie entitled Cape No. 7. Taiwanese Mandarin is significantly influenced by the Tai-yu dialect, and in order to carry out the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin, it is important to deal with the functions of the dialect and related culture-specific items (CSIs). Therefore, the researcher of this thesis has investigated whether the translator of Cape No. 7 successfully applied a variety of translation strategies and prioritized the translation criteria well, to enable the target audience to receive the same message of the film as the source audience, especially when subtitling is constrained by time and space. There are two research areas which have been examined: slang and humour. The data analysis of slang scenes included Tai-yu slang and swearing, while humorous scenes were divided into three areas: puns, irony and metaphor. The research data have been analysed by means of analysis diagrams, which were trialled in a pilot study, described in Chapter Three. The pilot study lead to a new categorization based on previous researchers’ taxonomies (Aixelá, 1996; Davies, 2003; Tveit and Fong 2005, as cited in Yang, 2006), and this was applied to the analysis diagrams. According to the findings from the analysis chapters (Chapter Four & Five), the translator of Cape No. 7 preferred to use mostly the paraphrasing strategy in translating Tai-yu slang and humour, and the synonymy strategy in conveying swearing. In addition, the translator often strengthened swear words rather than toning them down in the English subtitles. However, when subtitling humorous scenes, the translator preferred to incorporate two strategies to deal with the cultural barriers when conveying the humorous effect. The compensation strategy was not used often in slang translation. In regard to the translation criteria, pragmatics and accuracy appeared to have been deemed more important by the translator than other criteria. Surprisingly functional equivalence did not seem to have been the translator’s first priority, as suggested by earlier research. Overall, this research study appeared to show that the translator of Cape No. 7 considered the paraphrase strategy to be the most efficient strategy for maintaining CSIs, and that pragmatics and accuracy were the translator’s most important criteria, which differs from the findings of previous research studies.

The research recorded in this thesis examined the experience of eight foreign teachers who have taken up residence in China as teachers of oral English language. The study grew out of my reflections on my own challenging, yet rewarding, journey as an international student in New Zealand, and aimed to investigate and unfold the reality of foreigners living and working experience under the influence of traditional Chinese culture, specifically in Pan Yu district, Guang Zhou City, Guang Dong Province. I was interested to find the cultural differences that the teachers struggled to accept or understand. I wondered whether the foreign teachers would reshape their personal beliefs and values, especially about teaching, because of the cultural differences they encountered in China. A sample of eight foreign teachers, from Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand, took part in semi-structured interviews in which I hoped to capture critical incidents in their inter-cultural experience. I was also able to undertake two observations of classroom practice. The data collected was then analysed using Boyatzis' (1998) system of thematic analysis. The research found that participants had similar experiences during their residence in China. For instance, the majority of participants showed a long period of cultural adoption and they all defined their experience as challenging. All participants refused to reshape their moral beliefs about teaching in response to traditional Chinese culture, but that they all, to some extent, eventually adjusted to a Chinese way of thinking. However, issues that direct connected to their own cultural heritage remained unchanged. An interpretation of the findings was that perhaps, on one hand, while the environment and cultural difference initiated various forms of difficulties, on the other hand, participants are trying to reset their personal limits. Most likely, their desire to introduce their Chinese students to a different style of learning convinced them to hold on to personal beliefs about effective teaching and learning, hoping to pass this on to a new generation of Chinese. My research, however, focused on only very small proportion of foreign teachers in China. Further research should be pursued with an expanded focus, to find the potential of the implementation of cultural awareness programmes and support groups for foreigner.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the approaches identified for the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin dialogues into English subtitles is different from those described in research studies which examined the translation of English film dialogues into Mandarin subtitles using data gathered from a Taiwanese movie entitled Cape No. 7. Taiwanese Mandarin is significantly influenced by the Tai-yu dialect, and in order to carry out the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin, it is important to deal with the functions of the dialect and related culture-specific items (CSIs). Therefore, the researcher of this thesis has investigated whether the translator of Cape No. 7 successfully applied a variety of translation strategies and prioritized the translation criteria well, to enable the target audience to receive the same message of the film as the source audience, especially when subtitling is constrained by time and space. There are two research areas which have been examined: slang and humour. The data analysis of slang scenes included Tai-yu slang and swearing, while humorous scenes were divided into three areas: puns, irony and metaphor. The research data have been analysed by means of analysis diagrams, which were trialled in a pilot study, described in Chapter Three. The pilot study lead to a new categorization based on previous researchers’ taxonomies (Aixelá, 1996; Davies, 2003; Tveit and Fong 2005, as cited in Yang, 2006), and this was applied to the analysis diagrams. According to the findings from the analysis chapters (Chapter Four & Five), the translator of Cape No. 7 preferred to use mostly the paraphrasing strategy in translating Tai-yu slang and humour, and the synonymy strategy in conveying swearing. In addition, the translator often strengthened swear words rather than toning them down in the English subtitles. However, when subtitling humorous scenes, the translator preferred to incorporate two strategies to deal with the cultural barriers when conveying the humorous effect. The compensation strategy was not used often in slang translation. In regard to the translation criteria, pragmatics and accuracy appeared to have been deemed more important by the translator than other criteria. Surprisingly functional equivalence did not seem to have been the translator’s first priority, as suggested by earlier research. Overall, this research study appeared to show that the translator of Cape No. 7 considered the paraphrase strategy to be the most efficient strategy for maintaining CSIs, and that pragmatics and accuracy were the translator’s most important criteria, which differs from the findings of previous research studies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Hong Kong Baptist University, 2005. / Thesis submitted to the Dept. of Chinese Language and Literature. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-199).