Yuqing Liu

What is pidgin? How has it influenced Chinese and English literatures? “Saltwater Poetics” is the first extended study of the literary practices of pidgin English in China from the eighteenth to early twentieth century. It challenges the prevailing view of pidgin as a substandard form of language, devoid of literary significance. Instead, it theorizes the aesthetics of pidgin, highlighting its various roles in Sino-European interactions and in shaping modern Chinese literature. Drawing on the concept of "saltwater," a Cantonese term for this hybrid language, this research breaks away from Eurocentric narratives and reveals that pidgin has its own poetics. These poetics embrace ambiguity, misinterpretation, and mistranslation, promoting a pluralistic approach to meaning-making.