本論文試圖以一種迂迴的方式重探白話文運動中的「語言學與詩學」問題。 讓同時代的兩場運動——五四新文學，俄國形式主義——產生對話，借用後者的 資源來探測前者理論上的缺陷。進而以結構語言學者雅克慎(Roman Jakobson)關 於詩語言、隱喻與轉喻的獨特講法，來重估自古以來即分流並行的文言、白話， 探討從口語到「文」的過程中，是歷經怎樣的必要的操作程序；該程序在白話文 和文言文中的區別是怎樣的;文白互譯時必須減少或增加甚麼(語法成分問題？） 甚至把問題上溯至漢字形成伊始，從物過度到象，必須經歷怎樣的符號化程序(初 始魔法），以回應文/白之爭中潛在的詩學和哲學問題。

This paper attempts to, in the manner of a detour, revisit the "linguistics and poetics” in the Chinese Vernacular Movement, creating a dialogue between two contemporary movements—the May Fourth New Literary Movement and Russian Formalism, and the resources in the latter are adopted to investigate the theoretical flaws in the former. Further, through the unique statement provided by structural linguist Roman Jakobson about poetics, metaphor, and metonymy, classical Chinese and written vernacular Chinese, which have been coexisting since ancient times, are reassessed. The reassessment includes the following aspects: First, what is the operating procedure necessary for the transition from oral Chinese to “written” Chinese; second, what are the differences between the procedure for classical Chinese and that for written vernacular Chinese; third, since there are questions relating to grammatical components, what is to add or subtract in the mutual translation of the two Chinese forms; last but not least, when Chinese characters begin to form, what is the symbolizing procedure (or in James Frazer’s words, “sympathetic magic”）for the transition from things to images? All these must be examined to answer the underlying questions about poetics and philosophy in the debate between classical Chinese and the written vernacular.