Revisiting WESTERN HAN in Written Script and in Oral Performance: Language, Style, Length, and the Question of Exegesis

This article discusses narrative and linguistic features of a storyteller’s script in the Yangzhou tradition of Western Han, Xi Han 西漢, dated to the late Qing, ca. 1880–1912 and belonging to the family of Dai Buzhang 戴步章(1925–2003). What kind of language style does this text reflect? How does the written text correspond to and differ from an extant oral performance of an episode from the repertoire?