System

Categories

The textual sources of the database are organized into three main categories:

• Oral Performances

Performances recorded on radio, audio-tape, video-tape, CD, VCD, DVD, film, etc. The oral texts from these source materials are available on the database in transcriptions into Chinese characters and in English translations.

• Written Genres for Performance and Reading

Texts with a close relationship to performed genres of drama, xiqu 戲曲 and telling and singing arts, shuochang 說唱. Such texts often imply a twofold purpose: on one hand, as aide-memoire or script for performers of the given genre in oral tradition; on the other hand, as reading material for the aficionados of the oral genre or for the general public. This part of the source materials is available on the database in scannings of the original sources, in transcriptions into Chinese characters and in English translations.

• Written Genres for Reading

Texts belonging to genres that are mainly produced as reading material for a general readership. This part of the source materials is available on the database in scannings of the original sources, in transcriptions into Chinese characters and in English translations.

Items of the database

Inside these main categories a number of genres are listed, in which stories from the Wu Song saga of the Water Margin are found, first and foremost texts containing the tale of Wu Song and the tiger. Every instance of this tale is classified a an item of the database with an item number, bibliographic information and links to the following renditions of the item:

1. Scannings of the original sources in Chinese.
2. Transcriptions into computerized characters. The character versions strive to follow the original textual versions closely, using the same character forms as far as possible. Standard and non-standard forms, simplified and complex forms of characters are applied according to the original texts.
3. English translations
4. Audio- and videofiles

Textual analysis of the items

Each item of the database that represents a version of the tale of Wu Song and the tiger is analyzed according to a number of features, listed below:

• textual unit
• storyline
• prose/verse
• narrator type
• fixed phrases
• proper names
• stock phrases