Brief write-up
Project objectives
The supervisor aims at launching a database of conventional name of tune, or cipai (詞牌). The database will serve as development of professional and general skills among postgraduate and undergraduate students, as well as integral parts of teaching materials.
Activities, process and outcomes
The supervisor consulted professional advice from Professor Chia-yun Yu and launched a database with hyperlinks for cipai indices, including ancient indices of cipai, namely Shiyu Tupu (詩餘圖譜), Shiyu Pu (詩餘譜) and Cixue Quanti(詞學筌蹄).
Deliverables and evaluation
The research output has been disseminated in courses “Major Author(s) (Ci Poetry”) (CHLL 3314) and “Seminar” (CHLL5013), and the supervisor gave a talk titled “Reunderstanding Chinese Versification: Digital Humanities Initiatives” in April 2022. The supervisor has also been invited to submit a chapter on “Technology and Chinese Literature” for Routledge Encyclopedia of Technology and the Humanities.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
We have merged the database with the database for Tang-Song Versification tunes for better illustration and comparison of prosodic patterns among different genres. We have also consulted professional advice of Digital Scholarship Librarians of the University Library System, for the feasibility of adopting OCR (Optical character recognition) in recognizing ancient cipai indices, including various symbols that are not included in the Unicode standard. The librarians suggested further collaboration with the Digital Analysis System for Humanities (DASH), Academia Sinica.
Impact on teaching and learning
The project encourages teachers and students to focus on the complexity and knowledge of cipai, as well as the composition of ci lyrics. They are encouraged to write ci lyrics with the aid of this database. We shall further evaluate the feasibility and satisfaction of the database at the end of the said course.