這篇論文主要是研討中國早期南戲中的地區性，表演藝術，以及空間性之整合與排擠狀況。由於典雅文學的風行，早期有關戲文與雜劇的評論，大都採取一般普遍性文化特徵—地域，來做為戲曲的分類。十七世紀初王驥德表示，文體型式和表演藝術都被不同的地區以及來自這些不同地區的人的整體價值所牽制。王又指出，這些瞭解雜劇語言的廣泛普及地區實宜成為提升中國文化世界化價值的理想工具。這是由於文人開始對雜劇加以重視，而且也受到了雜劇文本以及文人圈內雜劇的表演藝術在文化等級上逐漸提升的多重影響。然而，一個值得注意的現象是，當雜劇在與以官話為主要賓白或劇曲整合時，大多數並沒有以方言作為地方性的標記。元代早期的戲文—《宦門子弟錯立身》就是一個很好的例子。因為這部來自江浙地區戲文的文本採用了某一已不再殘存雜劇的一部分套數，所以也就增加了其中的複雜性。藉由將大量北方戲劇的表演藝術與南方戲劇整合在一起，提供了一個渙然異奇而又充滿北方表演藝術方言術語的新天地，並且連結了女真族男角「胡人」的天性。同時，這部戲劇橫梗著丑角用溫州方言所傳達的粗猥的語言。而這也就造使了一個只有地方性觀眾才能瞭解與感受的低層幽默的專屬空間。由此可知，地方方言特色的確可以成為瞭解早期劇場表演藝術和戲劇文本的工具。

This essay examines the relationship between regionality, performance, and spaces of incorporation and exclusion in early Chinese southern drama. Following the practice of polite literature, early critical writing on xiwen and zaju use general cultural characteristics to classify drama by region. In the early 17th century, Wang Jide, pointed to the style of composition and performance as being generally reflective of values imposed by different landforms and by the human temperament these landforms created. He also pointed out that the widespread area in which the language of zaju (Northern drama) could be understood made it a far better vehicle for the universal values of Chinese culture, and therefore a universal form. This was reflective of the growth of literati interest in zaju and the gradual elevation of its texts and its private performance in the cultural scale. There was, paradoxically, little interest in dialect as a local marker when it was incorporated into plays that used a form of guanhua for most dialogue and for the arias. The early Yuan xiwen, A Playboy for a Noble House Opts for the Wrong Career, is an interesting example because it incorporates into its texts lengthy passages from a zaju text no longer extant. This complicates the picture because the performance area of the drama was definitely the Jiang Zhe region. By incorporating large sections of northern drama about performance practice into a southern play about the same, it offered a new and exotic world full of northern dialect terminology for acting, coupled with the “barbarian” nature of the Jurchen male lead. At the same time the same play couches the bawdy language of the clown role in Wenzhou dialect, creating an exclusive space for local audiences to appreciate low humor. This, in turn, suggests that dialect features may be a useful tool for understanding the performance, as much as the text, of early theater.