Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Schnfffes~ch n'!: <strong>Essays</strong> in Honor of John &Francis
simplified characters presenting difficulties for the Taiwan respondents appear to be rather those
based on principles 3-7 above, that is. simplified characters which were newly o-eated rather
than merely standardizing characters which were already in popular or dictionary use.
We may gain further insight into the types of problems encountered by those Taiwan students
(who on'average were unable to identify more than 61% of the standard Mainland character
forms) by examining the breakdown of their erroneous answers given in Appendix 1. (Note that
the total number of errors given equals the sum of the specific errors listed 11llrs those cases
where the respondents were unable or unwilling to attempt a guess, even when encouraged to do
so. Simply copying the simplified form was also counted as an error.)
If we examine those sixty-five out of one hundred characters not correctly idenlified by more
than one-half of the Taiwan students. sorted into categories according to the above listed
principles for their simplification, the group presenting the most difficulty were those newly
created characters which use simpler components to substitute for more complex ones in
traditional characters (Principle 6: frihao driiri), followed in difficulty by characters created by
extending the 'pictophonetic' and 'associative compound' principles (#7). and some of those
created by deleting redundant parts of traditional characters or by chosing one significant
portion of a traditional characters to stand for the whole (Principle 3). We may also associate
with category #6 those abbreviated characters which retain some significant components of the
original characters as well as the overall general configuration ( lhkiro) of the original. As we
have seen in our discussion of Table 2 above, being an antiquated or variant form (Principle I)
listed in a commonly used Taiwan dictionary is apparently no guarantee of recognizability.
Homophones have already been discussed above (Principle 5). Table I groups those standard
Mainland simplified characters most difficult to recognize in terms of the categories just
discussed (Some characters are listed in more than one category.)
TABLE 3: CATEGORIES OF CHARACTERS MOST DIFFICULT FOR TAIWAN
STUDENTS
#6: Simplified Components: 4~ . ~ 2 ,
$ ,%a.
Abbreviated Characters: @ , g, s7 @, p, q---- * -
#7: Pictophonetic Compounds: g- , $ , c,
& .
'&,$h, &, 9,
a ,y , @ , %k,2+
, ,
#3: Redunant Parts Deleted: 4 '@).,a
, ,$, 3 , x, ,&>
#3: Use Part for 'Whole: lfF . 2 ,%, 9 ,my 4 , ~.
#I: Use VariantiAntiquatediCursive Form: 14 . J3 , r/&, 6, $, 5, $ ,
? ?$ D*
Detailed examination of erroneous forms given by those Taiwan students who were willing to
guess often reveals t e strategies underlying their rnisperceptions.
used in Taiwan for @$round' rather than for its homophone @ 'garden', Note and that
misread on analogy with the commonly used abbreviated form for %&-'true1.
is popularly
uy' is clearly
A
The general observation about characters in category 6, those which simplify some
component(s) in a traditional character (with the exception of such commonly used cursive
radical components such as t for + , k for & . etc.). as well as for the most abbreviated
@ F