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

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Sino-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3 1, 199 1) Reading 4 presented the most difficulty, possibly due the technical nature of the content. At the outset of the passage, twenty-eight of the thirty-four readers were unable to decode the simplified form rfS, a regularized cursive, or r*aoshir kdihrru form, of the cursive form of shir 'book'. Although predictably eight of these readers were later aided by the context yi ce slrir 'one volume', with the measure word preceding the noun, some readers were still not sure in subsequent encounters with the form. (Interestingly, when asked after the entire survey was concluded to write the cursive form for shfi 'book', even some of those who wrote the cursive form il; apparently did not see the relation between the simplified printed form and what they themselves had just written.) The various misreadings for -shfi are clearly based on collocational context, as may be seen from Appendix 111. The character Han 'Han (dynasty)' has already been discussed above. Aside from those readings obviously based on graphic similarity, those five readers who misread the character& in the name Cbi ~un%{h (the inventor of paper) were apparently more familiar with the name of a Kuomindang ge6%ral Cai E (fg). We have already noted above that five readers who had no difficulty with the character & in the word jishi2 'technology' in Reading 4 could not correctly decode it in the less familiar context zau zhi shir 'paper making technology'. In context. - far~liny i:~a ' invent' presented no problems. Dong Fangsuo is a famous historical figure, and the character dong 3. 'east' had already been seen in the collocation Dong Han 'Eastern Han' above. The four reading passages in part 11 altogether contain 1142 characters, of which 305 or 26.7% are standard simplified characters. [See Appdx. I1 below.] The maximum number of potential errors of all thirty-four Taiwan students reading all 305 simplified characters incorrectly would be 34 x 305 = 10,370 possible student errors. In fact the total number of all student errors for all four passages was only 507 [see Appdx. 1111 or less than 4.9%, meaning that the students' overall accuracy of reading of the 305 simplified characters was more than 95%. Note again that the 305 simplified characters represent only 26.7% of the total number of characters in the four passages, so a 4.889% error rate in reading only 26.7% of the total text equals 4.889 x 26.7 or an average of only 1.375%, that is, only slightly over one percent of the total number of characters read. We may conclude, then, that whatever difficulties educated readers from Taiwan may have in recognizing standard Mainland simplified character forms in isolation, Part I1 of this study clearly demonstrates that in discourse context that textual redundancy and native speaker reading strategies greatly facilitate the decoding of these simplified character forms for such readers, albeit sometimes at a level of which they are not consciously aware. Guesses as to unknown simplified characters have been seen to be based more on discourse context than on the shapes or structure of the characters themselves. An analogy may be drawn to the orthographic reforms proposed for English spelling by George Bernard Shaw. in which the letter x would replace tA. y would be replaced by i. and the symbol y could then fulfill the function of sh. Without such background information, native speaker-readers of contemporary English would presumbably have similar difficulties with the following conclusion: wi wud hev a lujikl, kohirnt .spcling in j~rs x).rDwurrr xc irrgliy-spikirtg wvt-ld. FOOTNOTES: 1. All of the characters contained in Part I of the survey fall within the basic list of 6763 standard simplified characters which account for 99.99% of all characters in common contemporary use. 2. For example, two Taiwanese Christians had procured Bibles printed in simplified characters in hope of conducting Bible study sessions with their Mainland classmates in the U.S.A., and one student called to my attention a handbook of Mainland simplified characters recently published in Taiwan (cf. Zhang, n.d.). The majority of students from Taiwan, however, appear to have little or no significant contact with their fellow students from the People's Republic. even if they
are in the same academic department or office, nor do they have any exposure to materials printed in Mainland simplified characters. Note that since 1980, the overseas edition of the people!^ Daifv newspaper (RL:,rr~rirz Rib60 : Hai,rlai Ban). has been deliberately printed in traditional characters for distribution to Chinese overseas. 3 . I wish to express my thanks to Professor Yin Binyong for helping to design the original survey as well as for the statistical calculations in Part 11, to Wang Fenghua for collating the raw data, and to the members of the Chinese Students' Association of UIC fur their enthusiastic cooperation and assistance with this research. 4. See F.Y. Wang 1958: xx. 5. The original sources of the four reading passages (see Appdx. Il), which were not identified to the Taiwan students, are (Reading 1 :) Ba Jin: Hai Shnng de Riclllr; (Reading 2:) Wri Wei: Wude Laoshi; (Reading 3:) Zheng Wengirang: Yiizhorr Li Yolr Xir Shi~trnze?: (Reading 4:) Xiarzy Yi: Shrrji cle Bicirrjli. Beijing Jingshan Xuexiao Zhongxue Yuwen Zu. (1981) Yrtwrrc: Slliyoug Krbm (Ch~rzlrong Di Si Cc). Beijing. Cheng, Chin-chuan (1 975) "Directions in Chinese Character Simplification" Jorrt-rial of Chinese Linguistics 3: 2 13-220. Chinese Language lnsti tu te (1 969) Co~nmorzly Used Simplified Characrct-s (2nd ed.) Hsinchu. Taiwan: Fu Jen University. DeFrancis, John ( 1984) Thc Chinevir Langiiage: Fact arrd Furzta.sy. I-lonolulu: University of Hawaii Press. He, Rong (1 975) G'rroytr Rihao Cillian. Taibei: Guoy u Rihao Chubanshe. Montanaro, John (1985) Conzples and Sirrzplifirrl Foms of Chinese Chat-actcrs. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications. Rohsenow, John S. (1986) "The Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme" lnrerrzutiunal Jout-nu1 oj'ilrc Sot-iology of Lurryrruge 59: 73-85. Wang, Fang-yu (1958) Chinese C~tr-.si\~e Script: ,411 lrrtr-orlrrcrion to Hnnriwr-ititrg in Clzinese. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications. Y in Binyong and J. S. Rohsenow ( 199 1) Mori~~rrz Cllitlcsc Chat-ucter-s: A Hurrrll~ook. Beijing: Sinolingua Press. Zhang Baotai (n.d.) Dulrr Shiyot~g Jiantizi. Taibei: Leiding Yinshua Shiye Youxian Gongsi.
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SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 27 Augu
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Table of Contents Tabula Gratulator
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Olov B d Anderson Ivan Aymat Dayle
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S~hI7frfls~hc$: Essays</str
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Schriftfestsch~!: Essays</s
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Schrififestschrifl: Essays<
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Sino-Platortic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sino-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3
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enhe gsidbng) : 1. 5$%&&&($3kk90 Si
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Sino-Phonic Papers, 27 (August 3 1,
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Sino-Plato~zic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sino-Plutonic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Schriftfestschnif: fisq in Honor of
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Schrififestschrifi: Essays<
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Schriffst~~hrifr: fi~rsays in Honor
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Schriifrestschr!: &sap in Homr of J
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Schrijt$estschrifr: Ervap in Honor
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Schnflestschrifi: Essays</s
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Schnfifeschrifi: Essap in Honor of
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Schnflestschriij: &says in Honor of
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. Schnfrfestschrifi: Essays
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. S~hnfffestschri fi: Essay
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NOTES Schriflestschrifi: fisays in
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REFERENCES SchrIfifists~hri!j?: Ess
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Sirlo-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sino-Plutonic P ap, 27 (August 3 1,
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Sino-PEatonic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sino-Platonic Pupms, 27 (August 3 1
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Sino-Plaronic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sirw-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sino-Platonic Papers, 27 (Aupt 3 1,
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Sim-Platonic Papms, 27 (August 3 1,
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Sino-Phonic Papers, 27 (August 3 1.
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Sim-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3 1
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Sim-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 31,
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Sinu-Platonic Papms, 27 (August 3 1
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Sirw-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3
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Sino-Platonic Papers, 27 ( Aup t 3
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Sino-Platonic Papos, 27 (August 3 1
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A translation of the quadrisyllabic
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Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 1 12
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Number 23 24 25 26 Date 9 1/7/4 911
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