Planning Chinese Characters: Reaction, Evolution or Revolution?

✍ Scribed by Shouhui Zhao, Richard B. Baldauf Jr (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 429
• Series: Language Policy 9
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The whole world has been watching the vast changes that are currently occurring in China, but few people are aware that at the same time, to ensure the writing system serves these changes well, Chinese characters have also undergone significant reform. While focusing on current problems, developments and possible solutions, this book also details the major implementation of language planning programs for the modernization of the Chinese writing system that have occurred over the last century.

The volume provides a broad and in-depth analysis of the conflict between one of the world’s oldest surviving script systems and the latest developments in communication technology. Comprehensive in coverage, interdisciplinary in structure, with copious references to assist readers in locating a wide range of resources, this book offers an analytic discussion of character planning that will prove of great value to language policymakers and those who are interested in China/East Asian studies and sinology.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xix
Prologue....Pages 1-22
Making Hanzi Accessible....Pages 23-69
Reflections on New Perspectives....Pages 71-109
New Challenges for a Digital Society....Pages 111-135
Standardization as a Solution....Pages 137-190
Influencing Outcomes....Pages 191-247
Envisioning the Future....Pages 249-285
Some Critical Issues....Pages 287-328
Back Matter....Pages 329-419

✦ Subjects

Linguistics (general); Applied Linguistics; Educational Policy and Politics; Language Education; Chinese