The New Culture Movement in China - Essay Example

Chinese Language Policy Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Date I. Background of the policy transfer from Traditional Chinese characters to simplified Chinese The relationship between a language and a national culture, identity and nationalism cannot be overemphasised. The change of the language policy from traditional Chinese character to simplified Chinese can be traced to the iconoclastic political nationalists in the mainland China who thought and still think, that a language should not be preserved but needs transformation, modernization and standardization to contribute to the salvation of the Chinese nation and help in building a state and the creation of a modern, economically prosperous, and politically strong nation with world-class military capability (Yingjie, 2015). Therefore, at the disregard of cultural conservatives, the Chinese language policy aimed at simplifying the traditional characters began in the 1950s by a communist regime that wanted to improve literacy levels, spur economic growth and politically, champion nationalism. The political nationalists and the cultural national conservatives looked upon the language as an instrument to enhance thinking, a form of the nation’s culture and a bank for traditional ideas, beliefs, values and practices. Cultural nationalists and conservatives never blinked their eyes on the need to preserving the Chinese language in its traditional form (Macaraeg, 2006). However, the political nationalists had a contrary opinion and championed the need to simplify the most spoken language in the world. The anti-traditionalist nationalism prevailed as the convergence of political and cultural nationalism in a new dispensation saw the majority of the Chinese people conform to the government’s policy of simplifying the language with the aim of improving literacy and economic prosperity in the world’s most populous nation. The overlapping consensus emerged amongst the elites and liberal thinkers against populists who thought that the preservation would allow them to keep some characters in the language that the government thought were unnecessary and impended not only the understanding but the economic goals and transformation. The New Culture Movement was meant to ensure that the Chinese culture, including its language must be remade (Yingjie, 2015). They postulated that the traditional Chinese language was one of the reasons for their decayed civilization and the backwardness and humiliations that the nation faced from Western countries. Therefore, the Chinese language became an issue of fierce contestation while the reformation of the language constituted a critical component of the national project called “national salvation and self-strengthening.” The New Culture Movement was spearheaded by the Chinese Communist Party based on the premise that the new socialist state needed a strong and incompatible nation that must be built on several pillars. Among these pillars was the reformation and modernization of written and spoken Chinese with the aim of making it a people’s language (Yingjie, 2015). The party posited that it is only language that will help them capture the imaginations of everyone in the new revolution, right from the peasant farmer, the workers, the soldiers and the elites. Therefore, the party, after a successful cultural revolution re-launched what it called “four-modernizations” in the 1970s that gave rise to systematic modernization of the Chinese language and speech (Bökset, 2006). Modernization of the Chinese language has, ever since adoption of the transfer policy included the vernacularization or the popularization of plain speech (baihua). Furthermore, ideographs have been simplified and reduced while the Latinization of script promoted (Yingjie, 2015). One critical attribute is that modernizers have increasingly adopted a radical approach to the language reforms with those tired of Chinese calling for its total replacement. The plain speech movement spread across many Chinese cities during the Republican period. By the time, a huge number of phonetic plans emerged, but the political nationalists and elitists advocated for Phonetic Alphabet only so as to achieve the envisioned unity. The alphabet consisted of 39 symbols that represent sounds of the standard “national language,” that was adopted by the nation’s education ministry. For instance, the government instructed that Alphabet be introduced in Party organization, the education system and government institutions in 1930 (Yingjie, 2015). The Communist Party emphasized phoneticization as part of the language reforms while simplification of the characters was regarded as a transitional step in facilitating the reform process. By 1955, over one thousand different characters were removed in efforts to standardize the Chinese vocabulary. The State Council introduced a plan to simplify the Chinese characters a year later and in 1958, the “Chinese Language Phonetic Spelling (pinyin) based on alphabet orthography was formally adopted. What followed was a comprehensive standardization of pronunciation and campaigns to popularize the “common speech” or (Putonghua) (Yingjie, 2015). Furthermore, local dialects were banned in film and mass media. The government also discouraged these dialects in schools. By 1965, the State Commission for Language Reforms had standardized over six thousand characters and added another eight hundred in 1988. The fervour created by the re-launching of the “four modernizations” in the 1970s gave increased vigour to modernize the Chinese language. These efforts culminated in the public of the “Second Plan for the Simplification of the Chinese Character” towards the end of 1970s. By the late 1980s, the official language policy began to change from “proletarianization” to the pragmatic “modernization.”Any publication in the Pinyin, for instance, Pinyin bao was eliminated while government mail services like the Chinese Post stopped using the language in their telegraph. Again, the officials withdrew the second simplified chart of the Chinese characters in 1986, as the final culmination of Latinization and simplification of the language (Yingjie, 2015). As significant event in the policy direction on the use of simplified Chinese as opposed to traditional was marked in 1985, when the State Commission for Language Reform was renamed the Commission for Language Work. Its mandate was to implement the various language policies, laws, and regulations that had been passed by the government. Furthermore, it was mandated to promote the standardization of language and popularization of common speech. Imperatively, state authorities transformed from being language reformers to its regulators and police. However, it is important to mention that this role has continually changed and become less important since the late 1990s. Again, no cultural nationalist has questioned these reforms and theories advanced by the state based on its foundation. These cultural nationalists have adopted a more pragmatic approach to their quest by increasingly lobbying for the use of traditional full characters so that younger Chinese generation can write modern Chinese and also read the classical text (Tsu, 2011). They postulate their position on grounds that unity and identity among ethnic Chinese around the world is important in helping them connect with their historical and cultural heritage. Many believe that language reforms and the hostilities directed at the traditional Chinese are a creation of the political system aimed at advancing political ideologies like communism (Yingjie, 2015). Today, simplified Chinese language is spoken by over a billion people mainly in the mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia while the traditional Chinese character is spoken in Taiwan, Macua, Hong Kong and other overseas Chinese communities. II. Traditional Chinese characters vs simplified. List some examples. Compared and contrast, then give the benefits and negative points in both of them. The stack difference between the traditional Chinese character and simplified character begins from the onset by comparing their style. The mainland speakers use a text called mandarin style while the Traditional Chinese text uses the Cantonese style. Again, these two styles are different because of the strokes that they have (The New York Times, 2009). Simplified Chinese (SC) characters have fewer strokes and easier to write as compared to the Traditional Chinese (TC). Again, it is easier to write using Simplified Chinese character as opposed to the Traditional Chinese characters. For instance, the traditional characters 發 (“develop”) and 髮 (“hair”) are both written as the simplified character, 发 (The New York Times, 2009). Simplified character could have the meaning of several Traditional characters (polysemy) i.e. one Simplified character of 复 could subtitle a range of Traditional characters including 複, 復 and 覆. In the following examples, the first case for the word biang, a noodle from northwest China has forty-one strokes while in the second, they are fifty strokes. The first one is simplified Chinese (SC) while the second is Traditional Chinese (TC). Simplified Chinese 41 strokes Traditional Chinese, 51 strokes Notice that the upper line is simplified Chinese while the lower line is Traditional Chinese The benefits of each character is based on the elitism/populism positions between those with archaistic nostalgia with an illusory “purer” traditional Chinese literacy as opposed to the pragmatic and future focused modern drivers The benefits of the Traditional characters over simplified characters are that the traditional ones retain the traditional orthography. Secondly, the traditional characters have an aesthetic appeal that is associated with its calligraphy. Proponents of the traditional characters postulate that simplified Chinese has led to the reduction of the six-stroke characters to a mere two vertical strokes in medieval calligraphic practice (The New York Times, 2009). Thirdly, traditional characters offer stronger and richer connection between the Chinese, their heritage and the Chinese language. Proponents of traditional characters posit that simplified writing system has led to the reduction of the variety and altered the nature of several character shapes. The alteration has made it difficult for people to get access to the classical texts in their traditional full richness (Tsu, 2011). However, traditional Chinese is cited by opponents as difficult and lacking a future orientation to enhance literacy among the Chinese like the simplified characters that has become easy to write and read. Traditional Chinese serves as the foundation for the Chinese language as opposed to the simplified characters that many believe were created to a political ideology of communism. Therefore, just like Shakespeare’s playwrights preserve and serve as the foundation for the English language, traditional conservatives believe that canonical writings of Confucius, Lao Tzu and others were written in traditional characters to promote and preserve the Chinese language (The New York Times, 2009). Conversely, proponents of the simplified Chinese characters believe that these characters are easier to learn, read and write. Furthermore, simplified Chinese is spoken by almost a billion people as compared to traditional characters spoken in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia (Bökset, 2006). Therefore, simplified Chinese is appropriate in driving growth agenda as posited by the government officials. It also provides an autonomous language system that unites the country through its use in learning and achieving higher literacy levels in the country. However, many hold the view that the simplification process can result to confusion in the intended meanings of characters because of warping their shapes as they were in the traditional Chinese. III. The reason of this debate showed up Experts and conservatives question the need to have the simplification process of the Chinese language. Imperatively, the debate on the language policy adopted over sixty decades continues to rise because of the significance and place of a language in society (Tsu, 2011). For instance, the government started the process because of the need to improve literacy among the Chinese people as it was thought that traditional characters were difficult to learn, write and even read. However, schools in Hong Kong and Taiwan have continuously used the traditional characters and these regions have demonstrated some of the highest literacy levels not only in China but in the world. Again, recent developments in China have seen the People’s Republic of China implement policies that recognize the practical, cultural and aesthetic values of the traditional Chinese language (Tam, 2016). Additionally some traditional characters have been brought back as the state authorities now permit the use of traditional characters for those who want or are practising. One would argue that the push to use simplified Chinese and reform the characters is borne from political persuasion and not a desire to develop, preserve and promote traditional languages. Furthermore, such a push will imply that the traditional Chinese language has no position in the contemporary society, especially in mainland china yet the government continues to implement policies that seek to preserve it (Bökset, 2006). The use of the two language systems, especially in colleges and universities continue to face challenges as students make ugly confrontations in their debates on the policy framework adopted and spearheaded by the state and its political machinery. The development of software technology by the government to capture data of its population informs the debate since some Chinese names, especially traditional have been omitted in the new system, and those affected may have to change their names altogether. References Bökset, R. (2006). Long story of short forms: the evolution of simplified Chinese characters. Stockholm East Asian monographs, No. 11. Stockholm: Dept. of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University LaFraniere, A. (2009). Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says. New York Times, Accessed on October 24, 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.html Macaraeg, R. A. (2006). The "Success" of Chinese Script Reform: A Critique of Assessment Methodology in China's Character Simplification Program Tam, T. (2016). Traditional or simplified, don’t let the Chinese language become political, South China Morning Post. Accessed on October 24, 2016 from The Editors, The New York Times (2009). The Chinese Language, Ever Evolving. Accessed on October 24, 2016 from http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/chinese-language-ever-evolving/?_r=0 http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1893532/traditional-or-simplified-dont-let-chinese-language-become Tsu, J. (2011). Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora. Harvard University Press. pp. 4–6. Yingjie,G.(2015). Language, National Identity and Nationalism in China, China Policy Institute: Analysis. Viewed 25 August 2016 from https://cpianalysis.org/2015/06/17/language-national-identity-and-nationalism-in-china/ Read More