Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics

by Ping Chen

• ISBN13: 9780521641975
• ISBN10: 0521641977
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780511036453
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-06-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Chinese language, spoken by over one billion people, has undergone drastic changes over the past century. This book presents a comprehensive, up-to-date account of the development of Modern Chinese from the late nineteenth century to the 1990s. It describes and analyzes in detail, from historical and sociolinguistic perspectives, the establishment and promotion of Modern Spoken Chinese and Modern Written Chinese, and the reform of the Chinese script, and reveals the interaction of linguistic, historical and social factors in the recent development of the language.

Author Biography

Ping Chen is Senior Lecturer in Chinese language and linguistics at the University of Queensland. He has previously taught at UCLA, the University of Oregon, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, and the City University of Hong Kong. He has published widely in the area of Chinese linguistics.

Table of Contents

List of tables	ix
Preface	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
List of Abbreviations	xiv
Introduction	1	(4)
Part 1 Modern Spoken Chinese	5	(60)
Establishment and promotion of Modern Spoken Chinese	7	(27)
Development of Standard Spoken Chinese before the late nineteenth century	7	(6)
Establishment and promotion of Modern Standard Chinese from the late nineteenth century until 1949	13	(10)
Promotion of putonghua after 1949	23	(7)
Promotion of Modern Standard Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore	30	(4)
Norms and variations of Modern Standard Chinese	34	(16)
Phonology of Modern Standard Chinese	34	(3)
Difference between Modern Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect	37	(4)
Adulterated putonghua	41	(5)
Norms of Modern Standard Chinese outside mainland China	46	(4)
The standard and dialects	50	(15)
Dialects in contact	50	(3)
Socio-functional differentiation of Modern Standard Chinese and dialects	53	(4)
Language policy towards dialects	57	(3)
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore	60	(5)
Part II Modern Written Chinese	65	(64)
Development and promotion of Modern Written Chinese	67	(24)
Old Written Chinese	67	(1)
Emergence of early Modern Written Chinese	68	(2)
Replacement of wenyan by baihua as Standard Written Chinese	70	(12)
Sources of and avenues of influence upon Modern Written Chinese	82	(5)
Uses of wenyan and baihua since the 1940s	87	(1)
Establishment of Modern Written Chinese and status planning	88	(3)
Norms and variations of Modern Written Chinese	91	(23)
Newly developed grammatical norms in Modern Written Chinese	91	(6)
Regional variations in the grammatical norms of Modern Written Chinese	97	(2)
Newly developed lexical norms in Modern Written Chinese	99	(7)
Regional variations in the lexical norms of Modern Written Chinese	106	(3)
Efforts of corpus planning in the development of Modern Written Chinese	109	(5)
Dialect writing	114	(15)
Single standard written language for dialects	114	(1)
Causes of the under-development of dialect writing	115	(6)
Current endeavours in Taiwan toward dialect writing	121	(5)
Implications of standardization of dialect writing	126	(3)
Part III The modern Chinese writing system	129	(75)
Basic features of the Chinese Writing system	131	(17)
Typological characterization	131	(1)
Brief history of the Chinese script	132	(4)
Correlation between script and language	136	(3)
Merits of the Chinese script	139	(2)
Motivation for reform	141	(5)
Approaches to script reform	146	(2)
Simplification of the traditional writing system	148	(16)
Approaches to simplification	148	(1)
Simplification before the twentieth century	148	(2)
Simplification in the twentieth century	150	(7)
Gains and problems	157	(2)
Objections to the Second Scheme	159	(3)
Simplification of script outside mainland China	162	(2)
Phonetization of Chinese	164	(27)
Efforts by Western missionaries	164	(1)
Schemes proposed by native Chinese	165	(2)
Groupings of schemes	167	(11)
Five representative schemes	178	(11)
Phonetization in Taiwan and elsewhere	189	(2)
Use and reform of the Chinese writing system: present and future	191	(11)
Recent developments	191	(5)
Change in policy on script reform	196	(1)
Prospects of script reform	197	(5)
Conclusion	202	(2)
Notes	204	(6)
References	210	(12)
Index	222