Character amnesia
Character amnesia | |
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Hanyu Pinyin | tíbǐwàngzì |
Character amnesia is a phenomenon where experienced speakers of some
Background
Chinese characters are a
It is difficult to establish exactly how many Chinese characters are in use today; the new HSK, a widely used proficiency test for Standard Chinese as a second language, tests 3,000 characters, while in 2013 the People's Republic of China published the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, which contains 8,105 characters. In Japan, where a smaller set of characters are in general usage, the Japanese Ministry of Education prescribes the teaching of 2,136 kanji in primary and secondary school in a list called the jōyō kanji, meaning "regular-use Chinese characters".
Chinese character literacy in both China and Japan is taught by
Changing ways of writing Chinese characters
Until the 20th century, Chinese characters were written with brush and ink. In the early 20th century when the pen became the dominant method of writing in China and Japan, critics complained that the expressiveness of Chinese characters would be lost.[9] Calligraphy is, however, still a thriving art form throughout East Asia.
In the 1980s electronic typewriters and later personal computers provided people in China and Japan an alternative to writing by hand. With the advent of the
Some input methods are, in fact, related to the structure of the character, as opposed to those based on pronunciation.
A parallel phenomenon has appeared involving the increased use of input methods to write Chinese characters and the difficulty of remembering such a large set of characters. The use of word processors allows the user to write using characters that the user does not remember how to write by hand. This resulted in the reappearance in the 1980s in Japan of complex older characters which had been removed from the official lists. The number of characters available for use on a word processor far exceeds the number of characters a person can readily remember how to write by hand.[11] While many have blamed the use of input methods for difficulty remembering how to write the characters by hand, widespread use of input methods may be responsible for a reversal in the decline of kanji use in Japan.[12]
A way that smartphone developers have been attempting to combat this problem is their inclusion of active pens and handwriting options for their operating systems.
Evidence
Anecdotal evidence of character amnesia is plentiful, but there has been insufficient scientific study of the phenomenon.[1][13][14][15] There are, however, a few surveys which reinforce the claim that character amnesia exists among users of written Chinese and Japanese. China Youth Daily surveyed 2,072 people in April 2010 and found that 83 percent reported having trouble writing characters. A similar Dayang Net survey found that 80 percent of respondents acknowledged having forgotten how to write some characters.[10] In 2008 the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China conducted a survey of 3,000 teachers, where sixty percent complained of declining writing ability.[16] Another anecdotal example can be seen during a spelling bee show hosted on CCTV in 2013, where only 30% of participants were able to write "toad" (Chinese: 癞蛤蟆; pinyin: Làiháma) in Chinese.[17][18]
While some claim that text messaging is the primary cause of character amnesia,[10] the phenomenon, at least in Japan, appears to have originated with the widespread use of word processors. An article in The Asahi Shimbun from 23 September 1985 reports that students found it increasingly difficult to remember how to write even quite simple kanji by hand since the full-scale introduction of word processors at a university campus in Isehara.[19] A 1993 survey of members of the Information Processing Society of Japan found that habitual word processor users reported declining ability to write characters by hand.[11] The Japanese term "word-processor idiot" (ワープロ馬鹿, wāpurobaka) describes a person whose handwriting ability has deteriorated due to overreliance on computer input methods.[20]
Treatment
In China, the
See also
- Bopomofo – phonetic transliteration system used by popular input methods in Taiwan
- Chinese input methods for computers
- Gestaltzerfall
- Japanese input method
- Pinyin – romanization system for Mandarin Chinese
- Tip of the tongue
References
- ^ a b Judith Evans (25 August 2010). "Wired youth forget how to write in China and Japan". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
- ^ Demick, Barbara (12 July 2010). "China worries about losing its character(s)". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ Custer, C. (23 July 2010). "Is "Character Amnesia" a Problem?". China Geeks. Archived from the original on 1 December 2010. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ a b Mair, Victor. "Character Amnesia". Language Log. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ISBN 9780060186395.
...logographic systems appear to activate very distinctive parts of the frontal and temporal areas, particularly regions involved in motoric memory skills... because that is how Chinese symbols are learned by young readers- by writing, over and over.
- PMID 15846817.
- S2CID 11864042.
- S2CID 7976424.
- ^ a b Lee, Jennifer (1 February 2001). "Where the PC Is Mightier Than the Pen". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ a b c Moxley, Mitch (4 August 2010). "Take pen, forget character". Asia Times Online. Inter Press Service. Archived from the original on 6 August 2010. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ ISBN 9780700714681.
- ISBN 978-9027217943.
- ^ According to Ovid Tzeng, minister of education in Taiwan, "Scientifically, we haven't established the phenomenon reliably."
- ^ Chris Matyszczyk (26 August 2010). "'Character amnesia' hitting gear-obsessed kids". CNET News. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
- ^ Michael Brooks (27 August 2010). "Character Amnesia: Forgetting Culture in China And Japan". PSFK. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
- ^ Xu, Xinlei (5 August 2010). "Amnesia with Chinese characters". China Daily. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ 2013-08-15, Chinese are losing their ability to write in Chinese, Shanghaiist
- ^ 2013-08-07, Audience of Chinese 'spelling bee' forget how to write Archived 20 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Want China Times
- ISBN 9780521532846.
- ^ Dictionary entry: ワープロ馬鹿
- ^ "New calligraphy classes for China's internet generation". BBC NEWS ASIA-PACIFIC. 27 August 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2011.