ETEC 540 (Sept 2014)
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Module 2 Orality and Literacy
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept14/2014/09/21/orality-literacy-the-history-andevolution-of-chinese-characters/
Title: The history and evolution of Chinese characters
“Oracle”, also known as “Qi Wen”, is the most ancient form of Chinese writing
system. By the end of Shang dynasty, the royal family records divination through
carving on animal bones and turtle shells. Oracle is the key to the development of
morphological characters, as well as the origin of modern Chinese characters.
Figure A. Oracle writing on turtle shell, Retrieved from
http://www.xsshuhua.com/upfile/2006052616044_15210.jpg
Han dynasty scholars have categorized the origin of Chinese characters into
six categories, known as “Six Books”. The following categories of “Six Books” explain
the system structure of Chinese characters.
-
Pictographic
Meaning
Knowing
Phonetic
Transcription
Guise
“Pictographic” and “Meaning” come from the creation of characters;
“Knowing” and “Phonetic” come from grouping existing characters to form other
characters; “Transcription” and “Guise” come from the creation of characters from pre-
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existing characters. According to statistics, 26% of Chinese characters fall into pictograph, 9%
fall into meaning, another 9% fall into knowing and 56% are pictographic.
Pictographic
The word “pictographic” is self-explanatory. Basically, characters under this
category look like the object they represent. In other words, pictures evolved into
characters. Pictographic characters are always nouns.
Figure B. Examples of “pictographic” characters: eye, mouth, and teeth. Retrieved
from edu.ocac.gov.tw/discuss/awards/200503/material/power_point/a00315.pps
The three examples above shows the evolution of the word “eye”, “mouth”
and “teeth” from drawing.
Meaning
Chinese characters under the category of “meaning” came from drawings as
well. They are abstract thoughts, such as “above”, “in the middle” and “below”. And
most of these words are not objects.
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Figure C. “Meaning” characters: above, in the middle and below. Retrieved from
edu.ocac.gov.tw/discuss/awards/200503/material/power_point/a00315.pps
Knowing
As mentioned above, Chinese characters under the category of “knowing”
came from grouping 2 or more pre-existing characters to form other characters with a
different meaning. Certainly, the origin of “knowing” characters comes from drawings.
Figure D. “Knowing” characters: rest. Retrieved from
edu.ocac.gov.tw/discuss/awards/200503/material/power_point/a00315.pps
The drawing above shows a human leaning on the tree. The first character on
the left represents human: 人. The middle character represents tree or wood: 木. So logically
when a man is leaning on the tree, he is resting: 休.
Phonetic
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Similar to “knowing” characters, “phonetic” characters are made of two preexisting characters. However, in “phonetic”, one of the pre-existing characters
comes from a “pictographic” character and the other pre-existing character carries
the phonetic pronunciation of the phonetic character. It is hard to understand why
two pre-existing characters are put together to form a new phonetic word because,
unlike “knowing” characters, there is no logic behind it. “Phonetic” characters
mainly focuses on the phonetic pronunciation.
Figure E. “Phonetic” characters. Retrieved from
edu.ocac.gov.tw/discuss/awards/200503/material/power_point/a00315.pps
The example above uses the pre-existing character 昜 (yáng) for the phonetic
pronunciation “an”. By adding different pre-existing “pictographic” characters, new
characters were created. Both 陽 and 楊 are pronounced “yáng”. 場 is pronounced
“chǎng”. All three “phonetic” characters carry the sound of “an”.
Transcription
“Transcription” refers to two characters with similar meaning and looks alike.
However, the two characters are used in different occasion. For example, in English, the
words (I, me, myself) means the same, yet is used in different occasion.
Figure F. “Transcription” characters. Retrieved from
edu.ocac.gov.tw/discuss/awards/200503/material/power_point/a00315.pps
In example above, both characters (父 and 爸) means “father” or “dad, and part
of both characters have exactly the same strokes.
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Guise
“Guise” is the rule of homonym. When new words are being used widely, yet there
is no written character for it, scholars have decided to create new words by making connection
with pre-existing words. For example, the word 令 (ling) carries the meaning of giving orders.
When the word “magistrate” in mandarin (xiàn ling) is widely used, people were trying to
find characters for the word. The character 縣 (xiàn) already exist, yet “ling” doesn’t. So
scholars though of the character 令 (ling) which carries the same pronunciation and similar
meaning; magistrate gives orders.
Reference
Huayu World. (2005) The history and evolution of Chinese characters. Retrieved from
edu.ocac.gov.tw/discuss/awards/200503/material/power_point/a00315.pps
Oracle writing on turtle shell. Retrieved from
http://www.xsshuhua.com/upfile/2006052616044_15210.jpg
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept14/2014/09/20/living-in-a-literatesociety/#comments
Hi Christy,
I feel the same on Ong’s quote: “Try to imagine a culture where no one has ever
‘looked up’ anything. (Ong, 31) I believe in the world where cultures are still oral in
nature, people still look up things by asking each other questions or by imitation
through watching video cassettes. Certainly learning would be much harder when
written language is not in place making written resources from books and Internet
inaccessible.
Students nowadays no longer only learn subject materials, they also need to learn
how to question and “look up” or research for answers. In my teaching, I try to
provide just enough for students to be able to question, reflect and come up with
their own thoughts. I am a language teacher (FSL and ELL). The part of learning that
I enjoy the most is to prepare students well for their unit project, where in small
groups, they need to be able to complete a task fulfilling all the criteria. It is
interesting to see how they learn from each other through oral and written
language. Students are fully capable to “look up” what they need from their notes,
textbooks, dictionary, the Internet, etc.
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You have also mentioned about rhymes in Ong’s book: “Rhymes and games
transmitted orally from one generation of small children to the next even in hightechnology culture have similar words which have lost their original referential
meanings and are in effect nonsense syllables. (Ong, 47) This reminds me of how the
same situation applies to some written languages. For instance, Chinese has a longer
history on writing, so both Japanese and Korean were influenced by the Chinese
language. In other words, you can see some Chinese characters in both languages,
Japanese and Korean. Surely, the pronunciation of the same characters no longer
remains the same in different languages. In Japanese, those Chinese characters no
longer carry the same meaning, while in Korean they still do. However, in Korea,
Chinese characters are not being taught at school anymore, so the next generation
will loose them.
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London:
Methuen.
Snellinger, A., King, R., & Fulton, B. (2014). Korean Language. Retrieved from
http://asiasociety.org/education/world-languages/american-schools/koreanlanguage
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept14/2014/09/26/module-2-response-orality-andliteracy/#comment-261
Written word has made its way and is surely our primary means of communication.
In this new high technology era, everyone has a cell phone, even our students.
People phone each other less and less due to text messaging. Written language has
moved from formal writing to informal writing (writing spoken language down).
Acronyms have been invented to make typing shorter. For example, “ttul” is the
acronym for “talk to you later”. Moreover, emoticons are created to represent
gestures and facial expressions. This reminds me of how Ong defines words in an
oral culture: gestures, vocal inflections, facial expression and the entire human,
existential setting in which the real, spoken word always occurs.” (Ong, 1982, p.46) I
find this trend influencing our students in terms of their grammar in written
language: spelling, word choice, etc. On the other side of the token, the combination
of writing and technology facilitates teaching in many ways. Recently, I have started
to use Edmodo. It allows me to set alerts for my students, post messages, create
quizzes, upload files, etc. I find this tool useful. Parents can also create an account
linked to classes their children are taking in order to keep track of their progress. It
seems to me that informal written language in the form of posting is somehow
equivalent to oral teaching language in class.
Classroom teachers have indeed focused more on the mechanics and function of the
written language and less on speaking and listening skills, especially when oral
language is more difficult to assess. As a language teacher, I try my best to include as
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much listening and speaking components in my lessons as possible. From personal
experience, it is very hard for students to improvise oral language (second
language) on the spot unless they have previously memorized the content through
the preparation of written language.
Josephine
Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. London:
Methuen. Retrieved from
http://occupytampa.org/files/wcom/ong%20walter%20orality%20and%20literac
y.pdf