The person in charge of the State Language Committee answered a reporter’s question on the public solicitation of opinions on the General Specification Chinese Character List.
1. The basic situation of "General Specification Chinese Characters Table"
The List of Chinese Characters with General Norms is a supporting standard of the National Law of People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Common Languages and Characters, and it is a set of universal standardized characters for recording Chinese in modern times, which embodies the norms of modern Chinese characters in terms of word quantity, word level and font.
The word list received 8,300 words. According to the universality of Chinese characters, it is divided into three levels: the first-level word list contains 3 500 words, which are commonly used words with the highest frequency, mainly meeting the needs of basic education and cultural popularization. There are 3,000 words in the second-level word list, which are used less frequently than the first-level words. Together with the first-level words, there are 6,500 words, which mainly meet the needs of modern Chinese text printing and publishing. There are 1,800 words in the third-level word list, which are common words used in some special fields (surnames, names, scientific and technical terms, classical Chinese in Chinese textbooks for primary and secondary schools), and mainly meet the needs of using words in special fields closely related to public life and cultural popularization.
2. Development of General Specification Chinese Character List
Chinese characters have a long history, a large number of users and complicated usage, and their learning is as deep as the sea. It is a huge systematic project to develop a word list suitable for current social language life. The development of the word list began in 2001 and lasted for eight years. It has held more than 80 large-scale meetings such as academic conferences, deliberation conferences and consultation meetings, and more than 3,000 experts and scholars at home and abroad participated in the discussion, and revised more than 90 drafts before and after. It can be said that the word list is tempered by everyone.
The development of word list mainly has the following characteristics:
First, make full use of corpus resources and adopt computer statistical technology. The main corpora used are: "Modern Chinese Balanced Corpus" of the State Language Commission (91 million words). Beijing language and culture university "Dynamic Circulation Corpus of Modern News Media" (350 million words). The comprehensive corpus of popular science education (4.04 million words), the corpus of children’s literature (5.7 million words) and the corpus of classical Chinese textbooks for primary and secondary schools (5.6 million words) were established during the development of the word list. At the same time, it also refers to the massive corpora of print media, online media, audio media, educational materials and dozens of corpora at home and abroad established by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center from 2005 to 2008. These corpora provide statistical data of modern Chinese characters and lay a scientific foundation for the development of word lists.
Second, inherit the existing achievements and fully carry forward academic democracy. The research group systematically collected the literature related to the development of the word list, sorted out some academic and social problems that the word list must face, and then held an academic symposium to listen to opinions from various fields extensively and deeply, and held an academic deliberation meeting on the handling of some important issues to make academic decisions. This provides an academic basis for the development of word lists.
Third, collect words widely and listen carefully to the suggestions of relevant departments. From the fields of education, culture, science and technology, civil affairs, public security, military affairs, surveying and mapping, press and publication, cultural relics books, radio, film and television, information processing, dictionary compilation, medical care, ethnic religion and so on, we have learned about the demand for Chinese characters and collected Chinese characters that need to be added to the word list, which has received strong support from all departments. With regard to the word list and its implementation, we have listened to the opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the General Administration of Press and Publication, the relevant units of the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, It provides a social foundation for the development and future implementation of the word list.
Fourth, to facilitate people’s language life, giving consideration to stability and innovation. The standardization of spoken and written languages since the founding of the People’s Republic of China has provided a good foundation for recording modern Chinese and ensured the development of cultural and educational undertakings. The advent of the information age puts forward new requirements for the standardization of Chinese characters. On the one hand, it is necessary to improve the degree of standardization and facilitate information storage, information management and information exchange; On the other hand, the use of Chinese characters in some fields (such as medicine and chemistry) has entered the reading level of the general public, and the use of Chinese characters in society has expanded. In order to maintain the stability of Chinese characters used in society and not cause great fluctuations, the word list attaches importance to the inheritance and connection with existing norms and standards, and at the same time integrates and optimizes existing norms, broadening the scope of Chinese characters used in general fields, and carefully handling related problems such as analogy simplification and variant characters.
3. What is the significance of the formulation and publication of the General Specification Chinese Character List?
Character list is an important norm to meet the needs of language life in the new century and reflect the national character policy. The development and implementation of the word list is for the benefit of the country and the convenience of the people, to meet the needs of the application of Chinese characters in various fields of society, to facilitate people’s language life, and to promote the development of the country’s economy, culture, education, international exchange and informatization.
(1) to better implement the "People’s Republic of China (PRC) national common language law". The law was promulgated in October 2000, which stipulated that "the state promotes Putonghua and promotes standardized Chinese characters". The word list determines the norm of word quantity, word level and font of "standardized Chinese characters" at the general level, which makes the legal concept of "standardized Chinese characters" fall into practice.
(2) Better meet the needs of language life in the new century. In China in the 21st century, great changes have taken place in social language life, the scope of Chinese characters in society has changed greatly, and the concept of Chinese characters is characterized by diversity and openness. In particular, the rapid development of information technology not only promotes the expansion of the scope of Chinese characters, but also requires the standardization of Chinese characters and the standardization of Chinese characters in society. It is to meet the needs of the scope of Chinese characters and the concept of standardization in the new century and promote the information construction of the country by reasonably collecting one or two characters, adding three characters and restoring some variant characters.
(3) Integrate and optimize the existing norms to better reflect the writing concept in the new century. The word list inherits the normative principles and spirit of the first batch of variant forms (1955), the font list of printed common Chinese characters (1965), the summary list of simplified Chinese characters (1986), the common Chinese word list (1988) and the common Chinese word list (1988), and according to the language of the new century, The word list maintains the systematicness of Chinese characters in the general field, simplifies them by finite analogy, and restores some variant characters; Take care of the use of Chinese characters in four places on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the demand of internationalization, and compile the Comparison Table of Simplified and Traditional Chinese Characters to facilitate communication; Adopting flexible character requirements and allowing off-balance-sheet characters to be used conditionally are all concrete manifestations of the concept of writing in the new century.
4. What are the major problems solved by the General Standard Chinese Character List?
The word list involves many problems, which is very academic and social, and it is very difficult to develop. There are five major problems to be solved:
First, about the simplification and complexity of Chinese characters. During the development of the word list, the problems of traditional Chinese characters recovery and analogy simplification have been discussed repeatedly. The final conclusion of the research team is: in order to maintain the stability of Chinese characters in society, the word list will not restore traditional Chinese characters in principle; The scope of analogy simplification is strictly limited to the word list to maintain the systematicness and stability of the words used at the general level; Conditional use of words outside the word list is allowed, but it is not simplified by analogy.
Second, on the issue of variant characters. In order to respect social habits and facilitate people’s use of Chinese characters, the word list includes 51 variants in the First List of Variant Characters, which are mainly used as names and places, such as "? Is the foundation thin? ? Shake thin? ? N "and so on. Variant characters are no longer simply referred to as "elimination and abolition", but there are clear requirements for their use.
Third, about the font. The font table standardizes the font style of Song Dynasty, summarizes and formulates the font rules according to the Font Table of Printing General Chinese Characters, and makes fine adjustments to the fonts of some words that do not conform to the font rules. The principles of font adjustment are: respecting the structure of Chinese characters, following unified rules and strictly controlling special cases. The principles and rules of font adjustment not only keep the font of the characters in the table systematic, but also make the font arrangement of a large number of Chinese characters have rules to follow in the future to avoid the phenomenon of new font disunity.
Fourth, about the attributes of the word list. The development of word list is based on a large number of statistical data, aiming at meeting the needs of using words in modern language life, with universality, modernity and standardization. Normalization is the essential attribute of word list.
Fifth, about the effectiveness of the word list. The development of the word list has fully considered the needs of using words in all fields of society. After the publication of the character list, the modern Chinese characters in all fields of society should use the characters in the list. In some cases, if you need to use off-balance-sheet characters, you can still use them, but you should choose glyphs that have been commonly used in history, and don’t arbitrarily simplify, create or change words by analogy. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the word list, the word list will be revised in time according to the changes in language life in the future.
5. Why should the Chinese Character List of General Norms be publicly solicited for comments?
Language is related to national livelihood and national lifeline. The publication and implementation of the word list is a major event related to the national economy and people’s livelihood. According to the spirit of the State Council’s relevant provisions on democratic decision-making and open government affairs, with the consent of the State Council, the Ministry of Education and the State Language Committee decided to publicly solicit opinions from the public before the publication.
It is a historical tradition for language and writing work to solicit opinions from the society. At that time, the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme and the Chinese Pinyin Scheme all solicited opinions from all walks of life. The users of the word list are all the people, and soliciting opinions from the whole society is a practical activity to promote scientific and democratic decision-making. It can fully carry forward democracy, ask the government for the people and ask the virtuous, which is conducive to the further improvement of the word list and the implementation of the word list after its release.
6. How to solicit opinions from the public on the General Standard Chinese Character List?
The Ministry of Education and the State Language Committee attach great importance to the public consultation of word lists, and set up a leading group headed by Ministry leaders and attended by many departments. Recently, four symposiums have been held in succession to listen to opinions from the fields of social writing application, universities and academic groups, news media and cultural and artistic circles, NPC deputies and members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which have been very instructive.
In the process of public consultation, we will organize professional teams, unblock channels and do a good job in collecting and sorting out opinions with a positive and responsible attitude; Focus on the questions or doubts raised by the public in stages and do a good job of explanation; Adhering to the scientific spirit, we will organize experts to conduct scientific analysis and research on opinions and suggestions from all walks of life, and try to absorb reasonable components to improve the word list and promote language and writing work.
People from all walks of life are welcome to actively make suggestions and put forward valuable opinions and suggestions through e-mail, letters and faxes. The draft for soliciting opinions on the Chinese character list and related materials were published in China Education News (August 13th, 2009) and China Language Network (http://www.china-language.gov.cn). For the specific communication mode, please refer to the Announcement on Public Solicitation of Opinions on the Chinese Character List of General Specification.
(Editor Liu Yi)