A total of 292 Chinese children in the first, third, or fifth grade in Beijing, China, participated in one of two experiments investigating radical awareness; that is, the knowledge that a component of most Chinese characters, called the radical, usually provides information about a character's meaning. The technique was to present two-character…

In this study of ability to learn Japanese, six extra-linguistic factors were investigated: multi-linguality, semantic space sensitivity, formal education, Japanophilia, musical training and the introduction of Kanji (ideographs used in Japanese writing). (CK)

Volume 1, numbers 3 and 4, of the newsletter on the use of non-Western languages with computers contains the following articles: "Reversing the Screen under MS/PC-DOS" (Dan Brink); "Comments on Diacritics Using Wordstar, etc. and CP/M Software for Non-Western Languages" (Michael Broschat); "Carving Tibetan in Silicon: A…

This publication will provide secondary level students with a basic understanding of the development and structure of Chinese (guo yu) language characters. The authors believe that demystifying the language helps break many cultural barriers. The written language is a good place to begin because its pictographic nature is appealing and inspires…

The purpose of this unit is to demonstrate to students that the Chinese writing system, though different from the English alphabet system, is an equally plausible communication system. The exploration of Chinese writing is begun with an exercise designed to convey the importance of a written communication system, as well as the problems and…

Lessons are presented on Mandarin Chinese concerning how to convert from the Yale romanization system to the Wade-Giles romanization system. The Yale system is the one most widely studied in the United States. Since biographical and geographical names in newspapers, magazines, books, and maps are still spelled out in the Wade-Giles romanization…

The official working languages of Unesco in the Asian region are English and French. Many of those concerned with the design and construction of schools for the children of the region do not speak either language and often read them only with difficulty. The design and construction ideas presented in this report are conveyed ideographically. The…

This article discusses language planning in the People's Republic of China, and opens by commenting on the difficulty in observing the language planning process in China, particularly in the area of decision-making. A brief history of language planning is provided. Following the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, a shift took place…

The paper discusses lexical evidence proposed by Samuel E. Martin, including later revisions thereof by R.A. Miller, concerning a genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese, based on an examination of vowel changes in Middle Korean and Old Japanese. While the author rejects Chinese phonetic evidence as inconclusive and affirms the legitimacy…

Fifteen Chinese ideographs were successfully taught to 7 first grade American children having great difficulty learning to read English by the phonemic approach. (Author/DB)

Reports on a study to determine whether students of Chinese read faster when the text is written in characters than when written in Romanization. Results show reading efficiency as determined by speed and errors in translation to be greater with Romanization, while there is more overall accuracy with characters. (CLK)

A description of the lexicological technique of converting from the traditional system of 214 radicals to a new system of 189 radicals under the following headings: elimination, merger, additions, form changes, split. The list of radicals presented here is taken from the Xinhua Zidian (73), currently the most popular dictionary in China. (AMH)

A discussion of three classes of metaphors in the context of Whorf's thesis that language reflects culture with a view to uncovering cultural differences between Chinese and English. It is concluded that universal psychological constraints on human language impose limits by dictating some patterns of metaphors and ruling against others. (AMH)

Reports on a study investigating the contributions of visual factors dependent upon the use of symbols as intermediary units and concludes that perceptual factors may play an important role in the use of Chinese characters as intermediaries in introducing reading. (JM)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, Atlanta, Georgia, November 24-25, 1972. (DD)