This annotated bibliography covers materials on Chinese language and linguistics published from 1940 through 1979. Approximately 150 entries are included, covering textbooks, dictionaries, study and teaching materials on Mandarin Chinese, general descriptions of Chinese, linguistics, writing system, and bibliographies. An author index is appended.…

Since the 17th century, Chinese lexicography has been dominated by a character classification system divided into 214 radical groups. The proposed initial three-stroke system would eliminate the need to select (or guess) the proper radical and count strokes. The aim of the system is to facilitate the use of dictionaries and provide the student…

An elementary teacher investigates a way of telling a story using only pictures. In another article (EJ 527 113) this teacher and his students considered how our writing system uses letters to stand for sounds or groups of sounds, experimenting with Kiowa picture writing. (Author/RK)

Describes the acquisition and use of a Chinese metalanguage with which ambiguous spoken words are graphically contextualized. The metalanguage is composed of strategies that range from the actual writing of the Chinese graph (character) to those where the graph is accommodated in a verbal presentation. (12 references) (JL)

Chinese characters are often viewed as a premodern or incomplete form of literacy. Authors with an autonomous view of literacy view Chinese as a concrete, homeostatic language inadequate for use in abstract thought and movement toward mass literacy. Even those with an ideological model framework propose that the intrinsic nature of Chinese…

The palindromic pattern--in which formal features in the first half of a work are repeated in reverse order in the second--is frequently used by modern poets for a variety of effects. (JH)

The table of 545 simplified Chinese characters indicates the proper forms for general use according to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The simplified characters are arranged according to a system that combines stroke counting and stroke order. Alongside the simplified characters are their traditional and more complex forms,…

Ease or difficulty of learning simplified and complex Chinese characters is examined in terms of recognition and reproduction. Empirical observations and careful studies of errors in learning situations lead to the conclusion that complex characters are harder to learn. Teaching of Chinese characters therefore should proceed from simplified to…

A brief description of the phonology and grammar of the Chinese language. In spite of the diversity in phonology, Chinese dialects are held together as members of the same language by the bond of a common grammar. A systematic description of all of Chinese grammar is still needed. (AMH)

Reconstruction of Ancient Chinese retroflex endings (syllable-final consonants) based on internal phonological evidence in Modern Chinese. Paper read at the December 1972 meeting of the Kukeo Hakhoe (The National Language Association of Korea); research supported by the Social Science Research Council, Committee for Korean Studies. (RS)

Discusses the distinctive differences between the English and Chinese languages from the system designer's point of view and explores the potential problems for Chinese information retrieval systems, focusing on character entry and retrieval. The advantages and disadvantages of current approaches are discussed, and a regular expression search…

Describes the differences between English and Chinese information retrieval and the problems with Chinese character entry and encoding. It is argued that regular expression searching facilitates Chinese character entry and retrieval. Mathematical models are developed for controlling noisy characters retrieved by regular expressions containing…

Describes the process required to learn to write Chinese ideographs, and investigates the possibilities for developing a computer-aided language learning tutor. Character stroke sequences are described; a modified keyboard for Chinese character entry is discussed; and interaction between the student and the tutor is examined. (11 references) (LRW)

DeFrancis' recent essay on the development and status of Hanyu Pinyin, "The Why of Pinyin Grapheme Selection," is critiqued, particularly his account of how the Hanyu Pinyin transcription was developed and the argument that it is not only rational but effectively permanent. (LB)

Studied the effects of applying an order-analytical, multidimensional scaling method for determining hierarchies among Chinese and Japanese "kanji" characters to be learned. Results for 60 undergraduates who used a computer-assisted instructional program based on the method indicate its usefulness in designing effective instruction. (SLD)