20 10 year 10 October 3 1 day is the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of the law of People's Republic of China (PRC) on common languages and characters.
In the past ten years, the law has basically maintained the direction of "China Spirit", but it has also taken into account people's personal usage habits.
20 10 September 25th.
Nie Weifeng, a doctoral student at Beihang University School of Law, has been in Taiwan Province Province for several days. This young man in his early thirties saw the same yellow-faced woman in the streets of Taiwan Province Province, but he saw different words.
Those familiar and unfamiliar traditional Chinese characters can be seen everywhere, without exception, on the demonstration board of a thousand-person rally calling for legislation that day.
In his hometown, he has been learning to write simplified Chinese characters since he can remember. The traditional Chinese characters, which mostly appear in ancient books, Spring Festival couplets and overseas publications, look delicious and mysterious.
Nie Weifeng didn't know it at that time. In another month and six days, it will be the tenth anniversary of the promulgation of the Law on Common Language and Characters in People's Republic of China (PRC).
This law was officially implemented in 65438 10 +65438 10 +65438 10 +0, which is the first law on language and writing in Chinese history.
This law not only covers the use of simplified and traditional Chinese characters that Nie Weifeng is concerned about, but also raises the cultural inheritance of a country to the legislative level.
In the past ten years, the specific work related to this law has progressed slowly. All localities have issued specific methods and detailed rules for the use of this law.
On July 3 1 this year, at the 16th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Fourth National People's Congress, Hainan, a special zone, passed the implementation measures of this law, explicitly restricting the use of traditional Chinese characters, variant characters and online vocabulary, including kindergartens in the promotion scope of Putonghua, and stipulating that the media can broadcast, host and interview in dialects and minority languages.
In 2009, Wang Ning, vice-president of the Chinese Language Society, told the media that the Chinese character list in progress is "fully simplified characters", which has been done for eight years before and after, which will inevitably further affect people's use of language and characters in the future.
For a time, it was hailed as another great event in China's language and writing circles since modern times.
Looking back on the past ten years, has this law solved some problems? What's left?
In China, how to protect dialects and promote Putonghua? How to tolerate loanwords while defending the purity of Chinese? How to treat advertising language and network buzzwords? This is our concern.
Ten years of a law
It has been ten years.
On June 365438+1October 3 1 day, 2000, Ding Qizhen, who was teaching in the Chinese Department of Beijing Foreign Studies University, found Guangming Daily and collected it.
It used a whole page to record the news released by People's Republic of China (PRC) Common Language Law.
Led by the Language and Literature Department of the Ministry of Education, Xu Jialu, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), and others are important think tanks for making legislation. Adopted at the 18th meeting of the Ninth NPC Standing Committee.
This means that language has laws to follow. Although the response of the academic circle is not enthusiastic, researchers in the language and cultural circle are aware of the significance of this news.
Ding Qizhen told the rule of law weekend reporter: "Legal norms are inevitably inconsistent with reality, but having norms is the first step."
According to the law, the national common language is Mandarin and standardized Chinese characters. Take "Chinese Pinyin Scheme" as a spelling and phonetic notation tool. It is the duty of citizens to popularize Putonghua and standardize Chinese characters.
At the same time, the use of government agencies, educational institutions and mass media, as well as the specific scope of use of dialects, traditional Chinese characters and variant Chinese characters are clearly defined.
Article 8 also clearly stipulates that all ethnic groups have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages. The use of spoken and written languages of ethnic minorities is based on the relevant provisions of the Constitution, the Law on Regional National Autonomy and other laws.
Zhang Pu, a professor at beijing language and culture university Institute of Applied Linguistics, told the reporter of Rule of Law Weekend that 1998, the State Language Commission was merged into the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Education set up a language application management department and a language information management department. Responsible for the management of language-related applications and information.
Over the years, the management departments of pragmatics and linguistics have mastered the application direction of this vivid folk language through various expert meetings, local surveys and discussions with front-line teachers and students, and formulated and promulgated relevant standards and norms.
In the past ten years, this law has played its due role to a certain extent and penetrated into the daily life of ordinary people.
Comparing his teaching experience abroad, Ding Qizhen thinks that compared with Japan and South Korea, China's language and writing method is "relatively loose", which basically keeps the direction of "China spirit" and takes into account people's personal usage habits.
Fang Ming, a professor in institute of chinese studies, beijing language and culture university, said that legislators should first consider whether it meets the needs of the public, and then the implementation details.
Zhang Pu said that it is normal for any legislation to cause different opinions after its promulgation, and it needs to be improved in practice.
The legislation has been settled.
Huang Qingpei of Suzhou Maidian Advertising Planning Company is already a skilled real estate copywriter.
Proficiency, including knowing how to avoid minefields in copywriting.
He introduced to the reporter of "Rule of Law Weekend". "Sensitive words such as county, country and capital are basically not allowed ... First, this kind of exclusive word is not suitable for newspapers and media."
When it comes to the influential media such as overhead advertising, radio and television or paper media, the promotion names such as "Imperial Garden" and "Washington" need to be considered repeatedly.
If traditional Chinese characters suitable for Suzhou style are used in these property promotion names, even if the visual effect is better than simplified Chinese characters, they will not be "popular" in print media and TV stations.
What Huang Qingpei encountered was the standardization of advertising catchwords in current language use.
These restrictions and norms stem from the existing provisions of Article 14 of the Law of China on Common Languages:
The characters used in radio, film and television, public facilities, signboards and advertisements shall be based on the national common language (the common characters here are simplified characters).
Penalties have also been introduced. "If the facilities, signboards and advertising characters in urban public places violate the relevant provisions of Chapter II of this Law, the relevant administrative departments shall order them to make corrections; If you refuse to make corrections, give a warning and urge them to make corrections within a time limit. "
This effectively standardizes the language of mass media to some extent.
Xiong, a Chinese teacher in Beijing No.4 Middle School, is from Hunan. He came to Beijing to teach many years ago. The important issues before him are standard pronunciation and Mandarin.
In-service teachers under the age of 45 must teach in Putonghua, take exams and hold Putonghua grade certificates.
As a teacher, Xiong Bailiang expressed understanding. He also pointed out that the pronunciation of Beijing dialect itself is not standard. "‘Carassius auratus' is the third pronunciation in Beijing dialect, actually it is the first pronunciation, which is hard to avoid in oral life, but we should pay attention to it when taking the exam."
Fang Ming told the rule of law weekend reporter that from the perspective of cultural integration, the promotion of Putonghua is for cultural inheritance.
Zhang Pu believes that both Chinese phonetics and Chinese characters have their own inheritance systems. Reading and writing typos or reading half a word will destroy the phonetic system and writing system of Chinese characters. Therefore, in Chinese education from primary school to junior high school, teachers have the obligation to correct typos and pronunciations.
This is also stipulated in China's "General Language Law": the staff in the post whose working language is Mandarin should have the ability to speak Mandarin. Among them, teachers should reach the second-class standard or above.
Xiong's current students are basically born around 1998. Growing up in the network information environment, influenced by foreign words such as online buzzwords and NBA, education experts worry that this generation will break away from traditional culture.
When it comes to this matter, Xiong thinks there is no need to worry too much-although children will verbally use online buzzwords or mix a few English words, they are reading The Analects, Zhong Yong and University two mornings a week. It is not difficult to know traditional Chinese characters and write brush characters.
The students in Beijing No.4 Middle School are not entirely special cases. "Believe that children have the ability to distinguish between elegance and vulgarity. Respect their language habits. " The bear said to him.
"New terms often start from the people and the Internet, and they are always faster than the speed stipulated by the government." Ding Qizhen also said that language is like a big river, which has the ability of self-purification. The language phenomenon that is popular in daily choice will survive the fittest.
On September 12 this year, Li Weihong, Vice Minister of Education and Director of the State Language Committee, once again affirmed the role of this law in promoting the standardization of Putonghua and Chinese characters.
These include eliminating language barriers and making it possible for rural surplus labor to transfer to cities and towns on a large scale; The electronic and communication industries, mainly supported by the input of Chinese Pinyin, are developing rapidly. Broadcasting, film and television, newspapers, magazines and books with Mandarin and standardized Chinese characters as the main carriers have achieved all-round coverage.
The law enforcement effect is not ideal.
On the other hand, the problems caused by the imperfection of this law itself cannot be ignored.
The first thing to bear is the "foreign words mixed into Chinese" involving the purity of Chinese.
With the opening of China and the rapid development of scientific information technology, English abbreviations such as WTO, MP3, DVD, etc. In China, public publications, media reports and even government documents were implanted in Chinese on a large scale without translation.
While being welcomed by young people, it has also attracted attention. The representative event is that CCTV "banned" foreign letters, and words such as NBA were translated into Chinese.
The Department of Language Application Management of the Ministry of Education has repeatedly emphasized the necessity of translating foreign words into Chinese. In her view, the pronunciation and writing forms of English words do not match Chinese, and the inclusion of English and Chinese cannot achieve the organic integration of the two.
In the absence of Chinese characters, Zhang Pu said that if there is only one "X" on the X-ray film, GAMA is only "GAMA", and it is really difficult for people to understand its meaning.
As a matter of fact, Article 11 of Chapter 2 of China's National Law on Common Languages has already stipulated it.
"Chinese publications shall conform to the norms and standards of the national common language. If it is necessary to use foreign languages in Chinese publications, the necessary explanations shall be made in the national common language. "
However, on the issue of using foreign languages, the law is too principled and not specific enough; Moreover, there are no supporting regulations or rules for the management of foreign language use. This leads to the embarrassment that there are laws to follow but there is no effect.
The case of Zhao C, once called "the first case of China's name right", once again proved the imperfection of this law.
Zhao C, a citizen of Yuehu District, Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, refused to issue him a second-generation ID card because of the foreign letter "C" in his name. Zhao C believed that the right to name was infringed and appealed to the Yuehu District People's Court, and the first-instance judgment won. Yuehu District Public Security Bureau appealed to yingtan Intermediate People's Court.
Because there are no clear and specific provisions in the Language Law and the Resident Identity Card Law, there is no basis for the court to decide the case. The result of the second trial was that the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement agreement, Zhao C was willing to change his name, and Yuehu District Public Security Bureau withdrew the appeal.
On July 3, 2000, Jiazhong Wang, vice chairman of the Education, Culture, Sports and Health Committee of the National People's Congress, said that the use of foreign languages is complicated and the law can only make principled provisions. However, "supporting laws and regulations on the use of foreign languages and characters can be formulated according to actual needs".
However, after 10 years, the "Regulations or Rules for the Administration of the Use of Supporting Foreign Languages" still failed to appear.
Fang Ming told the reporter of Rule of Law Weekend that another problem lies in poor implementation.
In the Law of China on the Common Language and Characters, the responsibilities of other relevant departments other than the language and characters departments in the State Council are also stipulated, as well as the responsibilities of local governments and other relevant departments.
However, driven by commercial motives and eyeball effect, the mixture of Chinese and English is shocking in the overwhelming mass media, commodity packaging and public publications. Just like an irregular appearance.
Others cite the example of France for comparison, arguing that China's current language and writing law lacks specific penalties, which leads to non-binding.
However, Zhang Pu believes that people's habits can't be rigidly demanded, and they can't be managed by punishment. Mainly rely on guidance to improve the quality of the people, including the consciousness of consciously using standardized Chinese characters.
Controversy over cultural inheritance
The simple and complicated use of Chinese characters is related to cultural inheritance and has been debated for many years. It is also a problem that China's common language and writing methods can't directly solve.
The main disputes focus on whether Chinese characters should be further simplified, whether traditional characters should be restored, and whether simplified characters will split cultural inheritance.
Experts interviewed by the rule of law weekend generally believe that the simplification of Chinese characters is the natural law of the development of Chinese characters, which also played a great role in popularizing culture and eliminating illiteracy in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
"This is a better way to understand the complexity and simplicity of use." Ding Qizhen said that he does not support further simplification of Chinese characters, and more voices are calling for maintaining the stability of existing Chinese characters. And the simplified part doesn't have to be traditional.
Zhang Pu believes that Chinese characters have been simplified all the way from Zhuanli, Jin Jia, and Chinese character tools should be upgraded with the writing tools entering the information age. Although the traditional Chinese characters in ancient books may exceed 10 thousand words, or even more than 20 thousand words.
However, he introduced that the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center mainly investigates words used by media with sound in the plane. In the past five years, 99% of the major mass media have only more than 2,400 words, and their use is relatively stable. Total * * * uses about 1 1300 words, and 8900 words after 2400 only cover 1%.
For the cultural inheritance of Chinese characters, more than 2,000 simplified characters, inherited characters and traditional Chinese characters corresponding to simplified characters also play a role.
Ding Qizhen analyzed the current disputes about simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters, including whether to abolish uncommon words, from two aspects: binding force and people's usage habits.
He said that changes in simplified and traditional Chinese characters and the use of uncommon words in names will lead to extra characters in fonts. The government should think more about the cost of press and publication and social resources from the perspective of investment and use, while the people are more concerned about individual freedom of choice. This is the cause of the dispute, and it needs full communication to solve it.
Another problem of cultural inheritance is the relationship between Chinese and loanwords.
In 1950s, the Latinization of Chinese characters put the question of whether Chinese can be integrated into Esperanto and mainstream culture on the table.
Now the import and export of Chinese is considered to be related to the soft power of big countries.
Zhang Pu believes that "although the current language input is greater than the output, the word' Kung Fu' has been recognized by the world, and our language has penetrated into the outside world." The output of language depends more on comprehensive national strength and naturally penetrates outward.
Fang Ming said that whether China culture enters the mainstream culture in the world has nothing to do with how to read and write words, but more to do with the mainstream universal values. "Just because there are few people who speak French and German doesn't mean that they don't represent mainstream values."