Concept Of Modern Chinese Characters

Japanese had not its own characters originally. With communicating with China for a long time, Chinese characters, as a kind of developed culture have been introduced into Japan. In the 10th century A.D., while relying on the pictographic and phonetic Chinese characters, Japanese created the Hiragana and Katakana, and entered into the coexistence of Kanji and Kana from then. We can say that Chinese characters have played an extremely important part in Japan's culture.However, the development of Kanji in Japan was by no means problem-free. In the Meiji Restoration, with the coming of the European thoughts and the Chinese Qing Dynasty's deterioration, Japanese's attitude towards Kanji changed greatly. They once wanted to abolish Kanji, and launched the intense debate upon a series of problems, especially character reform. No matter how fiercely each faction debated, Kanji still exists in Japanese characters. In the recent years the amount of Chinese character used in Japan is increasing gradually. The point could also be proven from a series of Provision for Kanji executed after World War II.According to the historical fact mentioned, how should we understand the Kanji view of Japanese? Whether Kanji should be retained or not? What kind of national complex is hiding under the surface of tendency towards the abolition of Kanji? By referring to the theories of many Japanese scholars, the thesis diligently attempts to analyze the problems about Japan's Provision for Kanji and apprehension on Kanji from the point of Sociology of Culture, and find out the essence of character system reform happened in Japan nearly 150 years through deep argument and study. I hope that it will deepen the understanding about this question for us.The thesis is composed of four chapters. The first chapter is mainly introduction to Chinese character spread to Japan and the formation of Japanese characters. The rest three chapters are typical part of the thesis, mainly elaborates the modern Japan's Kanji view, including three main aspects: Kanji question in the earlier period of Meiji Restoration; Japanese improvement and Provision for Kanji in the later period of Meiji Restoration and the earlier Showa period; the postwar reform of character system.