From The Commonly Used Word Of Configuration Method To Explore The Nature And Possible Prospects Of The Modern Chinese Characters

Character-formation type, a classification through analysis of static structure of characters, can reflect the status quo of characters objectively. According to the status quo of the form, pronunciation and meaning of Chinese characters, the author analyses and studies character-formation types of 2500 Chinese characters from Modern Chinese General Characters List. The study indicates that some ideograms and phonograms in Chinese characters have turned into signs because of the change in form, pronunciation and meaning. In modern Chinese characters, a large proportion of graphic components are signs. This new feature makes us think again some basic theoretical questions about Chinese characters, such as its nature, advantages and disadvantages, and its future.In author's opinion, Chinese characters have three graphic components: ideograms, phonograms and signs. Signs have no relation to the pronunciation or meaning of a word, which decreases the reasonableness of Chinese characters greatly and shows much shortcoming in Chinese learning and communicating. So we must reform Chinese characters. What needs simplifying is not their forms, but their quantity so that the reasonableness can be increased and the rates ofretainability can be improved. At last, the author gives us a suggestion that we should encourage the experiment and study of pictophonetic characters, so as to build a complete writing system which can record the pronunciation and convey the meaning better.