The Language Policy And Its Implementation In Modern China(1892-1927)

There were tremendous changes on China's language policy in modern times,presenting two characteristics:from the academic level,it was the process of Chinese characterization,written language colloquialization,and Chinese standardization.From the operational level,it presented the alienation,cooperation and opposition between the government and civilian.Regarding these two aspects,China's modern language policy can be divided into three periods:the first period was from 1892 to the founding of the Republic of China.Some methods of Pinyin to sing Chinese characters appeared in the society,like QIE YIN by Lu Zhuangzhang,SUJI by Cai Xiyong,Simplyfication by Wang Zhao and Lao Nai Xuan,etc.,which were also called QIE YIN Program.These were initially implemented among civilians,and later presented to the Qing government.However,they were ignored by the government because of turbulent political scene.In the QIE YIN movement,the consciousness of the unification of the national language rose,and the Qing Dynasty Zizhengyuan promulgated the "Scheme of Unification of the National Language",thus,QIE YIN characters went from the folk to the official.The second period was from the founding of the Republic of China to the May Fourth Movement.Association of Unified Pronunciation was established,which issued a set of phonetic letters and compiled the Guo Yin Dictionary.They are both national voice policies.The focus of the discussion included if voiced voice should remain,if "national sound" or "King Yin" taken as the standard,etc.Since the beginning of Literary Revolution in 1917,"Vernacular Movement" and "Unification of National Language"showed the trend of "Merged into One" gradually.The Ministry of Education issued a decree to change the "National Literary Arts" of the primary school to the "National Language".Although the implementation of this period of policy was dominated by the government,it was not for political purposes,but for the mutual assistance and cooperation between the government and the people.After the May Fourth Movement,it was the third period before the establishment of the Nanjing National Government.The government had adopted a linguistic policy of renaissance of classical Chinese.Zhang Shizhao rectified the style of study,re-established the subject of classics,intended to "take literary to guide the language",and then "National Language Weekly" issued a debate with it.The Romance of national language was born in the voice of Chinese character reform,which led to discussion and was carried out simultaneously with the phonetic alphabet.Throughout the language policies from 1892 to the establishment of the Nanjing National Government,it showed alienation,cooperation and opposition between the government and people.The language policies followed the internal logic of pinyinization,colloquialization and standardization,behind that was the confrontation between old and new cultures.Also,the creation,promotion,and resistance of language policies by governments,civil communities,or individuals were in fact the manifestation of getting language rights.