Chinese Characters Research Articles

Transliteration in the Translation of The Classic of Tea: Problems and Solutions

The Classic of Tea, authored by the Tea Sage Lu Yu, encompasses over 400 entries related to tea names, names of tea utensils, personal names, place names, dynastic titles, titles of literary works, Chinese units of measurement, and other uniquely Chinese terms such as the Five Elements and the Bagua. During translation, it is often challenging to find exact lexical equivalents for these names in the target language, necessitating the use of phonetic transliteration. Phonetic transliteration is a common method in the translation of Chinese classics. However, improper use of phonetic transliteration can present reading difficulties for readers, impede subsequent cultural exchange, and is particularly problematic in works like The Classic of Tea, which require extensive use of this method. This paper examines the application of phonetic transliteration in the English translation of The Classic of Tea from the perspective of reader comprehension. It identifies issues such as excessive use of transliteration, difficulties for Western readers in pronunciation, and ambiguity in reference. To address these issues, strategies such as reducing transliteration, adjusting information layout, re-annotating phonetically, adding Chinese characters, and inserting hyperlinked audio files are proposed. These strategies aim to alleviate the reading burden and enhance the effectiveness of phonetic transliteration.

Young Chinese Language Learners’ L2 Motivational Self System and Learning Achievement in Chinese Literacy Acquisition

ABSTRACT This study investigated the impact of young Chinese second language learners’ motivation on their Chinese literacy acquisition. Based on the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), 188 Grade 5 ethnic minority students in Hong Kong were assessed. They completed an L2MSS questionnaire, a Chinese oral vocabulary test, and Chinese literacy measures, which covered Chinese character reading, spelling, reading comprehension, and sentence writing. Structural equation modelling results showed that the L2MSS tripartite predictors—ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and learning experience—predicted the students’ intended learning effort and literacy achievement, controlling for oral vocabulary. The ought-to self had the strongest total effect on effort and achievement, while the ideal self had a substantial effect on the learning experience and indirectly contributed to effort. This study argues that young learners’ perceived social expectation significantly influenced their motivation to learn to read and write Chinese. Their identification as fluent Chinese readers and writers generated positive learning experiences that were conducive to literacy learning.

Effects of font size, stroke, and background on the legibility of Chinese characters in virtual reality for the elderly

To investigate the legibility of Chinese characters’ font size, text background opacity, and font stroke for the elderly in virtual reality, we recruited old and young participants to conduct experiments with VR and used eye-tracking technology to record the data of task completion time and error rate. After analysis, we concluded that the minimum recognition font size for the elderly is 30 dmm, and the best font size is 60 dmm, which is 20 and 40 dmm for young people. The font style has a significant effect on old people (p = 0.000*). Besides, for font sizes smaller than 20 dmm and bigger than 50 dmm, text with strokes and over 50% semi-transparent backgrounds can improve legibility for the elderly. With a suitable font size, the influence of font style on the elderly is not significant. These conclusions can provide a reference for the elderly-oriented Chinese font design in VR.

The Performance of The Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

This study adopts research methods such as literature review and interview to analyze the performance of the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The study focuses on the Olympic concept, duration, national culture, AI use, optical application, stage design, fireworks performance, venue selection, and the relationship with technological development. give the result as follows1. Simplicity, beauty, modernity. Showcasing three themes, namely China's pursuit and longing for world peace, "Faster, Higher, Stronger, and more united", and "Together towards the future".2. The blessing of technology is more important than any previous Olympic opening ceremony performance. Human screen dance technology, holographic projection technology, AI technology empowerment, 3D lighting stage technology, double-sided screen technology, laser engraving technology, and irregular screen technology will be the main means of empowering the Olympic opening ceremony performance.3.The color scheme of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics is mainly cold, which blends harmoniously with the emphasis on ice and snow in the Winter Olympics.4.The development and utilization of ethnic elements in the opening ceremony performance of this Winter Olympics are reasonable and appropriate, mainly including Chinese paintings, Chinese totems, Chinese stories, Chinese proverbs, Chinese characters, Chinese clothing, etc.5.The selection of the performance venue for the opening ceremony at the National Stadium of China seems somewhat conservative.6.Reduced the fixed construction stage and replaced it with a variable and mobile stage. Technological stage. The use of LED screens makes the performance more diverse.7.The ignition ceremony highlights the ice and snow of the Winter Olympics, showcases the subtle fire in a low-key manner, highlights the theme, and also embodies the concept of low-carbon environmental protection8.The opening ceremony performance of this Winter Olympics focuses more on sports performances, downplaying artistic performances and highlighting sports characteristics. Performed by ordinary citizens, primary, secondary, and high school students, as well as young people from all over the world, emphasizing the need for everyone to come together.

An radicals construction technique based on dual quaternions and hierarchical transformers

At present, the exploration of Knowledge Graph Embedding (KGE) mainly focuses on static KGE models. Due to the diversity and complexity of vertical domain data, it is difficult for existing KGE models to achieve excellent performance. Specific KGE models must be constructed for research on vertical domain knowledge graphs. This paper explores the relationships between the composition of Chinese characters and their sounds, meanings, and forms by constructing the Chinese Radical Knowledge Graph (CRKG). CRKG was constructed from a unique perspective according to the characteristics of Chinese radicals and knowledge graphs. The minor components of Chinese characters are separated and constructed into the fourth dimension of the knowledge graph. In this paper, we propose a new Chinese Radical Knowledge Graph Embedding (CRKGE) model, RotAL, which introduces dual quaternions and hierarchical transformers into KGE. RotAL performs a translation-rotation operation on the head entity with the relation as a parameter, then does a translation operation on the head entity with the minor component as a parameter to be close to the tail entity. Finally, we feed the trained quaternions into hierarchical transformers to jointly learn entity-related composition and relational contextualization based on a head entity’s neighborhood. We demonstrate that our method can model and infer various relational patterns of CRKG, such as symmetric/antisymmetric, reflexive, inversion, and multiple. The experimental results on four CRKG datasets demonstrate that the RotAL model achieves the highest Hit@1 score, outperforming existing KGE models in accurately identifying the target entity on the first attempt. Furthermore, the RotAL model consistently achieves superior performance across other evaluation metrics, substantiating its significant advantage over existing models.

A data fusion method for maritime traffic surveillance: The fusion of AIS data and VHF speech information

The more comprehensive information supply for Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), the greater capacity for maritime traffic surveillance. To supply ship intention information contained in very high frequency (VHF) speech for VTS, we propose an automatic identification system (AIS) data and VHF speech information fusion method. In the first part of this method, the feature information of VHF speech is extracted by Bert-BiLSTM-CRF-based entity extraction method, likes location, ship name, and ship intention information, etc. In the second part, we design a spatio-temporal range to filter AIS data, the temporal range is determined by receive time of VHF speech, and the spatial range is determined by the location information extracted from VHF speech. In the third part, by measuring the ship name similarity between AIS data and VHF speech, the barriers to fusion are successfully overcome. The similarity is calculated by combining with Chinese pinyin character similarity and Arabic number similarity and Chinese pinyin characters are encoded by pronunciation characters, calculated by the dynamic time warping (DTW) distance. Through experiments, the method can effectively provide comprehensive information for maritime traffic surveillance, and even when crews misreport ship name within a small deviation, our method still possesses a great fusion capability.

Metaphor and Metonymy in the Formation of Modern Chinese Characters

Metaphor and Metonymy in the Formation of Modern Chinese Characters

Music training is associated with better audio-visual integration in Chinese language

In the present study, we aimed to investigate whether long-term music training could improve audio-visual speech integration in Chinese, using event-related brain potential (ERP) measurements. Specifically, we recruited musicians and non-musicians to participate in our experiment where visual Chinese characters were presented simultaneously with congruent or incongruent speech sounds. In order to maintain participants' focus on both auditory and visual modalities, they were instructed to perform a probe detection task. Our study revealed that for the musicians, audiovisual incongruent stimuli elicited larger N1 and N400 amplitudes compared to audiovisual congruent stimuli. Conversely, for the non-musicians, only a larger N400 amplitude was observed for incongruent stimuli relative to congruent stimuli, without a significant difference in N1 amplitude. Furthermore, correlation analyses indicated that more years of music training was associated with a larger N1 effect for the musicians. These results suggest that musicians were capable of detecting character-speech sound incongruence at an earlier time window compared to non-musicians. Overall, our findings provide compelling evidence that music training is associated with better integration of visual characters and auditory speech sounds in language processing.

A two-stage road sign detection and text recognition system based on YOLOv7

We developed a two-stage traffic sign recognition system to enhance safety and prevent tragic traffic incidents involving self-driving cars. In the first stage, YOLOv7 was employed as the detection model for identifying 31 types of traffic signs. Input images were set to 640 × 640 pixels to balance speed and accuracy, with high-definition images split into overlapping sub-images of the same size for training. The YOLOv7 model achieved a training accuracy of 99.2 % and demonstrated robustness across various scenes, earning a testing accuracy of 99 % in both YouTube and self-recorded driving videos. In the second stage, extracted road sign images underwent rectification before processing with OCR tools such as EasyOCR and PaddleOCR. Post-processing steps addressed potential confusion, particularly with city/town names. After extensive testing, the system achieved recognition rates of 97.5 % for alphabets and 99.4 % for Chinese characters. This system significantly enhances the ability of self-driving cars to detect and interpret traffic signs, thereby contributing to safer road travel.

App-assisted learning of Chinese characters: Matching parts and radicals in structural templates

App-assisted learning of Chinese characters: Matching parts and radicals in structural templates

Silk-ma Mixed Woven Textiles in East Asian History

Mixed woven textile (交織物) is a textile woven with yarns of two or more different fibres, in which each yarn contains only one type of fibre. Silk and ma (麻, a Chinese character used to name mainly bast and leaf fibres) are two kinds of the earliest fibre materials used in East Asia. They were opposite in properties, usage and social status in ancient East Asian society where cultures shared the same origin and social hierarchy was extremely rigid under the influence of Confucianism. However, they were woven into silk-ma mixed woven textiles as early as 2355±45 BP in China, as attested by the discovery of archaeological fabric fragments woven with silk and ramie-hemp threads. Archaeological artefacts and ancient documents of silk-ma mixed woven textiles are seldom discovered or recognized, most probably not because of their rare existence in history but because of the lack of precise identification. This paper will share historical evidence of silk-ma mixed woven textiles in the Chinese mainland, the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, summarize their features and reveal the possible reasons for their elusive presence.

DEMOTIVATION IN MANDARIN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AMONG MALAYSIAN TERTIARY STUDENTS

Background and Purpose: Demotivation has been acknowledged as a significant factor in the decrease of student enrolment and the increase in student attrition rates within the domain of Mandarin as a foreign language (MFL) learning. This study seeks to identify the causes of demotivation among learners of MFL at a public tertiary institution in Malaysia. Methodology: The study's sample consisted of 72 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory-level MFL elective course. Data were collected using online questionnaires at the end of the academic semester. The online questionnaire consisted of two sections: the first focused on the demographic information of the participants, and the second contained open-ended questions. Participants were asked to characterize the learning experience that (1) negatively impacted their motivation and (2) caused them to feel frustrated or want to quit their MFL studies. The data was subjected to thematic analysis, and the themes from the responses were identified and categorized. Findings: The factors that contribute to demotivation can be classified into two categories: internal and external. Internal categories include psychological states such as anxiety and boredom. In contrast, external categories include test performance, course content, workload, and significant others (teachers and peers). External factors, particularly test performance, course content, and workload, have a greater impact on the demotivation of MFL learners compared to internal factors. The most frequently cited factor is test performance, primarily due to the difficulty of learning course content, particularly Chinese characters. One-third of the students in this study spent more than three hours per week on MFL learning outside of class. However, many students struggle to manage their Mandarin study time due to other academic or extracurricular obligations. Contributions: The current research offers additional insights into the nature and characteristics of demotivation in foreign language learning, specifically among non-native Mandarin learners with little or no prior knowledge, in the context of MFL as an elective course. Keywords: Demotivation, LOTE, Mandarin as a foreign language, Malaysian tertiary institution, elective. Cite as: Paee, R., Lam, K. C, Kuan, W. L, & Kopli, N. H. (2024). Demotivation in Mandarin as a foreign language among Malaysian tertiary students. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 9(2), 40-56. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol9iss2pp40-56

Semantic-enhanced graph neural network for named entity recognition in ancient Chinese books

Named entity recognition (NER) plays a crucial role in the extraction and utilization of knowledge of ancient Chinese books. However, the challenges of ancient Chinese NER not only originate from linguistic features such as the use of single characters and short sentences but are also exacerbated by the scarcity of training data. These factors together limit the capability of deep learning models, like BERT-CRF, in capturing the semantic representation of ancient Chinese characters. In this paper, we explore the semantic enhancement of NER in ancient Chinese books through the utilization of external knowledge. We propose a novel model based on Graph Neural Networks that integrates two different forms of external knowledge: dictionary-level and chapter-level information. Through the Graph Attention Mechanism (GAT), these external knowledge are effectively incorporated into the model’s input context. Our model is evaluated on the C_CLUE dataset, showing an improvement of 3.82% over the baseline BAC-CRF model. It also achieves the best score compared to several state-of-the-art dictionary-augmented models.

An End-to-End Generation Model for Chinese Calligraphy Characters Based on Dense Blocks and Capsule Network

An End-to-End Generation Model for Chinese Calligraphy Characters Based on Dense Blocks and Capsule Network

Talking about “Keeping” and “Changing” in Teaching Chinese Characters to Foreigners: Taking the Partial Character “quan” as an Example

Talking about “Keeping” and “Changing” in Teaching Chinese Characters to Foreigners: Taking the Partial Character “quan” as an Example

Increasing Offline Handwritten Chinese Character Recognition Using Separated Pre-Training Models: A Computer Vision Approach

Offline handwritten Chinese character recognition involves the application of computer vision techniques to recognize individual handwritten Chinese characters. This technology has significantly advanced the research in online handwriting recognition. Despite its widespread application across various fields, offline recognition faces numerous challenges. These challenges include the diversity of glyphs resulting from different writers’ styles and habits, the vast number of Chinese character labels, and the presence of morphological similarities among characters. To address these challenges, an optimization method based on a separated pre-training model was proposed. The method aims to enhance the accuracy and robustness of recognizing similar character images by exploring potential correlations among them. In experiments, the HWDB and Chinese Calligraphy Styles by Calligraphers datasets were employed, utilizing precision, recall, and the Macro-F1 value as evaluation metrics. We employ a convolutional self-encoder model characterized by high recognition accuracy and robust performance. The experimental results demonstrated that the separated pre-training models improved the performance of the convolutional auto-encoder model, particularly in handling error-prone characters, resulting in an approximate 6% increase in precision.

Effectiveness Analysis of IELTS and HSK Test Based on SVM in the Development of English Writing Ability

As China develops and grows, there are an increasing number of Chinese language learners worldwide, and Chinese learners are becoming more and more interested in the Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). The Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK) is also continuously evolving and improving. After more than 20 years of development, it has gradually been recognized by Chinese language learners at home and abroad. However, due to the short launch time, the existence of deficiencies is inevitable. But the IELTS exam was introduced in China in 1987 and has since amassed a wealth of knowledge and practice. Its framework is similar to HSK, so it can be used for HSK propositions and tests. One of the most challenging aspects of teaching Chinese is writing which involves the writing of Chinese characters, most Chinese learners have difficulty in writing. This paper mainly compares the test design and content in the writing part between HSK and IELTS, analyzes the effectiveness of the writing part of HSK, and puts forward some reference suggestions for the future writing test proposition and implementation of HSK.

Augustin, The Present Researcher, I Say to My Wife “Hyeonhi, Thank You!” (033rd-048th)

French missionary Dallet (1874) wrote in his book that Korean language and Korean people is different from Chinese language and Chinese people. Several researchers studied the translation of ‘the thousand character essay’. The thousand character essay is called as ‘Tcheonzamun’ in Korea. Dallet (1874) described that ‘The thousand character essay’ (Tcheonzamun) was utilized for both Chinese people and Korean people for teaching their children for Chinese characters. It is reasonable that Tcheonzamun is translated through the meaning of Chinese character (Park et al., 2021a; Park et al., 2021b). But it is not be well explained why the Tcheonzamun is translated through Korean pronunciation. The present researcher utilized the book of ‘The thousand character essay’ which had been written by Han (1583). The thousand character essay is called as ‘Tcheonzamun’ in Korea. There are two methods for this translation. The first method is through the meaning of Chinese character. The second method is through Korean pronunciation. Here, in this study, the first method was adopted. And the method of deleting a same part (parts) of Chinese character was utilized. Deleting of same part for the two Chinese character was only on the same line. The line means four Chinese characters. For example, this <033-036 雲(Un) 騰(Deung) 致(Tchi) 雨(U)> is the same line. And the range of this study is (Tcheonzamun 033rd-048th). The title of this work is ‘Augustin, the present researcher, I say to my wife “Hyeonhi, thank you!” (033rd-048th)’. And the range of this is (Tcheonzamun 033rd-048th) of the thousand character essay (Tcheonzamun). The result obtained was described as follows. <Number in Tcheonzamun Chinese characters (the pronunciation on Korean language and written in English alphabet)> 033-036 雲(Un) 騰(Deung) 致(Tchi) 雨(U). 雲(Un)-雨=云 騰(Deung) 致(Tchi) 雨(U) -雨=(nothing). My darling, my husband! You already say to me “I am higher (騰) than you, my wife! And I want to speak (云) solely. Therefore, you must be silently as if you were not (nothing) here any more (致)!” 037-040 露(No) 結(Gyeol) 爲(Wi) 霜(Sang). 露(No)-雨=路 結(Gyeol) 爲(Wi) 霜(Sang)-雨=相. No, it is not so! My darling, my husband! We are married (結), and we are now one. And do you want to continue our life (路) together with me? You and me, I and you (相), we must do our best for two of us (爲) each other. 041-044 金(Geum) 生(Saeng) 麗(Ryeo) 水(Su). 金(Geum)-人=’玉 生(Saeng)-人=土 麗(Ryeo) 水(Su). My husband! You are an ordinary man like soil (土). I, your wife, want to make you to be the splendid man like a precious stone, the jewel (玉), like a shooting star (’). In order for you, my husband, to be such a great man, the water must be beautiful and wise. My dear husband, I am such a wise and beautiful water. I can wash and wash again you, the countrified man. Augustin, the present researcher, I say to my wife “Hyeonhi, thank you!” 045-048 玉(Ok) 出(Tchul) 崑(Gon) 岡(Gang). 玉(Ok) 出(Tchul)-山-山=(nothing) 崑(Gon)-山=昆 岡(Gang)-山=几小. My darling, you were the man who had nothing (nothing) before you met me your lover! I have wanted your success, and I have tried hard to make you such a precious man (玉). My husband, do you want to become such a man? Please make for me, your wife (小), to be able to take out of the vacant and miserable frame (几) of you. You have made the rigid frame for me. My husband, please consider me your wife as the ‘better half’ (昆) for you! My darling, please do not treat me as ‘nothing’ as shown in the first line of this poem (033-036). I, your wife, am wise!

My Husband! Please Make Me your Wife to be in Full Blossom! (Tcheonzamun 945th-960th)

It is well known that Tcheonzamun was created by Chinese people (Han, 1583). However, Park et al., (2021) and Kim (2023) considered that Korean language-speaking people made Tcheonzamun. The reason is that as follows. Tcheonzamun is translated on Korean pronunciation of Chinese character (Kim, 2023), and it was translated on Korean grammar (Park et al., 2021). Therefore, there are two objects for the present work; ‘to do the translation of Tcheonzamun poem’ and ‘to know the origin of ‘Tcheonzamun’. There are several methods for the translation. Kim (2023) utilized the method of Korean pronunciation of Chinese character on Tcheonzamun. The first translation of this study will be done on this method of Korean pronunciation (Kim, 2023). The next is on the second method (Park et al., 2021). Park et al., (2021) used the method of the meaning of Chinese character on Tcheonzamun. And Kim (2023) treated the Chinese character into the simple part. If there is(are) same or similar part(s) on the same line. For example, (945-948 年(Yon) 矢(Si) 每(Mae) 催(Tchoe)) composes a line. There are (人) parts both on 年(Yon) and 矢(Si), and both of the (人) parts will be deleted. The second translation will be done with the remained part (parts). And the range of this poem is (Tcheonzamun 945th-960th). The theme of this research is as follows. 953-956 璇(Seon) 璣(Ki) 懸(Hyeon) 斡(Al). 953-956 璇(Seon)-王-方-亻=疋. 璣(Ki)-王-方-幺-丶-十=幺. 懸(Hyeon)-幺-丿(丶)-心-小=具. 斡(Al)-人-斗(心)-十-(一十)(小)=口. Here, the (一十) parts are similar to the (小) part. The (斗) part is similar to the (心) part. The (丿) part is similar to the (丶) part. Therefore, they were deleted together. My husband! Please make me your wife (幺) to be in full blossom (疋)! In order to do this, please make (具) me your wife to speak (口) freely! 953-956 璇(Seon) 璣(Ki) 懸(Hyeon) 斡(Al). 솔깃 해야! Sol-kit-hae-ya! My husband! Only when your saying is important and interesting! (Sol-kit-hae-ya!). 957-960 晦(Hoe) 魄(Baeg) 環(Hwan) 照(Zo). 흠뻑 하죠! Heum-bbeog-ha-zyo! My husband! At that condition I, your wife, will be glad for my life with you! (Heum-bbeog-ha-zyo!).

Deep permutation type design for Chinese characters

With their intricate visual structure and cultural significance, Chinese characters present a unique realm for exploration in graphic design. However, the integration of graphic elements, such as two-dimensional primitives that are not limited to straight or curved strokes, into Chinese-type design relies mainly on the designer’s intuition. This paper investigates the application of deep permutation design methods to Chinese type design to explore the esthetic potential of graphic-based type design in a systematic and algorithmic manner. For this purpose, we propose a novel framework and present an implementation named ‘Permutype’, which operates in three phases: representation, generation, and evaluation. Through a series of visual experiments, we demonstrate how our framework promotes novel permutations and esthetic possibilities for Chinese characters. The methodology offers flexible graphics and exhaustive optimal scheme searches based on objective criteria and has the potential for extensive font libraries.