Forms Of Chinese Characters Research Articles

Between Calligraphic Untranslatability and Symbolic Translatability: Xu Bing’s Pictographic Art

ABSTRACT Emily Apter’s conception of the “untranslatable” taps into the dynamics and difficulties of translation between languages and cultures. The process of translation is described as a “intransigent nub of meaning that triggers endless translating in response to its resistant singularity.” When words are taken out of their context, the idiosyncratic meaning is obliterated and revamped. On the one hand, different from the Derridean critique of Western logocentric bias of writing, Chinese characters, particularly written in the form of calligraphy, are faced with great challenges when they need to be translated into other non-pictographic languages. The strokes, pauses, structures, ink tones and sizes in Chinese calligraphy all contribute to the meaning of the text imminent to the artist’s spatiotemporal situation and fluctuations of his/her mental state. To a large extent, the calligraphic art resists the temptation of translation, either into other languages, or into Chinese characters in print. On the other hand, Chinese characters with their pictographic quality have the potential to transcend the phonocentric confines of languages and are possible to be translated into a universal language. The Chinese artist Xu Bing 徐冰 plays with the calligraphic form of Chinese characters in his artworks. In his project Book from the Sky 天書 (Tianshu), he extracts the strokes and radicals from the Chinese characters and rearranges them into new artificial and meaningless ones, containing the imagist form and obliterating the meaning. In Book from the Ground 地書 (Dishu), Xu uses symbols from the public sphere and makes them into a book, which is accessible to people of different linguistic backgrounds. I argue that by playing with the Chinese characters as pictographic signs and other public signs, Xu Bing’s artistic practices challenge the border between the singular and the universal, and the translatable and the untranslatable, rendering implications for the cross-lingual translation.

What Visibilising Pedagogical Approaches do the Chinese as a Foreign Language (cfl) Teachers Adopt in the Teaching of Chinese Characters?

Abstract Chinese can be considered as one of the more challenging languages to learn for many non-native learners. Its complicated visual script, the Chinese characters, demands that teachers be proficient in utilizing diverse visual pedagogical approaches, coupled with different digital visual tools, to enhance their teaching effectiveness. Adopting a descriptive qualitative analysis method, interview transcripts from fourteen cfl teachers were examined. There were five online teachers, four university teachers and five pre-service teachers. The findings revealed that: 1) all the teachers use various visual pedagogical approaches, such as pictures, videos, Chinese character digital image files, Chinese character studying applications, and websites, to enhance the effectiveness of Chinese character learning, as well as motivate and engage learners; 2) teachers choose different pedagogical approaches to help students visualise characters as a whole unit or as several separate radical components; 3) the use of Pinyin to input characters on digital devices has been widely taught in class; and 4) online teachers, and some pre-service teachers, have replaced traditional handwriting methods with digital character input methods, whereas university teachers have not made this shift. The ways in which these perspectives relate to the form of Chinese characters and developing teaching practices are discussed.

Is animation always better for learning Chinese characters?

Abstract The present study investigated the effect of animations on Chinese character learning in multimedia presentations. In particular, we examined whether animations focusing on different knowledge of characters would yield different performance among students learning Chinese characters. The role of the animations which focused on the etymology of Chinese characters was tested in Experiment 1 with twelve English secondary school students. The results found that etymological animations were superior to flashcards for learners in recognizing forms of Chinese characters but not for understanding their meanings. In Experiment 2, the effect of animations which focused on demonstrating stroke order along with the audio explanations and on-screen written texts was addressed with 60 Thai secondary school students. The results revealed that animations demonstrating stroke order did not provide learners with advantages in orthographic learning. However, the findings support the redundant principle that static imagery and spoken and written text together facilitated character learning. In addition, the study showed that the students’ pace and flexibility of learning, the level of character difficulty, and students’ active processing have significant roles in character learning performance in a multimedia settings. This study provides implications for the design of multimedia instruction in foreign language acquisition and sheds light on the theoretical assumptions of dual-coding theory regarding learners’ cognitive loads in multimedia processing.

Is Chinese Spelling Check ready? Understanding the correction behavior in real-world scenarios

The task of Chinese Spelling Check (CSC) is crucial for identifying and rectifying spelling errors in Chinese texts. While prior work in this domain has predominantly relied on benchmarks such as SIGHAN for evaluating model performance, these benchmarks often exhibit an imbalanced distribution of spelling errors. They are typically constructed under idealized conditions, presuming the presence of only spelling errors in the input text. This assumption does not hold in real-world scenarios, where spell checkers frequently encounter a mix of spelling and grammatical errors, thereby presenting additional challenges. To address this gap and create a more realistic testing environment, we introduce a high-quality CSC evaluation benchmark named YACSC (Yet Another Chinese Spelling Check Dataset). YACSC is unique in that it includes annotations for both grammatical and spelling errors, rendering it a more reliable benchmark for CSC tasks. Furthermore, we propose a hierarchical network designed to integrate multidimensional information, leveraging semantic and phonetic aspects, as well as the structural forms of Chinese characters, to enhance the detection and correction of spelling errors. Through extensive experiments, we evaluate the limitations of existing CSC benchmarks and illustrate the application of our proposed system in real-world scenarios, particularly as a preliminary stage in writing assistant systems.

Automatic construction of a dictionary of variant forms of Chinese characters

Abstract Many Chinese characters have more than one form of writing owing to complex nature of creation and long evolvement history of writing. Most existing Chinese dictionaries list these variant forms but do not explain in a systematic way why a specific character is a variant form of another, and only list a few older key bibliographies, many of which are themselves dictionaries of various forms. In this article we present a new theory and practice of how to determine whether a Chinese character is a variant of another, and show how we can deduce a dictionary of variant characters automatically from a corpus of ancient Chinese texts totaling 2.3 billion characters with artificial intelligence techniques. Results show that in over 74,000 instances of identified variant character groups, more than 20,000 new instances are found by our algorithm. We have then compiled all the instances into a dictionary and call it Dictionary of Chinese Variant Words (異體字詞典, Yiti Zi Cidian). The key insight of our theory is to find synonymous words with variant characters. The dictionary has already been put online for several years and everyone can freely access and edit it like the way they do on Wikipedia.

戰國時期 秦系文字의 筆劃 및 偏旁의 繁化에 대한 考察

In the process of development for Chinese characters, despite of the fact that it has been in the pursuit of reducing original strokes and radicals for the sake of conciseness and convenience, it also has reflected its complexity and thrive to suit the needs of development in actual use. The multiplications of Chinese characters are meant to add a number of new parts or radicals to the original forms of characters, however, the sounds and the meaning of the characters remain the same, therefore sometimes the multiplications can be “optional”. Besides the basic form of Chinese characters in Warring States period, they are mostly decorative pens to play the role of flourishing decorations as well as beautification, which has not much been related with the original forms regardless of the basic formations. The so-called decoration pens and decoration strokes are additional parts; whereas, the multiplications , that is, from conciseness to complications, is of the same importance as the simplifications of Chinese characters in their progression history,that is to say, radicals or strokes are added to the original characters(including pictophonetic characters as well as sound symbols) to increase strokes based on the basic form, and this kind of multiplication phenomenon has been referred to as re-creating of characters from the original ones. It can be seen that in Chinese characters, the pictophonetic characters, ancient and contemporary characters, differentiated and accumulated characters are all consequences of the multiplications of Chinese characters.

A study on East-Asian designations of pufferfish

In ancient Korea, pufferfish were called “복” or “복어,” whereas they have been called “hétún” (河豚) since the Ming dynasty in China, and were called “fugu” in ancient Japan. Since the introduction of the Chinese term “hétún” (河豚) into Korean and Japanese, pufferfish in Korea, China, and Japan have all been named “河豚.” Besides “하돈” (the Korean pronunciation of 河豚), pufferfish have been given various designations, such as the following: “후태” (鯸鮐) or “반어” (斑魚) based upon body patterns; “후이” (鯸鮧)” or “호이” (鰗鮧) by shape; and “기포어” (氣泡魚), “취두어” (吹肚魚), and “布久” by the look of its swollen belly. Other designations, such as “검돈” (黔魨), “작돈” (鵲魨), “활돈” (滑魨), “とらふぐ,” “からす,” and “ヒガンフグ,” were derived from pufferfish species, and designations like “진어” (嗔鱼) and “てっぽう” that originated from their habit also exist. As above, “복어” has various designations in each of the three countries, Korea, China, and Japan. These designations, composed of Chinese characters, influenced the others, and each country and ethnic group helped to form or transform new vocabularies. In particular, numerous terms concerning object designations in the forms of Chinese characters reveal hidden definitions of the ethnic groups and cultures in these designations. This study is focused on puffer designations in Korea, China, and Japan, how the puffer was named in each country from ancient through to modern times, and where the designations originated, and tries to determine the characteristics of each country’s puffer designations through investigation of the species and types of “pufferfish.”

A study on East-Asian designations of pufferfish

In ancient Korea, pufferfish were called “복” or “복어,” whereas they have been called “hétún” (河豚) since the Ming dynasty in China, and were called “fugu” in ancient Japan. Since the introduction of the Chinese term “hétún” (河豚) into Korean and Japanese, pufferfish in Korea, China, and Japan have all been named “河豚.” Besides “하돈” (the Korean pronunciation of 河豚), pufferfish have been given various designations, such as the following: “후태” (鯸鮐) or “반어” (斑魚) based upon body patterns; “후이” (鯸鮧)” or “호이” (鰗鮧) by shape; and “기포어” (氣泡魚), “취두어” (吹肚魚), and “布久” by the look of its swollen belly. Other designations, such as “검돈” (黔魨), “작돈” (鵲魨), “활돈” (滑魨), “とらふぐ,” “からす,” and “ヒガンフグ,” were derived from pufferfish species, and designations like “진어” (嗔鱼) and “てっぽう” that originated from their habit also exist. As above, “복어” has various designations in each of the three countries, Korea, China, and Japan. These designations, composed of Chinese characters, influenced the others, and each country and ethnic group helped to form or transform new vocabularies. In particular, numerous terms concerning object designations in the forms of Chinese characters reveal hidden definitions of the ethnic groups and cultures in these designations. This study is focused on puffer designations in Korea, China, and Japan, how the puffer was named in each country from ancient through to modern times, and where the designations originated, and tries to determine the characteristics of each country’s puffer designations through investigation of the species and types of “pufferfish.”

Study of the Distribution and Modification of Writing in Proto-Chinese Language Communities: Correct Identification of Hieroglyphic Signs in the Jiaguwen Inscriptions

The Chinese language uses the ideographic writing. The outer form of Chinese characters in 3rd century ВС and later underwent strong changes, which were caused mainly by change in the technique of writing. In the first century AD the writing style that has survived to the present time. We recall some of main results of the spread and change of linguistic information in certain Chinese community obtained with the help of a dynamic nonlinear model. Undoubtedly, Oracle script writings Jiaguwen (甲骨文) played an important role in this process. We consider it quite legitimate to discuss rather about the written language of the Chinese language, as main link between ancient Chinese, Middle Chinese, and modern Chinese languages Putonghua. In the study of the oldest examples of art, culture and science, for example, such as Jiaguwen, there is a need to study ancient hieroglyphs depicted on the surface of a tortoise shell, copper vessel or stone. New method for correct solving of an inverse problem for pattern recognition is presented. Our method is based on photometry of the studied surface. The obtained data are digitally processed in order to determine the characteristics and parameters characterizing the properties of the investigated surface. The possibilities and limitations of the method, as well as the mathematical model of the groove in the optical range, are given. The main attention is paid to the development of methods for more accurate calculation of the number of solitary grooves and structural elements such as hieroglyphs or ancient Chinese radicals (部首 / bùshǒu). This task is part of the complex inverse problem of pattern recognition, namely: identification of various structural elements, for example, ancient hieroglyphs depicted on the surface of a tortoise shell. To solve this important problem, two main methods were proposed, which are based on the study of both the initial photometric data and the study of their Fourier spectra. The first method allows you to visually identify the location of the characters along the photometric line and determine their approximate number. The second method allows us to get a stable and unambiguous solution to this problem: to determine accurately the number of characters on the photometric line.

О видах калмыцких родовых тамг

The study gives a review of the Kalmyk clan sings called tamga. The article identifies the main types of these signs. The author points out that tamgas in their image have simple geometrical figures that can be the evidence of their ancient origin and the high probability of duplication in different nations. The most simple geometrical figure in the system of the clan signs has a form of a straight line and also an angle with sides of different length. One of the most popular images is a cross that in the folk culture is associated with cross piece of the smoke flap of the yurt. There are a lot of tamgas in the shape of a circle or, as the Kalmyks call it in the system of tamgas, iron ring. The variety of this type of tamgas is set up based on the number of rings and their position in relation to each other. There were popular tamgas in the shape of a semicircle that differed in the direction of the image and also in the shape of bident or trident. The authors’ materials point to the fact that there could also be sings in the form of Chinese characters. All things considered, there are several desiderata in the study of Kalmyk tamgas and their further study will allow to enlarge the list of tamga types.

漢字文化圈現行常用漢字字形比較

Chinese characters have been adopted in the Chinese writing system, which is a logograph ic system, in contrast with phonographic system in Semitic alphabet, which has been adopted in Arabic, Roman, and Cyrillic scripts. Chinese characters has also been borrowed and modif ied by China’s neighboring countries such as Korean, Japan and Vietnam during the past two thousand years, yielding variations. While the simplified characters are now used in mainland China since 1950s, the traditional full forms of characters remain to be used in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and oversea Chinese communities around the world. At the same time, Japanese has also recently created a set of new characters, which are distinct from both full forms and simplified forms of Chinese characters. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a three-way systematic comparison of the commonly used Chinese charac ters in contemporary East Asia for the facilitation of teaching and learning Chinese and Japanese writing systems as a second language.

Which form of Chinese Characters is More Beneficial to Education: Research of the Influencing Factors Based on Aliquot Linear Regression

There are two forms of Chinese characters, the simplified and the complex form. The simplified Chinese characters are widely used in most parts of China, while the complex form are still used in several parts of China, namely Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Some studies proposed that the complex Chinese characters are conducive to improving the learning effects, but some scholars hold opposite views. In order to further explore the role of different forms of Chinese characters in field of education, this paper studied the factors affecting the learning effects and willingness of students who use simplified Chinese characters for a long time. With the questionnaire experiment and the aliquot linear regression method, data were collected, processed and analyzed. This analysis shows the complex Chinese characters have an impact on certain students' learning effects and willingness, while some will learn better using simplified characters. These differences vary from person to person due to individual’s specific situation, which provides some suggestions to education practice.

Worüber man nicht spricht: Tabus, Schweigen und Redeverbote in China ed. by Rüdiger Breuer and Heiner Roetz

Reviewed by: Worüber man nicht spricht: Tabus, Schweigen und Redeverbote in China ed. by Rüdiger Breuer and Heiner Roetz Anna Stecher (bio) Rüdiger Breuer and Heiner Roetz, editors. Worüber man nicht spricht: Tabus, Schweigen und Redeverbote in China. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien 12. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018. 241 pp. Paperback € 50.00, isbn 978-3-447-10807-2. Whether to talk or not to talk, and, assuming one decides to talk, how to talk about something—these appear to be quite topical issues of our times: times in which scholars of Chinese present their work differently in and outside of China, engage in long meditations about how to use a specific word, or bury themselves in the endless material of Chinese texts of all ages still awaiting their philological exploration. Fortunately, this book is not about sinologists but rather about China and, as is revealed in the subtitle, more specifically about "taboos, silence and bans on speaking." Therefore, the authors of the book undertake the challenging experiment of talking about issues of non-talking. In doing this, they touch on questions related to freedom of speech, censorship, and related issues with communicative processes They have wisely chosen, however, not to frame their questions in terms of these buzzwords but rather to sketch out their program simply as "What one should not talk about." The title of the book could be seen as a free translation of buyu 不語 and bujiang 不讲. These two concepts were at the center of the 2015 meeting of the German Association of Chinese Studies (DVCS) and the book is a collection of some of the presentations made there. As the organizers of the conference and editors of the book point out in the preface, they have consciously opted for the combination of traditional and simplified characters in order to embrace topics related to different times and areas of Chinese studies. In the opening chapter, Heiner Roetz directly addresses some key questions regarding these seminal Chinese notions of buyu 不語 and bujiang 不讲. The source for 不語 is one of the most famous ancient Chinese texts, Confucius's Lunyu, more specifically passage 7.21, which runs: zi bu yu guai li luan shen 子不語怪力亂神 ("The Master did not talk about extraordinary [End Page 14] things, feasts of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings") (trans. Legge as quoted in Roetz). Discussing different translations as well as interpretations of this passage, Roetz points out that there is no consensus regarding its meaning. To summarize briefly the differing views: some scholars say that it means that Confucius did not speak about spirits because he had no interest in religion. Others explain that he didn't dare to speak about them because of respect. Roetz also mentions a further reading which understands the passage to mean simply that Confucius remained silent. The background for bujiang 不讲 is a text from twenty-first century China, specifically the so-called Document Number 9 from 2013, also known as the "Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere" attributed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It mentions seven issues that should not be talked about. These are: 1, constitutional democracy; 2, universal values; 3, civil society; 4, neoliberalism; 5, Western journalism; 6, historical nihilism; 7, questioning Reform and Opening and the socialist nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics (trans. loosely based on ChinaFile, mentioned by Roetz). As Roetz points out, in contrast to the Lunyu passage, there can be no doubt regarding the meaning of this text. And, if anyone could have had doubts about its relevance in 2013, it appears to have become common knowledge in the meantime that a new emphasis on ideological tightening is one of the characteristics of Chinese propaganda of the "New Era." As the reader of Chinese will immediately notice, by addressing buyu and bujiang together in this way, the editors establish a bridge not only between different forms of Chinese characters but also between the field of literature and philosophy and the field of history and politics, between the times of Confucius and the times of Xi Jinping. The result is a book dealing with a wide area of topics ranging from taboos...

A Study of Chinese Character Teaching in the Context of Chinese International Education

The study of Chinese character is a science of Chinese character ontology, which focuses on the form of Chinese characters. Some scholars put forward the theory of Chinese character configuration, its core content is “according to a certain rationale constitute and the development of the law to explore the shape of Chinese characters, including individual character composition model and the overall structure of Chinese characters contained in the law”. It is intended to be used as a theoretical guide for the teaching of Chinese characters in foreign languages and to try to solve the problems encountered in the teaching process.

A Textual Research into Que(闕)of Pang(旁) in Shuowenjiezi(≪說文解字≫)

There are different explanations of Que(闕) of Pang(旁) in Shuowenjiezi(說文解字). Scholars not only had different understanding of the cause of its creation and different interpretations of its definition, but also differed greatly in the explanations of Que(闕) and in supplement to it since Song Dynasty. Some scholars consider that Que(闕)originates from Shuowenjiezi(≪說文解字≫). For instance, Xu, Kai(徐?)in Southern Tang believes that without teacher`s explanation of `Cong Shang`(從上)of Pang(旁), Xu, Shen(許愼) notes Que(闕). Duan, Yucai(段玉裁) and Wang, Yun(王筠) in Qing Dynasty believe that Xu, Shen(許愼)is not konwing well “□” in Pang(旁)causes using Que(闕); while others such as Yan, Kejun(嚴可均) and Yao, Wentian(姚文田) in Qing Dynasty consider that Que(闕) does not originate from Shuowenjiezi(≪說文解字≫). It is added by later scholars. They analyze that Que(闕) is added for the lost part in Shuowenjiezi(≪說文解字≫) by collators. Based on the form of Pang(旁) on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty and ancient bronze objects,and Chinese character studies of“tongyi”(同意), this article sorts out the intention of its creation and evolution process of Pang`s(旁) form and then analyzes the origin of Que(闕) of Pang(旁). From the former research, it is believed that the Que (闕) of Pang(旁) is caused by the gradual change of the forms of Chinese characters, and created by Xu, Shen(許愼).

Republic in early modern China: The cross-cultural dissemination of a political concept

ABSTRACTThe English term republic and the Chinese term Gonghe (共和, “joint harmony”; i.e., “republic” in modern Chinese) stem from different conceptual origins and carry different connotations. When they first encountered the term republic, the intellectuals of China and Japan could only understand it by drawing on the political knowledge of Chinese antiquity. But soon after, two different concepts corresponding to the term republic emerged in the form of Chinese characters within the Chinese and Japanese linguistic environments—minzhu (民主, “people's rule”) and gonghe, which gradually shed their ancient Chinese significations. After its coining as an early modern political concept in the Japanese language, the term gonghe sporadically filtered into the Chinese linguistic context during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1898–1902, the concept of gonghe rapidly gained popularity in China, primarily due to its introduction by Liang Qichao (梁启超, 1873–1929) and other figures, with a clearly demarcated line separating the term from its ancient Chinese significance. As the concept of gonghe spread in China, it became embroiled in the contemporary tide of political reform, both influencing and being influenced by this trend. In the first decade of the 20th century, two competing interpretations of the term gonghe appeared. The moderates, represented by Liang Qichao, maintained that the evolution of the political system had a natural order; that their contemporary China did not yet have the conditions to adopt a republican system; and that it was necessary to first improve the citizens’ character, and cultivate the habits of self-governance among the people. The radicals, represented by Sun Yat-sen (孙中山, 1866–1925), held that China should overleap a constitutional monarchy, overthrow the Manchu emperor through violent revolution, and directly establish a republican form of government. The views of the radical party won discursive power, but their discussions and deliberations on the implications of a republic were clearly inadequate. Following the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution, a republican form of government was quickly established, but its functional results fell far short of people's expectations, causing the concept of a republic to be distrusted, criticized, and even shelved.

Neuroaesthetics Research in the Construction of Chinese Character Art

The cognitive mechanism of the brain's visual nerves is the inherent biological basis for the artistic creation and aesthetics of Chinese characters, which has a profound and even decisive influence on the visual construction and cultural communication of Chinese character art. It is mainly manifested in the neural perception model of the forms of Chinese characters, the abstraction and integration instinct of biological visuals, the neural cognition of enhanced adaptability and the neural mirror of aesthetic psychological space, which is the source of formulating the rules of Chinese character art, which is a combination of font and meaning.

A Contrastive Study of Brand Names in English and Chinese

A brand is shown by a name, a word, a sign, a symbol, a design or a combination of them. It is intended to identify the products or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors. For the good brand has the functions of distinguishing, providing information of products and being symbol of credit , the good brand has a good advertisement for the product and help to take in a larger market . Most brand names in Chinese are in the form of Chinese characters or Pinyin. In the West sense of individuality is very prevailing. What’s more, the companies usually belong to individuals, thus the personal names or surnames are used in brand names. On the contrary, Confucianism is the main stream in traditional Chinese culture which underlines hospitality and harmony, and belittles individualism. It is very important to select a brand name in the present-day brand competitive world. Several skills are employed in translating brand names. Among them are transliteration, paraphrase and complementary translation. The translation is deemed a success as long as it can provoke the consumers’ good association and their desires for purchasing the products.

A Technology of CNC Punching of Chinese Characters

The punching process with CNC is getting more and more important in the modern metal stamping field. But it is still difficult to realize NC punching the Chinese characters in manufacturing. Furthermore, it is expensive for processing forms of Chinese characters like thread cutting, laser cutting, etc. In addition, the ability to process the characters in a large size is restricted by the efficiency and the size of the machine. Therefore, this paper shows the details about programmable automation which is used in the characters processing on CNC punching machine. The content includes: getting the font parameter of character from DXF file, building the curve function for contour of characters, and creating G code for NC punching process. This technic provides a new method on processing big-size Chinese characters. And this technology can improve the efficiency and precision, and reduce the distortion of contour gotten by traditional program.

How Semantics is Embodied through Visual Representation: Image Schemas in the Art of Chinese Calligraphy

<p>This study aims to investigate abstract reasoning and embodied cognition through the analysis of image schemas and conceptual metaphors in the interplay of art and language. Chinese calligraphy is noteworthy due to its unique embodied characteristics and image-schematic representations of visual art and language. The art of Chinese calligraphy not only represents the visual forms of Chinese characters but also conveys meanings, emotion, and style, demonstrating the aesthetics of language and art. By analyzing image schemas and metaphors in classical works of art, this paper shows how semantics is conceptualized and embodied through visual representation of Chinese calligraphy. In this study, we examine how semantics is visualized within the topological structure of cognitive mechanisms of a CONTAINER schema, the crucial image schema that structures the conceptualization of spatial relation concepts. This paper proposes that the CONTAINER schema, the BALANCE schema, the FORCE schema, as well as the metaphors SIGNIFICANCE IS SIZE and MIND IS A BODY, which may motivate the calligrapher’s creative process, underlie the art of Chinese calligraphy.</p>