Traditional Chinese Characters Research Articles

A study of the commodification of multilingualism in four cafés in China

Abstract Space is constructed as a particular place by various agents and in a variety of ways, and languages play an important role in the semiotic construction of a space. This study adopts a linguistic landscape approach to explore how languages are commodified for consumption in sites of luxury, i.e., four cafés in Quanzhou, a southeastern city of China. The findings show some similarities and differences in terms of language choice for the four cafés. Despite the similarities and differences, the four shops’ landscapes feature atmospheric multilingualism, where multiple languages and scripts move into a luxury register of late-modern consumption and create the affective regime of luxury and exclusivity. Atmospheric multilingualism is driven by commercial interests and characterized by the commodification of multilingualism and a division of labor among languages in four cafés. In this division, English, other foreign languages, and traditional Chinese characters are employed for their symbolic functions, indexing cosmopolitanism, distinction, luxury, and modernity. Simplified Chinese characters are linked to the interaction order and used in daily business as the main instrument of communication.

The buy-one-get-(almost)-one-free effect of learning traditional or simplified Chinese characters

A set of simplified Chinese characters (k = 995) and their traditional counterparts were presented to habitual traditional and simplified Chinese users, respectively, for recognition. The results showed an accuracy rate of at least 85% in the recognition of simplified characters by traditional Chinese users and in the recognition of traditional characters by simplified Chinese users. Additionally, it took the traditional Chinese users about 2.4 rounds of exposure to correct answers to learn and correctly identify all the simplified characters; it took the simplified Chinese users about 1.8 rounds to learn the traditional ones to the same effect. The results indicate that once the learners have mastered one script, the substantial overlaps between the two, along with a simple feedback for learning, enable the learners to make sense of the other easily. The buy-one-get-(almost)-one-free effect serves to encourage learners of Chinese to pursue bi-script literacy, a realistic and pragmatic goal.

중국 전통 희곡의 존속에 대하여

Recently, traditional plays that show a combination pattern with online games and exist in a new field and a new way are breaking away from the way of scriptural plays. How should we recognize the crossover game and traditional crossover trend, which is sometimes considered a provocation against the “dignity of tradition”? Through this paper, I specifically tried to review how classical and modern, drama and game elements were fused, and to explore their achievements, problems, and future directions in terms of the modern succession of traditional plays. In this paper, the main research target is the 『Honor of Kings(王者荣耀)』 released game in 2015, which has recently been very popular among the game fields enjoyed by the younger generation in China. Game is a new play culture popular in modern digital society, and it seems to have nothing to do with ‘tradition’. Nevertheless, most of the hero characters in the 『Honor of Kings(王者荣耀)』 game are related to Chinese historical legends, myths or literature, and traditional Chinese culture and values are often projected on them. I believes that the combination of the hero shape character in the game and traditional Chinese characters is the most important cause of the popularity of 『Honor of Kings(王者荣耀)』, and especially focused on the connection with the play characters. Currently, 『Honor of Kings(王者荣耀)』 has officially uploaded the appearance of the hero's skin in conjunction with four plays: Beijing Opera(京劇), Kunqu Opera(崑曲), Sichuan opera(川劇), and Yue opera(越劇). First, as a combination of Peking opera(京劇) and game, it is the skin of Xiangyu(項羽) and Yuji(虞姬) in Peking opera 『Farewell My Concubine(霸王別嬉)』. Second, in the Kunqu Opera(崑曲) 『Jingmeng(惊梦)』, the figure of Duliniang(杜丽娘), which crosses life and death due to love, was transformed into one of the skin sculptures of the beautiful hero Zhenji(甄姬). Although it is not a traditional character, the Mengqi(梦奇), original hero character, in 『Honor of Kings(王者荣耀)』 was also given the skin appearance of Pangdarongrong(胖达荣荣) made by linking Sichuan opera(川劇) plays among traditional Local opera(地方戲). Finally, it is the shape of the game hero Nuxiaosheng(女小生) of Shangguanwaner(上官婉儿), which was introduced with traditional Yue opera(越劇) elements. Looking at these four aspects of game character formation related to Chinese plays, it can be seen that the original symbols and themes of the play characters are maintained as much as possible and the traditional play characteristics are never missed. Now that games have become a major play culture of the new generation, traditional Chinese plays are standing in front of the audience in a lively form of play, breaking away from the history of scripture and art. This shows confidence in traditional Chinese culture and at the same time gives a glimpse of the possibility of various methods and paths of traditional culture succession. Based on the review of this paper, its achievements and meanings were summarized in the following several ways. First, it was confirmed that traditional culture can give special vitality and competitiveness to games, which are modern plays. Second, it was found that online games equipped with traditions are a good platform for promoting history and traditional culture and a new channel for the spread of traditional culture. Finally, while seeking a sense of balance between art and the market, it is necessary to avoid the conservative view that traditional culture hesitates to compromise with the market of modern society. As mentioned above, it was confirmed that the convergence development of traditional culture and Internet games is a new method and opportunity for symbiosis and prosperity.

Yi Sheng Character Used in New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (Volume 1-4)

In view of the current situation that the teaching of Chinese characters' pronunciation is relatively separated from the font and meaning in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL), this thesis puts forward a plan to introduce the concept of "Yi Sheng character" in Shuowen Jiezi based on the fundamental, practicability and innovative of the New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (Volume 1-4). This thesis analyses all the Yi Sheng characters and Yi Sheng components mentioned in the "Basic Chinese Characters" section of the New Practical Chinese Reader Textbooks (Volumes 1-4), discusses their associations with modern pronunciation by ancient or modern pronunciation, traditional or simplified Chinese character and phonemic component, in a bid to summarise the associations in meanings between the Yi Sheng components and the Yi Sheng characters. In this way, foreign Chinese learners can gain a holistic understanding of the pronunciation-font-meaning combination of basic Chinese characters.

Style-independent radical sequence learning for zero-shot recognition of Small Seal script

Small Seal script (Chinese called XiaoZhuan), as the earliest archaic form of standardized Chinese script, is the predecessor of modern Chinese characters. However, the Small Seal character recognition remains a challenging task, due to various un-/semi-structured pictographic glyphs and writing styles. This paper proposes a style-independent pictographic radical decomposition for the zero-shot recognition of Small Seal script, by taking advantage of the inherent consistency of pictographic representations between the Small Seal script and the Traditional Chinese script (Chinese called Fanti). Specifically, we design a feature-level collaboration framework of two tasks. One is the XiaoZhuan-to-Fanti translation task, which employs a generative adversarial network (GAN) based dual-learning mechanism to learn style-independent and consistent pictographic feature representations from different styles of Small Seal and their corresponding Traditional Chinese characters. The other is a transformer-based pictographic radical sequence learning from the pictographic feature representations. Experiments demonstrate that our model has satisfactory recognition ability to various styles of Small Seal scripts, especially for the zero-shot recognition of those with unknown glyphs and unseen styles. The code is available at https://github.com/windyz77/SmallSealRecon.

왕양명의 지행합일과 중국 전통 캐릭터 나타의 자아 성찰

In recent animations, the main character is not a fixed character who plays an exemplary role, but is expressed as a changing character who achieves self-reflection through frustration. And the work focuses on this process. If the change to a self-reflecting character is a character that the modern audience wants, this phenomenon will occur regardless of the East and the West. If the transition to a character that changes from both East and West animations to self-reflection is increasing, the character in the work is more likely to follow this trend. In order to find out if the main phenomenon is happening in the East, I tried to check the works of traditional Chinese character Nezha by period. Only the process of following the given fate in The investiture of the gads was expressed, so it could be seen that self-reflection was unknown. It is expressed as a grown-up hero who has already completed self-reflection in <Prince Nezha's Triumph against Dragon King>. It could be seen that Nezha's self-reflection process was ignored. It details and expresses the process of completing self-reflection as a unity of local conduct through the frustration shown in <Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child>. Comparing the self-reflection of Nezha chara in these three periods, it was confirmed that as modern society progresses, characters that grow through individual anguish and self-reflection appear in Eastern animation. It was also found that the growth of characters is becoming the center of the story.

Internet use predicts Chinese character spelling performance of junior high school students: multiple mediating roles of pinyin input proficiency and net-speak experience.

To examine the complex relationship between Internet use experience and character spelling performance among Chinese junior high school students, the study explored the multiple mediating roles of Pinyin input proficiency and net-speak experience. A total of 447 Chinese junior high school students aged 12-15 years old completed the Internet Use Experience and Pinyin Input Proficiency Assessment, the Net-speak Experience Questionnaire and the Chinese Spelling Test. The results showed that: (1) All investigated variables were significantly correlated with each other, but there was no direct relationship between Internet use and Chinese spelling performance. (2) Pinyin input proficiency and net-speak experience play a chain mediating role in the relationship between Internet use and Chinese character spelling performance. Teens' Internet use experience indirectly and positively predicted Chinese character spelling performance through the mediation of Pinyin input method use and net-speak experience. The implication of this study is that Chinese children should be guided to engage in Internet activities that require Pinyin typing and use net-speak creatively in order to promote the traditional Chinese character spelling skills when instructing teenagers to engage in Internet activities.

New Insight into Liu Kang’s Village Scene (1931): A Non-Invasive Investigation by Technical Imaging

This study examines the intriguing peculiarities of the surface paint layer found in the painting Village scene (1931) by renowned Singapore artist Liu Kang (1911–2004). The incorporation of non-invasive visible light (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) photography techniques, combined with high-power digital microscopy, revealed unusual features on the surface paint layer. Flattened impastos, clusters of incrusted foreign paint unrelated to the existing paint scheme, and fragments of paper with printed traditional Chinese characters were identified on the painting’s surface. The results of the analyses cross-referenced with the archival photographs enabled the consideration of the specified features of the paint layer as unintentional damage caused by the artist due to inadequate storage and transportation conditions—paradoxically, in his attempt to protect the painting. As these damaged areas pose potential display and conservation problems, three conservation strategies were proposed based on ethical guidelines formulated by various governing bodies for the conservation profession. This study demonstrates that there is no universal conservation solution that can satisfy conflicting aesthetic and ethical opinions. The damage to the paint layer affects the visual properties of the artwork but also provides evidence of its complex history. In light of the above, there may be valid arguments both for returning the painting to its original state and for preserving its current condition. Therefore, good practice would require balanced judgments from conservators and curators, considering Village scene in the broader context of Liu Kang’s early painting practice and the existing archival information about the artist.

Research on Modern Packaging Design Combined with China Language and Culture

With the rapid development of commodity society, the market competition has become fierce. A wide variety of dazzling products compete for every inch of land in the consumer market, while the rules of the market game of survival of the fittest test the ability of merchants to innovate every minute. In particular, all kinds of group companies and multinational companies that appear at the same time with supermarkets focus on establishing the overall image of enterprise group products, good business reputation and reputation, and improving their competitiveness. How to make modern packaging design have deeper cultural connotation and national connotation has become the content and focus that modern packaging designers should pay close attention to. As an important means of inheriting national civilization, the deconstruction and reconstruction of Chinese characters provide new development opportunities for modern packaging design. Based on this, traditional textual elements are an important component of China's traditional culture. With the improvement of contemporary people's living standards, there are higher requirements for product packaging design. In order to meet the needs of social development, modern packaging design can seek inspiration from traditional Chinese textual elements. This article starts with traditional Chinese characters and modern packaging design, exploring the application of traditional Chinese character elements in modern packaging design.

Translation and Validation of the Gaming Disorder Test and Gaming Disorder Scale for Adolescents into Chinese for Taiwanese Young Adults

PurposeTo translate and cross-culturally adapt the Gaming Disorder Test (GDT) and Gaming Disorder Scale for Adolescents (GADIS-A) for use in Taiwan and to validate their internal consistency, construct validity, measurement invariance, and convergent validity in Taiwanese young adults. MethodsThe GDT and GADIS-A were translated into traditional (unsimplified) Chinese characters and culturally adapted according to standard guidelines. A sample of 608 Taiwanese university students were recruited online. All participants completed the GDT, GADIS-A, Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form (IGDS9-SF), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω. Factor structure was examined using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Measurement invariance in gender was assessed by three nested models in CFA. Convergent validity was determined by calculating Pearson's r among the GDT, GADIS-A, IGDS9-SF, and DASS-21. ResultsThe GDT and GADIS-A showed adequate internal consistency (both α and ω = 0.90). The CFA results supported a one-factor structure for the GDT and a two-factor structure for the GADIS-A. Measurement invariance across gender was supported for both the GDT and GADIS-A. The convergent validity of the GDT and GADIS-A were acceptable. ConclusionsThe Chinese versions of the GDT and GADIS-A are valid and reliable tools that can be used to assess gaming disorder in Taiwanese young adults. Measurement invariance across genders was supported for both tools. The convergent validity of the GDT and GADIS-A were also satisfactory.

Бээжин дэх төрийн хөвгүүдийн сургууль болон Монголын түүхэнд холбогдох нэгэн чулуун хөшөөний бичээсийн тухай

The Beijing Guozijian located at the Guozijian street in Beijing, China, was the imperial academy during the Yuan, Ming ,and Qing dynasties, and the last Guozijian of China. The Guozijian was first built in 1306 during the 24th year of Zhiyuan Reign of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and was reconstructed and renovated on a large scale during Yongle and Zhengtong reigns of the Ming Dynasty. This  article focused on study of inscription on stele erected  inside Imperial Academy (Gozijian.  There were three Mongol graduates names scarfed in traditional Chinese characters, fortunately remained in  well  condiition from 13th century. In this article the author made attempt to  restore their names in Mongolian, to determine who were these people,the time of erection of this stele monument.  

West meets east: Taking a stab at acupuncture point names.

Acupuncture point names written in Chinese Han characters often provide clinically useful information in both their literal and figurative meanings about location and therapeutic use. The World Health Organization (WHO) standard acupuncture nomenclature includes these names in Han characters in an unusual array that includes both "original" forms and, in parentheses, simplified forms. Construction of a multilingual table of acupuncture point names during development of a database revealed that the assumption that the "original" form in the WHO nomenclature was the traditional Chinese character was frequently false. The Han character forms in the pdf of the 2009 reprint of WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations were carefully compared with Han characters used in traditional and simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean writing systems. This work utilized three online tools: UnicodePlus, Unihan Database Lookup, and Wiktionary. Only 48% of the "original" character forms were traditional Chinese characters. The Unicode number was correct in 99%, but in most cases the East Asian font used was not a traditional Chinese one. The issue about Han character forms was also found in all earlier versions of the WHO standard acupuncture nomenclature. Other detected problems included the use of wrong characters for an "original" character form in one name and for a simplified character form in another name. The WHO standard acupuncture nomenclature should be revised with a focus on accuracy in the usage of Han characters.

Analysis of the notation system of the current elementary school music textbook Sijo(時調) score and search for effective notation method

본 연구는 현행 2015 개정 음악과 교육과정에 따른 초등학교 5~6학년군 전 8종 음악 교과서에 수록된 시조(時調) 악보를 대상으로 기보 체계를 분석하고, 중점적으로 고려할 요소 3가지(시조 악곡의 특성과 학습자의 발달 단계, 타 국악 가창곡 악보와의 연계성, 상급학교 시조 악보와의 연계성 등)를 추출하여 효과적인 기보 체계 방안을 모색하였으며, 향후 2022 개정 음악과 교육과정에 따른 교과서 집필 시 시조 악보의 기보 체계에 관한 시사점을 제공하는 데 목적을 둔다. 이에 대한 논의 내용을 정리하면 첫째, 시조 악곡의 음악적 특징을 효과적으로 나타내고 학습자의 시각적․직관적인 이해도 향상과 흥미 유발을 위해 양면의 공간에 하나의 선으로 이어지는 가락선 악보 형태로 기보해야 한다. 또한. 가락선 악보 사이에 사설의 어단성장(語短聲長) 특성이 드러나고 가락선의 높낮이와 관련된 율정(律程)의 차이를 명확히 구분하여 지시해야 하며, 장단보는 5박․8박 장단이 분절되지 않고 이어지도록 기보해야 한다. 둘째, 타 국악 가창곡 악보와의 연계성을 고려할 때 시조의 주된 악보 하단의 주요 활동에서 한자 율명과 서양식 한글 계이름이 병기되고 단순화된 3선 악보를 활용하고, 시조의 오선보를 참고 자료로 제시해야 한다. 셋째, 상급학교 시조 악보와의 연계성을 고려할 때 전통적인 한자 율명(律名)의 정간보를 참고 자료로 제시해야 하고, 이를 통해 정간보에 대한 배경지식을 일정 부분 축적할 수 있도록 도와야 하며, 국악 가창곡 악보와의 일관성을 위해 세로식이 아닌 가로식 선율 진행이어야 한다.This study analyzes the notation system for the Sijo score contained in all eight music textbooks in the 5th to 6th grade of elementary school according to the current 2015 revised music curriculum, and the three factors to be considered(characteristics of Sijo music and learner’s development stage, connection with other Korean traditional music song’s scores, and connection with senior school Sijo sores etc.) were extracted to find an effective notation system, and the purpose is to provide implications for the notation system of Sijo music when writing textbooks according to the music and curriculum revised in 2022. To summarize the discussion on this, first, it should be reported in the form of a musical score that leads to a line in both spaces to effectively show the musical characteristics of the Sijo music and to improve learners' visual and intuitive understanding and interest. In addition, the characteristics of the short-term growth of the editorial between the music scores should be clearly distinguished and instructed the difference in rhythm related to the height of the music line, and Jangdanbo(長短譜) should be notified so that the 5-beat and 8-beat Jangdan(長短) continue without being divided. Second, considering the connection with the scores of other Korean traditional music songs, the three-line music score should be used Chises-language Yulmyeongs(律名) and Western-style Five-line Musical Score in Korean as a reference for the main activities at the bottom of the Sijo's main score. Third, considering the connection with the Sijo score of senior schools, Jeongganbo(井間譜) of traditional Chinese characters should be presented as a reference, and through this, it should help to accumulate some background knowledge of Jeongganbo, for consistency with the score of the Korean traditional music song, it should be a horizontal melody progression, not a vertical one.

Style transfer network for complex multi-stroke text

Neural style transfer has achieved success in many tasks. It is also introduced to text style transfer, which uses a style image to generate transferred images with textures and shapes consistent with the semantic content of the reference image. However, when the text structure is complex, existing methods will encounter problems such as stroke adhesion and unclear text edges. This will affect the aesthetics of the generated image and bring a lot of extra workload to the designers. This paper proposes an improved text style transfer network for complex multi-stroke texts. We use shape-matching GAN as the baseline and perform the following modifications: (1) morphological methods, erosion and dilation, are introduced in image processing; (2) the SN-Resblock is added to the structure network, and a BCEWithLogits loss is added to the texture network; (3) AdaBelief optimizer is adopted to constrain the transfer of text structure. Further, a new dataset of traditional Chinese characters is constructed to train the model. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods on both simple characters and complex multi-stroke characters. It is shown that our method increases the readability and aesthetics of the text.

Typographic design of outdoor signage, restaurant authenticity, and consumers’ willingness to dine: extending semiotic theory

PurposeRestaurants’ outdoor signage plays an irreplaceable role in attracting potential diners, as it conveys important functional and symbolic meanings of the businesses. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of typographic design elements of outdoor signage on consumers’ perceptions of authenticity. This study also tests the linkage between authenticity and willingness to dine, as well as the moderating effect of frequency of dining in ethnic restaurants on the relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing a 2 (simplified vs traditional Chinese characters) × 2 (calligraphy vs computer font) × 2 (vertical vs horizontal text flow) between-subject design, the authors did two experiments with 786 Chinese diners. Restaurant authenticity and willingness to dine are dependent variables, and openness to ethnic cuisine is the control variable.FindingsDisplay characters and text flow significantly affect restaurant authenticity. Furthermore, the results of this study demonstrate that display characters interact with typeface to influence restaurant authenticity. Consumers’ perceived authenticity significantly increases their willingness to dine. The frequency of dining in ethnic restaurants moderates the relationship between restaurant authenticity and willingness to dine.Practical implicationsEthnic restaurateurs should pay attention to the outdoor signage design, as it affects potential consumers’ authenticity perceptions. Specifically, in Mainland China, traditional Chinese characters and vertical text direction increase potential consumers’ authenticity perceptions.Originality/valueThis study extends the semiotic theory and applies the cue–judgment–behavior model in the hospitality literature. This study also provides new understanding of authenticity by identifying the influence of typographic design on authenticity, which confirms the semiotic theory that certain semiotic cues affect consumers’ judgments.

Short traditional and long simplified: The paradox of contemporary traditional Taiwanese characters that consist of fewer strokes than their equivalent simplified forms

Traditional Chinese characters are usually written with at least as many strokes as simplified characters, but there are Chinese characters with fewer strokes in their Taiwanese traditional forms than in their Mainland Chinese simplified forms. This study lists these characters and gives the reasons for the differences between their traditional and simplified forms. These reasons will lead to the conclusion that there are motivations for orthographic choices in Mainland China and Taiwan that extend beyond the desire for standardization or simplification. These motivations have been explicitly expressed in texts dictating the rules for standard character forms, but are little known and rarely discussed. This study brings these motivations to the forefront and shows the effects they have had on orthographic policy, in particular where differing motivations between Mainland China and Taiwan have caused Taiwanese traditional characters to consist of fewer strokes than their simplified equivalents. The root cause underlying the different choices made by the Mainland Chinese script authorities and their Taiwanese counterparts post-1949 is a difference in ideology. In Mainland China, the script was a tool to be employed in such a way as to achieve a practical goal, namely mass literacy. Since achieving this goal was thought to require or at least be facilitated by simplifying the script, that course of action was taken. In Taiwan, however, the goal of script policy is to preserve the traditional way of writing characters. In practice, this means that unlike simplified characters, Taiwanese traditional characters are preferably made to structurally conform to their seal script forms in the Shuoˉwén Jieˇzì, leaving certain Taiwanese traditional characters with lower stroke counts than their equivalent simplified forms. Thus, Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese character forms are different because the Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese script authorities ultimately want different things from their scripts.

CCFont: Component-Based Chinese Font Generation Model Using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

Font generation using deep learning has made considerable progress using image style transfer, but the automatic conversion/generation of Chinese characters still remains a difficult task owing to the complex character shape and large number of Chinese characters. Most known Chinese character generation models use the image conversion method of the Chinese character shape itself; however, it is difficult to reproduce complex Chinese characters. Recent methods have utilized character compositionality by separating up to three or four components to improve the quality of generated characters, but it is still difficult to generate high-quality results for complex Chinese characters with many components. In this study, we proposed the CCFont model (component-based Chinese font generation model using generative adversarial networks (GANs)) that automatically generates all Chinese characters using Chinese character components (up to 17 components). The CCFont model generates all Chinese characters in various styles using the components of Chinese characters based on conditional GAN. By acquiring local style information from the components, the information is more accurate and there is less information loss than when global information is obtained from the image of the entire character, reducing the failure of style conversion and improving quality to produce high-quality results. Additionally, the CCFont model generates high-quality results without any additional training (zero-shot font generation without any additional training) for the first-seen characters and styles. For example, the CCFont model, which was trained with only traditional Chinese (TC) characters, generates high-quality results for languages that can be divided into components, such as Korean and Thai, as well as simplified Chinese (SC) characters that are only seen during inference. CCFont can be adopted as a multi-lingual font-generation model that can be applied to all languages, which can be divided into components. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed method is the first to generate a zero-shot multilingual generation model using components. Qualitative and quantitative experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Chinese Character Errors

Based on the corpus, this research conducts a systematic statistical and analysis on the types of Chinese characters errors of Chinese learners from different countries. It is found that errors of traditional Chinese characters are the main types of learners from Philippines, Indo-European language countries and Sino-Tibetan language countries. Learners from Japan, South Korea and North Korea have the highest frequency of wrongly written characters. To know the frequency of various types of errors in learners with different native language backgrounds could provide reference for the teaching of Chinese characters as a second language.

량스추(梁實秋)의 『셰익스피어 전집』 번역 의미에 관한 연구

This paper tries to discuss what kind of translation values Liang Shiqiu used to translate Shakespeare’s Complete Works. This study finds that Liang Shiqiu’s Shakespeare’s Complete Works is an example of a vibrant and accessible literary translation, exhibits many developments in translation methods, and is a great example of Chinese translation history. He worked on translation with the belief that various personalities in Shakespeare’s literature created a powerful psychological insight into the human condition. To this end, he carefully analyzed the original text before translating, and found ways to improve its fidelity and readability. He paid attention to the original artistry of the drama, and tried to preserve the structure of the original as much as possible, so that readers could experience a text that is similar to the original. He also attempted to promote the development of modern Chinese literature by absorbing new ideas, vocabulary, and idioms into his translation practices. This paper reveals how, in doing so, he firstly implicitly recognized the culture of foreign countries by translating familiar images that would reflect the social customs of foreign countries or the psychology or emotions of the people. Second, he improved readers’ understanding by annotating background knowledge on idioms or shapes with complex cultural implications. Third, he showed the characteristics of a so-called “Europeanized translation” methodology, in which exact phrase formats in the original text are replicated. Fourth, he enhanced the connotation and elegance of Shakespeare’s sentences with a classical translation that demonstrates the advantages of traditional Chinese characters.

Singapore hawker centres

Abstract This paper is a sociolinguistic study of the linguistic landscape of signboards in Singapore hawker centres. It examines the language(s) displayed on the signboards of 2,145 stalls in the 20 largest hawker centres in Singapore. Hawker centres in Singapore are open-air eating places patronised by thousands of people each day. With less government intervention in the languages that can be displayed on hawker centre signboards, the signs reflect the languages used and identities adopted by the masses in a multilingual setting. This language ecology enables us to observe how languages interact at individual and societal levels in hawker centres and how linguistic diversity is maintained despite the apparent widespread use of English in Singapore. We examine how besides the monolingual, bilingual and multilingual and hybrid signboards, hawker centres are unique habitats in this language ecology where non-Mandarin dialects are preserved, and traditional Chinese characters are commonly seen, in a globalised Singapore. The hawker centres showcase a linguistic landscape of identity, diversity, and continuity.