1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

National Language Reform Movement in Modern China

Research Project

Project/Area Number	08610456
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	中国語・中国文学
Research Institution	The University of Tokyo
Principal Investigator	MURATA Yujiro The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Science, Assistant Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 助教授 (70190923)
Project Period (FY)	1996 – 1997
Keywords	Language / Nationalism / China
Research Abstract	Through my research, I have reached a tentative conclusion that the vernacular style language movement (HAKUWA UNDO) of modrn Chine has some continuous dimensions to the imperial period. That is why China's language reform in writing are somewhat different from that of modern Western states or Meiji Japan, though both are similar in the way that these countries were to emancipate themselves from the control of the imperial common languages. This kind of continuity in writing Chinese brought to modern China the repeated language reform movements that called for the more vernacular style from the May-Fourth period to the vigorous argument concerning "dazhongyu"(TAISHUGO) and "minzuxingshi" (MINZOKU KEISHIKI) in 1930's. Therefore, it seems very important for me to reconsider the complicated relations between language reform and China's national integration when we study the nature of Chinese nationalism in the modern era.