Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Tables -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction -- Part I Modern Spoken Chinese -- 2 Establishment and promotion of Modern Spoken Chinese -- 2.1 Development of Standard Spoken Chinese before the late nineteenth century -- 2.1.1 Base of Standard Spoken Chinese in early times -- 2.1.2 Standard Spoken Chinese in pre-modern times -- 2.2 Establishment and promotion of Modern Standard Chinese from the late nineteenth century until 1949 -- 2.2.1 Early efforts -- 2.2.2 Lav guóyin 'Old national pronunciation' -- 2.2.3 Xin guóyin 'New national pronunciation' -- 2.2.4 Promotion of guóyu before 1949 -- 2.3 Promotion of putonghuà after 1949 -- 2.3.1 Definition of putonghuà and its promotion -- 2.3.2 The current situation -- 2.4 Promotion of Modern Standard Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore -- 2.4.1 Taiwan -- 2.4.2 Hong Kong -- 2.4.3 Singapore -- 3 Norms and variations of Modern Standard Chinese -- 3.1 Phonology of Modern Standard Chinese -- 3.1.1 Syllabic structure -- 3.1.2 Phonological process of rhotacization -- 3.2 Difference between Modern Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect -- 3.2.1 Peculiar syllables -- 3.2.2 Variations in the phonetic values of initial consonants -- 3.2.3 Rhotacization -- 3.2.4 Weak stress -- 3.3 Adulterated putonghuà -- 3.4 Norms of Modern Standard Chinese outside mainland China -- 3.4.1 Taiwan -- 3.4.2 Singapore -- 4 The standard and dialects -- 4.1 Dialects in contact -- 4.2 Socio-functional differentiation of Modern Standard Chinese and dialects -- 4.2.1 Patterns of uses for putonghuà and local dialects -- 4.2.2 Popular attitudes towards putonghuà and dialects -- 4.3 Language policy towards dialects -- 4.4 Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore -- 4.4.1 Taiwan -- 4.4.2 Hong Kong -- 4.4.3 Singapore.

Part II Modern Written Chinese -- 5 Development and promotion of Modern Written Chinese -- 5.1 Old Written Chinese -- 5.2 Emergence of early Modern Written Chinese -- 5.3 Replacement of wényán by báihuà as Standard Written Chinese -- 5.3.1 Earlier efforts -- 5.3.2 New Culture Movement -- 5.3.3 To revive wényán or to improve on báihuà? -- 5.4 Sources of and avenues of influence upon Modern Written Chinese -- 5.4.1 Dialects other than Jiang-Huai and Northern Mandarin -- 5.4.2 Old Chinese -- 5.4.3 Foreign languages -- 5.5 Uses of wényán and báihuà since the 1940s -- 5.6 Establishment of Modern Written Chinese and status planning -- 6 Norms and variations of Modern Written Chinese -- 6.1 Newly developed grammatical norms in Modern Written Chinese -- 6.1.1 Features of non-Northern Mandarin dialects in Modern Written Chinese -- 6.1.2 Europeanization of grammar of Modern Written Chinese -- 6.2 Regional variations in the grammatical norms of Modern Written Chinese -- 6.2.1 Taiwan -- 6.2.2 Hong Kong -- 6.2.3 Singapore -- 6.3 Newly developed lexical norms in Modern Written Chinese -- 6.3.1 Borrowings from non-Northern Mandarin dialects -- 6.3.2 New words from foreign languages -- 6.4 Regional variations in the lexical norms of Modern Written Chinese -- 6.4.1 Mainland China and Taiwan -- 6.4.2 Hong Kong -- 6.4.3 Singapore -- 6.4.4 Tendency towards reducing variation in lexical norms -- 6.5 Efforts of corpus planning in the development of Modern Written Chinese -- 7 Dialect writing -- 7.1 Single standard written language for dialects -- 7.2 Causes of the under-development of dialect writing -- 7.2.1 Under-development of dialect writing -- 7.2.2 Inadequacy of the traditional script -- 7.2.3 Popular attitudes toward dialect writing -- 7.2.4 Language policy toward dialect writing -- 7.3 Current endeavours in Taiwan towards dialect writing.

7.3.1 Schemes for writing in Southern Min -- 7.3.2 Motivating factors -- 7.3.3 Responses to writing in Southern Min -- 7.4 Implications of standardization of dialect writing -- Part III The modern Chinese writing system -- 8 Basic features of the Chinese writing system -- 8.1 Typological characterization -- 8.2 Brief history of the Chinese script -- 8.3 Correlation between script and language -- 8.3.1 Number and structure of common characters -- 8.3.2 Characters, syllables, and morphemes -- 8.3.3 Morphemes and words -- 8.4 Merits of the Chinese script -- 8.4.1 Differentiation of homophonous morphemes -- 8.4.2 Use across times and dialects -- 8.5 Motivation for reform -- 8.5.1 Difficulty of learning -- 8.5.2 Difficulty of use -- 8.5.3 Contribution to dialectal diversity and the discrepancy between writing and speech -- 8.6 Approaches to script reform -- 9 Simplification of the traditional writing system -- 9.1 Approaches to simplification -- 9.2 Simplification before the twentieth century -- 9.3 Simplification in the twentieth century -- 9.3.1 Before 1949 -- 9.3.2 After 1949 -- 9.3.3 Principles underlying simplification -- 9.4 Gains and problems -- 9.5 Objections to the Second Scheme -- 9.6 Simplification of script outside mainland China -- 10 Phonetization of Chinese -- 10.1 Efforts by Western missionaries -- 10.2 Schemes proposed by native Chinese -- 10.3 Groupings of schemes -- 10.3.1 Intended roles in relation to the traditional characters -- (1) Auxiliary -- (2) Supplementary -- 3) Alternative -- (4) Superseding -- 10.3.2 Form of script -- (1) Shorthand-style scripts -- (2) Kana-style scripts or characters -- (3)The roman alphabet -- 10.3.3 Dialectal basis -- (1) Non-dialect specific -- (2)Dialect-specific -- 10.3.4 Representation of syllabic structure -- (1) Syllabic -- (2) Syllabo-phonemic -- 10.3.5 Representation of tones.

10.4 Five representative schemes -- (1) Wang Zhao's guanhuà zìmu 'Mandarin phonetic alphabet' -- (2) Zhùyin zìmu -- (3) Guóyu luómazì -- (4) Latinxua sin wenz -- (5)Hànyu pinyin -- 10.5 Phonetization in Taiwan and elsewhere -- 11 Use and reform of the Chinese writing system: present and future -- 11.1 Recent developments -- 11.1.1 Deviations from official policy -- 11.1.2 Official policy on script reform under challenge -- 11.2 Change in policy on script reform -- 11.3 Prospects of script reform -- 11.3.1 Roles of phonographic schemes -- 11.3.2 Optimization of the traditional writing system -- (1) To delimit the number of characters in common use -- (2) To improve on the sound and meaning indicating capability of characters -- (3)To standardize the ordering of characters -- 12 Conclusion -- Notes -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Establishment and promotion of Modern Spoken Chinese -- 3 Norms and variations of Modern Standard Chinese -- 4 The standard and dialects -- 5 Development and promotion of Modern Written Chinese -- 6 Norms and variations of Modern Written Chinese -- 7 Dialect writing -- 8 Basic features of he Chinese writing system -- 9 Simplification of he traditional writing system -- 10 Phonetization of Chinese -- 11 Use and reform of the Chinese writing system: present and future -- References -- Index.