Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages 1949-2002

ISBN-13: 9783110178968 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 480 str.

Minglang Zhou

Opis

Minglang Zhou's highly erudite and well-researched volume on the policies concerning writing reforms for China's minorities since 1949 provides an original and well-reasoned summary of a complex process. It documents how different script reforms meet dramatically different fates according to local preferences, history, cross-border ties, and the vitality of previously-used scripts. It convincingly shows that no single variable is decisive in the success of a script, and that language planners' fixation with technical details is doomed to failure, without careful coordination of extra-code factors. It also documents the little-known Sino-Soviet cooperation in the area of writing reforms. In a style accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students, Zhou's book is of interest to language planners, sinologists, applied linguists, writing theorists, and ethnologists.

O autorze

Minglang Zhou is Associate Professor at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, USA.