Planning Chinese Characters / Language Policy Bd.9 (PDF)

Zhao Shouhui (PhD, University of Sydney) is Research Fellow in the Centre for Research in Pedagogy & Practice (CRPP) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. A professional language teacher by training, Zhao has been teaching and researching in Chinese applied linguistics for the past 17 years at 7 universities in five countries beginning in 1988, when he completed his MA in Applied Linguist at Renmin University of China (Beijing). Zhao is a member of All-China Society of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and the Chinese and Oriental Language and Information Processing Association (COLIPS, Singapore).Zhao has sole authored about twenty refereed articles in areas of Chinese Language Pedagogy, Chinese Computational Linguistics and Higher Education, and he is also the primary co-author of three dual-authored Chinese language textbooks and the co-complier of two dictionaries. He has also contributed a number of ephemeral pieces (prose, short stories, comments, film reviews, etc) to a range of literary publications and websites/broadcastings. Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (PhD, University of Hawai'i) is Associate Professor of TESOL in the School of Education at the University of Queensland and a Vice President on the Executive of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA). He has published numerous articles in refereed journals and books.

From the reviews:

“In this book, Zhao and Baldauf have thoroughly examined the unfolding of the fate of the Chinese characters in the twentieth century within the conceptual framework of language planning. … this book provides a comprehensive picture of China’s script reform and standardization with a tuned focus on the last three decades, a period that missed much-deserved coverage in scholarly work until now. Thus, it is a significant contribution to both English and Chinese publications on modern China’s language planning.” (Minglang Zhou, Chinese Language and Discourse, Vol. 4 (1), 2013)“This thorough investigation from an international perspective is not only of value to Chinese LP studies, but contributes to widening the spectrum of LP research in the world as well. … the book is carefully constructed; the theoretical investigation is well balanced with readability. The volume is unique in providing a stimulating and critical study of how technology has outstripped political decision-making about language in China … . thus stimulate scholars to pursue further studies.” (Haitao Liu, Language Problems & Language Planning, Vol. 34 (3), 2010)