Misunderstanding Chinese Characters: What’s been learned Since 1998
J. Marshall Unger
"Misunderstanding Chinese Characters: What’s been learned Since 1998"
December 1, 2021
4-5:15 p.m.
In his inaugural lecture to the faculty of the College of Humanities in 1998, Professor Unger surveyed common misconceptions of how Chinese characters function in the Chinese and Japanese writing systems, and many of the false inferences scholars have drawn from those misconceptions. In this lecture, he will explain relevant research findings over the past twenty-three years that underscore the continuing need to treat the claim that Chinese characters are ideograms or, on all occasions, logograms with skepticism. Professor Unger will explain how correcting misunderstandings about Chinese characters goes beyond East Asian studies and the classification of writing systems, taking us into the larger debate among psychologists and other researchers about the sources of emotion, reason, and meaning in general.
Programming note: this event will begin with an introduction of the newest Emeritus Academy members.