Chinese Punctuation Marks: Improvement or Breaking of the Rules?

Last Hermit wrote:

　　实不应未看全文就匆匆下结论，最终失之于武断！

　　之所以武断地认为引文有错，是因为以今天的眼光看待历史的缘故。按当今标点符号的体例来看，鲁迅这句话中的逗号应该省去。因为按现在人平时的阅读习惯，这个逗号很容易让人误以为“人”是主语或主词。也许是当时的标点和现今的标点，在用法上有些出入，或也许是第一篇白话文的缘故吧。未经考究，聊备一说。
　　谢傅先生指正。


但想深一层，

Angus WU wrote:

Punctuation marks function only as instruments which in their own capacity only serve to help readers to better understand the tone of the writing. The proper use of punctuation marks would pepper the passage with a particular flavor the author intended.

And proper use of punctuation marks is of course recognized as part of a well organized passage.

Personally I think it is somewhat hard to judge by just looking at these two examples.

Kevin Yang wrote:



Hello, Everyone,

The appropriate use of punctuation marks is also a topic that I have in mind for long time and would like to talk more about it with you. Thank you, Weiwei, for posting it for a discussion! I would like to expand the topic and coverage, and get an idea if there is a trend undertaking among the Chinese speaking/reading populations.

As we all know that punctuation marks are not originated from the Chinese Han language. It was perhaps only introduced into the Han language a couple hundreds years ago. My Chinese teachers were very uptight about the correct use of punctuation marks when I was in primary school and middle school. Then, I became a true believer of the importance of punctuation marks. Like weiwei, I get uncomfortable when I spot a punctuation mark that is inappropriately used.

By working with translators or reading the printing matters from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years, I noticed the rules for punctuation marks are loosely followed. In Chinese translations, I can see the translators get confused about what to use when translating the English text, and end up with wrong choices. It seems people are no longer using the punctuation marks the way I was taught. Sometimes, I thought the problem was caused by the given translator who was lack of training. Sometimes, I wonder if this might be a trend, particularly in Hong Kong and Taiwan, that I am not aware of.

For Traditional Chinese, I use “Chinese (Traditional) – New Phonetic” input program provided by Windows XP. The default punctuation marks are in English style. If I need the Chinese version of punctuation marks, I have to use the float keyboard and pick one manually.

It seems to me there is trend, especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan, that the English punctuation marks are replacing the Chinese punctuation marks. Here are some of the examples:

1. 省略号: 6 dots “……” reduced to 3 dots “…” .
2. 顿号: “、” which should be used after each noun when listing more than one items. I notice “、” has been replaced by comma “,” .
3. 破折号：“──”, which should be a long dash. Now it turned into a short dash “-” .
4. 句号：“。” should be a little round circle. Now it was turned into a little round dot “.” as in English.

Is this a revolutionary improvement to the Chinese punctuation marks that I am not aware of? Or is it breaking the rules of Chinese punctuation marks?

Kevin

[Edited at 2005-11-07 02:19]

Xiaoping Fu wrote:



国内盗版之猖獗，也着实到了黑白混淆、真假难辨的地步。据说聪明人绝不喝名酒。因为谁也不知道那瓶是真，哪瓶是假。如若盗版弄得聪明人都不读名著，我们的文化也就要亡了。

[Edited at 2005-11-06 21:39]

Last Hermit wrote:

use "..." in place of "......", em/en rule in place of a long continuous line (NOT an em rule,though). The convention of "。" shall always be respected as well.

For the proper use of these and other conventions/rules, please kindly refer to http://www.chineseedu.hku.hk/cmi/LanguageKnowledge/StandardLang/index.htm

Kevin Yang wrote:

It seems to me there is trend, especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan, that the English punctuation marks are replacing the Chinese punctuation marks. Here are some of the examples:

1. 省略号: 6 dots “……” reduced to 3 dots “…” .
2. 顿号: “、” which should be used after each noun when listing more than one items. I notice “、” has been replaced by comma “,” .
3. 破折号：“──”, which should be a long dash. Now it turned into a short dash “-” .
4. 句号：“。” should be a little round circle. Now it was turned into a little round dot “.” as in English.

Is this a revolutionary improvement to the Chinese punctuation marks that I am not aware of? Or is it breaking the rules of Chinese punctuation marks?

Kevin

[Edited at 2005-11-07 04:35]

Angus WU wrote:

Like it or not, it's happening here in Hong Kong everyday. I don't think there is much we can do to change this. If 启ever sees how numerous present-day teenagers use punctuation marks over ICQ here, he simply would jump out of his skin.

Personally I don't know whether this is good or not. Punctuation marks (even grammar) in fact were borrowed from the western world, which had been perfectly integrated with our language, an indispensable part nowadays. Who knows what the Chinese language would look like 100 years from now. Chinese language and all other languages known to mankind have been and probably will always be evolvingof course no sudden revolutionary change please - for as long as we walk this planet. I wish I had a crystal ball. I would be able to tell right from wrong if I had one.


[Edited at 2005-11-07 07:13]

jyuan_us wrote:

頓號這種東東﹐ 多數語種都不用﹐ 也沒看見讀文章的時候把誰憋死。發明頓號的人﹐ 一時小聰明﹐ 沒有做實際考查﹐ 自以為是﹐ 其實沒什麼實際意義﹐ 浪費了幾代人的腦C﹐ 讓他們寫和讀時作無用功﹐ 也許還要讓千秋萬代的人繼續浪費經歷。

頓號我從來不用﹐ 別人用了我寧可改成逗號﹐ 以便跟我的譯文一致﹐ 也促使他們以後別再用了。 道理很簡單﹐ 我的閱讀者都是CHINESE AMERICANS﹐ 他們才不管你該逗該頓。最重要的﹐ 頓號電腦WORD裡無法直接打出來。

還有 繁體的引號﹐ 都什麼年代了﹐ 非得用那半個方塊﹐ 真搞不懂。

還有書名號﹐ 我看不出用引號代替它有何不可。

省略號能用3個就用3個。 有時候你用6個﹐ PM會覺得怪怪的。

破折號用長的﹐ 常常被誤解為一字。

大家的對文化的忠誠令我感動﹐ 但在美國呆得我主張使用。 簡單﹐ 達意﹐ 不混亂﹐ 行了。 我就是一翻譯﹐ 不是什麼文字家或標點家﹐

符號是人造出來的東西﹐ 要靈活。

(雖然我對中文標點的規則爛熟于心﹐ 從來不會出錯﹐ 我的主張是來自對簡約的追逐﹐ 完全一形式為出發點﹐ 不談意義﹐ 不談主義)

Kevin Yang wrote:

Angus,

Yes, it seems to be too late to do anything with it. I guess we just have to take or lump it. However, I did expect you could single handedly reverse or rectify the course of using English punctuation marks in Hong Kong. You failed my expectation; now go to stand by the northern wall, and face it while contemplating your fault for a day… Just kidding with you!

I found it is interesting that both Hong Kong and Taiwan can stick with the traditional forms of the Chinese characters for all these years, but be so aggressive to adopt the Western punctuation marks without any modification, whereas the mainland China adopted the Simplified Chinese characters plan that was initiated by the old KMT government, but religiously stick with the old set of rules for Chinese punctuation marks. I guess we just have to take mental notes while dealing with the translations for each individual market and know well what the targeted readers are expecting in punctuation marks.

Personally, as a graphic designer and formatter of Asian languages, I noticed that the Chinese characters are double bytes, but the western punctuation marks are single byte. When they are all mix-used in one paragraph, the whole paragraph looks very jammed visually. I had to manually give an extra space to each punctuation mark so as to make it look "normal". I wonder if it is just me for being so difficult.

I am sure that Hong Kong did not drop the Chinese style of punctuation marks in one day. I wonder if there were any problems caused in written communications. Did the local people embrace the idea right away? Or it took a while for the school teachers to totally accept them and be able to enforce them in their schools? I am just curious.

Kevin


[Edited at 2005-11-08 01:56]

Angus WU wrote:

Hi Kevin,

You know what, I did go to stand by the northern wall, and faced it while contemplating my fault for (not a day) but 10 minutes, then I got back to my desk thinking I just got away without anyone knowing that I shirked. Guess what hit me then: ¨Just kidding with you!〃

Ha ha!

Well, you see, for political and economic reasons, the old colonial government tried its very best to wipe out everything about PRC. One excellent example is that while under the reign of Her Majesty, the teaching of Chinese history stops at the year 1949. Before mid 90s, it's hard to find anyone in Hong Kong who would be able to read simplified Chinese, even the mainland immigrants tend to refuse to admit that they know the system. For if the person admitted, the poor fellow would be immediately labeled as a second class resident by others. Discriminations were everywhere. Just to give you a picture, Chinese was never the official language until recent years (I canˇt recall the exact date). Only when the reunification was in sight, did the language policy change.

In my opinion, the main reason for the misuse of punctuation marks is, in fact, the poor result of this so called bilingual education. Many simply can't make out the difference between these two. And it seems that few (at least there arenˇt many) are eager to take it seriously, let alone to be pedantic.

jyuan_us wrote:

頓號電腦WORD裡無法直接打出來。

weiwei wrote:

Here is one example:
三十多岁的那个人叫阿方，阿方说:

Why is it not:
三十多岁的那个人叫阿方。阿方说:

Kevin Yang wrote:

Hi, Angus,

Thank you for the feedback. You filled me in with another chapter that is missing from my book. Unfortunately, it is another chapter that I had to read with my tight clutching fists. This is why I found your precious appearance in this Forum is so important, because you gave us the opportunity to learn from you the first-hand information of Hong Kong. You are my missing link found!

Now, pass me the booze bottle. Let me get done this glass of it quickly and do not have to think about any of the dark and ugly past…

Kevin


[Edited at 2005-11-08 06:25]