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Date(s)： 2021/12/08
Time： 15:00~17:00
Venue： Archives 1st Conference Hall＋Virtual Meeting
Host： Prof. Mårten Söderblom Saarela（Associate research fellow, IMH）
Speaker：Prof. Jeffrey Weng（Assistant Professor of Sociology, National Taiwan University）
Organizer： Western Learning and China Research Group
List of participants：
※ 視訊與會，僅限「與會名單」人員與會。 ※ 將於會議前一天，依「與會名單」，寄送視訊會議連結。
Webex Meetings 操作說明及FAQ Simplified characters were first implemented as official policy under the Nationalist government in late 1935. Less than four months later, in early 1936, the policy was rescinded. The existing historiography emphasizes the role of conservative ideological opposition in simplification’s demise. However, the practical difficulties of simplification need also to be considered. While promulgating simplification, the government also mandated the use of the new phonetic symbols (注音符號) in pedagogical publications. These two simultaneous demands on publishing companies imposed costs that neither the industry nor the government was willing to bear. Based on previously overlooked archival documents, along with an examination of the financial positions of the leading firms and the constraints of the national budget, I argue that simplification’s failure should be attributed not only to ideological opposition, but also to the material and financial constraints of both the government and the companies most directly responsible for its implementation. Ideological concerns, therefore, are inseparable from their material context. (Forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.)