LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
普通话 : China’s Struggle with Language and Modernity LORCAN GEBRUERS
¿Pero, estás leyes son suficientes? Todavía, no se le ha castigado a ningún autor de los crímenes contra la humanidad. En realidad, los que han intentado perseguir los culpables han sufrido castigo. Baltasar Garzón, un juez español muy famoso, intentó abrir un expediente en 2008 para investigar las desapariciones de más de 100,000 personas durante la época franquista. No pasó mucho tiempo antes de que él mismo fuera acusado debido a la infracción de la Ley Amnistía. But are these laws enough? Still no perpetrator of crimes against humanity has been punished. In actuality, it is those who have tried to persecute the culprits that have suffered punishment. Baltasar Garzón, a very famous Spanish judge, tried to open a case to investigate the disappearances of over 100,000 people during the Franco era in 2008. It was not long before he was charged due to the breach of the Amnesty Law. Mientras es verdad que el Pacto de Olvido ayuda a la sociedad sanar y seguir adelante, provocó cismas también. Hoy en día, el Partido Popular no está de acuerdo con el deseo del Partido Socialista Obrero Español de curar la amnesia que el pacto creó y esta idea es el tópico de mucho debate entre los dos partidos. El asunto de la Ley Amnistía y la amnesia que causó puede contarnos mucho sobre la humanidad – ¿Nos beneficiamos más en hablar del conflicto del pasado o en decidir ‘perdonar y olvidar’? While it is true that the Pact of Forgetting helped society to heal and move forward, it also caused chasms. Nowadays, PP disagrees with PSOE’s desire to cure the amnesia that the pact created, and this idea is the topic of much debate between the two parties. The issue with the Amnesty Law and the amnesia it created can tell us a lot about humankind – Do we benefit more in talking through conflict of the past, or in deciding to ‘forgive and forget’?
The establishment of the Republic of China in 1912 threw the country into a nationwide existential crisis. Following millennia of dynastic rule, the adoption of the western principles of nationhood was imperative to China’s survival in the modern world. This abrupt shift required severe reforms to China’s historic language, which would prove to be incredibly difficult. China has hundreds of ‘dialects’; many linguistically distinct enough to be considered unique languages. The modern-day use of the term ‘dialect’ is largely used to give the illusion of greater national unity. Professor David Moser also notes that the regions which bounded dialects were
“cultural regions [as well]... When you crossed these [regional borders] indeed it would feel very much like crossing national borders.” However, despite the vast differences within the spoken language, a singular writing system was used across all ‘dialects’. This was an artificially contrived, ideographical, literary language, with no relation to spoken sounds. The scholarly standard of ancient writing ( 文言 wényán) also differed from everyday writing ( 白话文 báihuàwén) as its terse and idiomatic nature made it incredibly expressive but too intricate for the general population.
40
41
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online