(某) 語言學家稱漢字阻礙創造力發展
報道 2012年08月23日
每一門語言都會帶來挑戰——比如，英語的發音可能不合常規，而俄語的語法又相當複雜——然而，像中文這樣的非字母書寫系統，學起來則尤其困難。
眾所周知，漢字並不和聲音系統對應，這使得學習並記住這些符號十分困難。在上一篇專欄文章中，我也討論了這一點。遇到不認識的漢字，你連讀出來都辦不到。
但是，方塊字書寫系統會對思維產生更深層的影響嗎？
關於這個話題，威廉·C·漢納斯(William C.Hannas)是最富煽動性的作家之一。身兼語言學家和作家二職，漢納斯能說或寫包括漢語在內的10門語言。他認為方塊字書寫系統阻礙了一種深層的創造力——不過，這種影響並不是不可逆轉的。
漢納斯花了很多力氣來說明自己的分析並非建立在種族基礎之上，還說在方塊字書寫系統下長大的人擁有一種不同的創造力，一旦進入一個支持深層創造力的文化，如西方的科學實驗室，這些人就會表現得異常優秀。
然而，“掌握漢字書寫所需的機械式學習造成了一種順從的態度，使學習者將重點放在方法而不是結果上。過程壓倒了實質。你會花費更多時間玩弄筆畫，而不是對內容進行思考，”漢納斯在一封寫給我的郵件中說道。
但是，漢納斯的觀點確實是有爭議的——他認為學習漢語會促進實用性而不是抽象性的思考，從而削弱深層創造力。漢納斯在出版於2003年的《在牆上書 寫：東亞正字法是如何抑制創造力的》("TheWriting on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity,")一書中表達了這一觀點，《紐約時報》(The New YorkTimes)曾對該書進行評論。
正如埃米莉·埃金(Emily Eakin)在書評中寫的那樣，這是一個敏感的話題，一些學者直接否定這一觀點，另外一些人雖然表示認可，但也不願進行討論，
到底是怎樣阻礙創造力的呢？
“西方使用的字母系統能夠培養早期的分析和抽象思考能力，”漢納斯寫道，並強調這只是他個人的觀點，並不代表僱傭他的美國政府。
之所以能起到這樣的作用，是因為字母系統驅使學習者去做以下兩件事情：將音節拆分成不同的音素，然後再把這些音素組合在一起，形成更大的、抽象而靈活的聲音單元。
但漢字並非如此。“漢字字符對應着音節——天然的固定單位。它不需要分析，也不涉及太多的抽象思考，”漢納斯寫道。
然而，更為根本的“第二型”創造力——也就是深層創造力——卻取決於將不同領域的抽象模式對應起來的能力，本質上就是字母體系所能培養的技能，漢納斯繼續寫道。“但在漢字書寫習慣中，並沒有任何類似的東西，”他寫道。
這會阻礙中國的長期發展嗎？不一定，漢納斯說。
“創造力並不是成功的必要條件。成功往往青睞早期適應者，而中國在這一點上出類拔萃，其中有兩個原因，”漢納斯寫道。首先，中國人十分善於改進現有 模式，而這是一種不同的、更為實用的創造力，漢納斯寫道，並且補充說，研究中國科學的英國歷史學家李約瑟(JosephNeedham)也提到了這樣的實 用能力。
但他還提出了另外一個原因，就是這個原因引發了廣泛的爭議。
部分是因為這些文化上的束縛，中國建立了“一個絕對令人難以置信的系統”來獲取先進的外國技術——還用上了所有的必要手段，包括看似有政府支持的大規模黑客行為，漢納斯寫道。
非中國的研發項目從其來源地“被外包”，“而中國坐享其成”漢納斯寫道，並且補充說，許多人都認為這是“正常的商業行為。”
“實際上，這根本不正常。美國一家情報機構的負責人說中國的非正規技術獲取是‘史上最大的財富轉移，’我認為這還是輕描淡寫的客氣說法，”漢納斯說。
漢納斯與人合寫了一本關於此話題的書，該書將於明年春天出版。
翻譯：谷菁璐眾所周知，漢字並不和聲音系統對應，這使得學習並記住這些符號十分困難。在上一篇專欄文章中，我也討論了這一點。遇到不認識的漢字，你連讀出來都辦不到。
但是，方塊字書寫系統會對思維產生更深層的影響嗎？
關於這個話題，威廉·C·漢納斯(William C.Hannas)是最富煽動性的作家之一。身兼語言學家和作家二職，漢納斯能說或寫包括漢語在內的10門語言。他認為方塊字書寫系統阻礙了一種深層的創造力——不過，這種影響並不是不可逆轉的。
漢納斯花了很多力氣來說明自己的分析並非建立在種族基礎之上，還說在方塊字書寫系統下長大的人擁有一種不同的創造力，一旦進入一個支持深層創造力的文化，如西方的科學實驗室，這些人就會表現得異常優秀。
然而，“掌握漢字書寫所需的機械式學習造成了一種順從的態度，使學習者將重點放在方法而不是結果上。過程壓倒了實質。你會花費更多時間玩弄筆畫，而不是對內容進行思考，”漢納斯在一封寫給我的郵件中說道。
但是，漢納斯的觀點確實是有爭議的——他認為學習漢語會促進實用性而不是抽象性的思考，從而削弱深層創造力。漢納斯在出版於2003年的《在牆上書 寫：東亞正字法是如何抑制創造力的》("TheWriting on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity,")一書中表達了這一觀點，《紐約時報》(The New YorkTimes)曾對該書進行評論。
正如埃米莉·埃金(Emily Eakin)在書評中寫的那樣，這是一個敏感的話題，一些學者直接否定這一觀點，另外一些人雖然表示認可，但也不願進行討論，
到底是怎樣阻礙創造力的呢？
“西方使用的字母系統能夠培養早期的分析和抽象思考能力，”漢納斯寫道，並強調這只是他個人的觀點，並不代表僱傭他的美國政府。
之所以能起到這樣的作用，是因為字母系統驅使學習者去做以下兩件事情：將音節拆分成不同的音素，然後再把這些音素組合在一起，形成更大的、抽象而靈活的聲音單元。
但漢字並非如此。“漢字字符對應着音節——天然的固定單位。它不需要分析，也不涉及太多的抽象思考，”漢納斯寫道。
然而，更為根本的“第二型”創造力——也就是深層創造力——卻取決於將不同領域的抽象模式對應起來的能力，本質上就是字母體系所能培養的技能，漢納斯繼續寫道。“但在漢字書寫習慣中，並沒有任何類似的東西，”他寫道。
這會阻礙中國的長期發展嗎？不一定，漢納斯說。
“創造力並不是成功的必要條件。成功往往青睞早期適應者，而中國在這一點上出類拔萃，其中有兩個原因，”漢納斯寫道。首先，中國人十分善於改進現有 模式，而這是一種不同的、更為實用的創造力，漢納斯寫道，並且補充說，研究中國科學的英國歷史學家李約瑟(JosephNeedham)也提到了這樣的實 用能力。
但他還提出了另外一個原因，就是這個原因引發了廣泛的爭議。
部分是因為這些文化上的束縛，中國建立了“一個絕對令人難以置信的系統”來獲取先進的外國技術——還用上了所有的必要手段，包括看似有政府支持的大規模黑客行為，漢納斯寫道。
非中國的研發項目從其來源地“被外包”，“而中國坐享其成”漢納斯寫道，並且補充說，許多人都認為這是“正常的商業行為。”
“實際上，這根本不正常。美國一家情報機構的負責人說中國的非正規技術獲取是‘史上最大的財富轉移，’我認為這還是輕描淡寫的客氣說法，”漢納斯說。
漢納斯與人合寫了一本關於此話題的書，該書將於明年春天出版。
Writing as a Block For Asians
Western
theories about Chinese writing have often been tainted by ignorance and
prejudice, oscillating between wide-eyed veneration and smug disdain.
Though he could not read Chinese, Leibniz, for example, held it in high repute, dreaming of a universal script -- intelligible to speakers of all languages -- modeled on Chinese characters. By contrast, Hegel dismissed Chinese ''hieroglyphics'' as primitive. More recently, Ezra Pound, a famous admirer and translator of Chinese poetry, helped spread the still-popular misconception that Chinese characters are simply ''ideograms'': visual symbols of things and ideas.
Western specialists are better informed today. They now recognize that the writing systems of East Asia, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean, are ''syllabaries,'' in which each character corresponds to a syllable of sound, and in Chinese, at least, a basic unit of meaning (called a morpheme). By contrast, alphabetic systems rely on letters that by themselves are pure abstractions: a single letter represents neither a syllable of sound nor a morpheme. While alphabets tend to be small, syllabaries can be quite large: there are more than 50,000 Chinese characters, though most people can get by with knowing about 5,000.
Though he could not read Chinese, Leibniz, for example, held it in high repute, dreaming of a universal script -- intelligible to speakers of all languages -- modeled on Chinese characters. By contrast, Hegel dismissed Chinese ''hieroglyphics'' as primitive. More recently, Ezra Pound, a famous admirer and translator of Chinese poetry, helped spread the still-popular misconception that Chinese characters are simply ''ideograms'': visual symbols of things and ideas.
Western specialists are better informed today. They now recognize that the writing systems of East Asia, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean, are ''syllabaries,'' in which each character corresponds to a syllable of sound, and in Chinese, at least, a basic unit of meaning (called a morpheme). By contrast, alphabetic systems rely on letters that by themselves are pure abstractions: a single letter represents neither a syllable of sound nor a morpheme. While alphabets tend to be small, syllabaries can be quite large: there are more than 50,000 Chinese characters, though most people can get by with knowing about 5,000.
But
a better understanding of Asian writing systems has not stopped Western
experts from making grand claims about their virtues and limitations.
The latest scholar to venture into such politically sensitive territory
is William C. Hannas, a linguist who speaks 12 languages and works as a
senior officer at the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a federal
agency in Washington. In a polemical new book, ''The Writing on the
Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity'' (University of
Pennsylvania Press), Mr. Hannas blames the writing systems of China,
Japan and Korea for what he says is East Asia's failure to make
significant scientific and technological breakthroughs compared to
Western nations.
Mr. Hannas's logic goes like this: because East Asian writing systems lack the abstract features of alphabets, they hamper the kind of analytical and abstract thought necessary for scientific creativity.
The solution he proposes, switching to an alphabet, is hardly novel. It is an idea that has long been debated in countries like China, where using a computer keyboard can be a daunting task and people increasingly fall back on Pinyin, the Romanized Chinese script, for data entry. And few doubt Mr. Hannas's linguistic qualifications. ''I don't think there's a single other person on the globe who knows all the relevant languages as well as Bill Hannas,'' said Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania who taught Mr. Hannas in graduate school and is the general editor for the Pennsylvania Press series in which his book appears.
Mr. Hannas insists that he is not criticizing Asians. ''I worry that people will misunderstand my claim that Asians are less creative in basic science to mean that Asians are lacking in intellect,'' he said. ''Nothing could be further from the truth.''
Even so, some critics flatly reject the notion that Asia has a creativity deficit and say his argument smacks of cultural condescension. ''It's not flattering,'' said Jerome Packard, a professor of Chinese linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ''Bill may be right, but I tend not to want to make those statements. They sound demeaning.''
To make his case, Mr. Hannas draws on a raft of data about Asian scientific research practices, technology piracy and graduate study abroad, all intended to show that Asians are brilliant imitators but poor innovators, adept at borrowing and improving on Western science but not so skilled at making advances themselves. He suggests that the ''thousands of Western technical terms in East Asian languages'' are proof of the ''one-sided nature of the East-West science relationship.'' He argues that Asian immigrants to the West, who work in an alphabetic system, do innovative work. And he cites a Japanese Nobel laureate in medicine, Susumu Tonegawa, who said, ''It is very clear that Japan is making money by taking and applying the fruits of science that the West creates at great expense.''
Yet Nathan Sivin, a professor of Chinese culture and the history of science at the University of Pennsylvania, said he was not impressed. ''That's nonsense,'' he said. ''One Japanese Nobel Prize in the last 10 years is fantastic compared to Portugal or Norway.''
Mr. Hannas's logic goes like this: because East Asian writing systems lack the abstract features of alphabets, they hamper the kind of analytical and abstract thought necessary for scientific creativity.
The solution he proposes, switching to an alphabet, is hardly novel. It is an idea that has long been debated in countries like China, where using a computer keyboard can be a daunting task and people increasingly fall back on Pinyin, the Romanized Chinese script, for data entry. And few doubt Mr. Hannas's linguistic qualifications. ''I don't think there's a single other person on the globe who knows all the relevant languages as well as Bill Hannas,'' said Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania who taught Mr. Hannas in graduate school and is the general editor for the Pennsylvania Press series in which his book appears.
Mr. Hannas insists that he is not criticizing Asians. ''I worry that people will misunderstand my claim that Asians are less creative in basic science to mean that Asians are lacking in intellect,'' he said. ''Nothing could be further from the truth.''
Even so, some critics flatly reject the notion that Asia has a creativity deficit and say his argument smacks of cultural condescension. ''It's not flattering,'' said Jerome Packard, a professor of Chinese linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ''Bill may be right, but I tend not to want to make those statements. They sound demeaning.''
To make his case, Mr. Hannas draws on a raft of data about Asian scientific research practices, technology piracy and graduate study abroad, all intended to show that Asians are brilliant imitators but poor innovators, adept at borrowing and improving on Western science but not so skilled at making advances themselves. He suggests that the ''thousands of Western technical terms in East Asian languages'' are proof of the ''one-sided nature of the East-West science relationship.'' He argues that Asian immigrants to the West, who work in an alphabetic system, do innovative work. And he cites a Japanese Nobel laureate in medicine, Susumu Tonegawa, who said, ''It is very clear that Japan is making money by taking and applying the fruits of science that the West creates at great expense.''
Yet Nathan Sivin, a professor of Chinese culture and the history of science at the University of Pennsylvania, said he was not impressed. ''That's nonsense,'' he said. ''One Japanese Nobel Prize in the last 10 years is fantastic compared to Portugal or Norway.''
As evidence, Sapir and Whorf cited variations between
English and several Native American languages, claiming, for example,
that the Hopi Indians have no concept of time and, famously, that
Eskimos have more than half a dozen words for snow.
Versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis were embraced by a number of scholars. In the 1960's, Marshall McLuhan argued that modern technologies like television were causing fundamental changes in the human psyche. And in a 1981 book, ''The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study in the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West,'' Alfred H. Bloom, a linguist who is now the president of Swarthmore College, argued that the lack of a subjunctive tense in Chinese made it extremely difficult for native speakers to explore ''counterfactual'' conceits (for example: if Gisele were fat, she wouldn't be a supermodel).
When Mr. Bloom tested Chinese and American students on a series of counterfactuals, he found that the Chinese students were typically unable to distinguish between events that really happened and false hypotheticals. The implication, Mr. Bloom argued, is that Chinese is more concrete than English, and, as a consequence, Chinese speakers have more trouble with abstract thought than Americans.
But in recent years, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has fallen out of favor as scholars have come under the sway of new approaches stressing the universal aspects of language and cognition. In his 1994 book, ''The Language Instinct,'' Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist at M.I.T., points out that Mr. Whorf never studied the tribes he wrote about and got much about Hopi and Eskimo languages wrong. ''Contrary to popular belief,'' Mr. Pinker writes, ''the Eskimos do not have more words for snow than do speakers of English.'' As for Mr. Bloom's work, Mr. Pinker cites three cognitive psychologists who found that his tests contained serious flaws.
Methodological problems very likely mar Mr. Hannas's book as well, Mr. Pinker said in a telephone interview. Unless one studied all the cultures that use syllabaries, he said, it would be impossible to show a connection between the writing system and a psychological phenomenon like creativity. Moreover, argues J. Marshall Unger, a professor of Japanese at Ohio State University, how can you be sure writing -- and not some other cultural feature -- is responsible? As Mr. Unger put it, ''Why should learning a particular writing system have a greater impact on how people think than whether they use telephones?''
Mr. Hannas's book aside, there are other signs that cultural explanations for variations in thinking patterns may be making a comeback. In a much-debated new book, ''The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why,'' (Free Press), Richard E. Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, argues that the way Asians and Westerners perceive the world is hardly the same. Mr. Nisbett ascribes these differences to multiple factors, including education, social philosophies and the environment. (He chalks up the ''relatively slight accomplishments of Japanese science'' to the ''Confucian respect for elders that funnels support to mediocre older scientists instead of more talented younger ones'' and a tendency to avoid debate.)
But he takes pains to say that one culture's mode of perceiving is no better than another: ''The cognitive orientations and skills of East Asians and people of European cultures are sufficiently different that it seems highly likely that they would complement and enrich one another in any given setting.''
Versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis were embraced by a number of scholars. In the 1960's, Marshall McLuhan argued that modern technologies like television were causing fundamental changes in the human psyche. And in a 1981 book, ''The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study in the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West,'' Alfred H. Bloom, a linguist who is now the president of Swarthmore College, argued that the lack of a subjunctive tense in Chinese made it extremely difficult for native speakers to explore ''counterfactual'' conceits (for example: if Gisele were fat, she wouldn't be a supermodel).
When Mr. Bloom tested Chinese and American students on a series of counterfactuals, he found that the Chinese students were typically unable to distinguish between events that really happened and false hypotheticals. The implication, Mr. Bloom argued, is that Chinese is more concrete than English, and, as a consequence, Chinese speakers have more trouble with abstract thought than Americans.
But in recent years, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has fallen out of favor as scholars have come under the sway of new approaches stressing the universal aspects of language and cognition. In his 1994 book, ''The Language Instinct,'' Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist at M.I.T., points out that Mr. Whorf never studied the tribes he wrote about and got much about Hopi and Eskimo languages wrong. ''Contrary to popular belief,'' Mr. Pinker writes, ''the Eskimos do not have more words for snow than do speakers of English.'' As for Mr. Bloom's work, Mr. Pinker cites three cognitive psychologists who found that his tests contained serious flaws.
Methodological problems very likely mar Mr. Hannas's book as well, Mr. Pinker said in a telephone interview. Unless one studied all the cultures that use syllabaries, he said, it would be impossible to show a connection between the writing system and a psychological phenomenon like creativity. Moreover, argues J. Marshall Unger, a professor of Japanese at Ohio State University, how can you be sure writing -- and not some other cultural feature -- is responsible? As Mr. Unger put it, ''Why should learning a particular writing system have a greater impact on how people think than whether they use telephones?''
Mr. Hannas's book aside, there are other signs that cultural explanations for variations in thinking patterns may be making a comeback. In a much-debated new book, ''The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why,'' (Free Press), Richard E. Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, argues that the way Asians and Westerners perceive the world is hardly the same. Mr. Nisbett ascribes these differences to multiple factors, including education, social philosophies and the environment. (He chalks up the ''relatively slight accomplishments of Japanese science'' to the ''Confucian respect for elders that funnels support to mediocre older scientists instead of more talented younger ones'' and a tendency to avoid debate.)
But he takes pains to say that one culture's mode of perceiving is no better than another: ''The cognitive orientations and skills of East Asians and people of European cultures are sufficiently different that it seems highly likely that they would complement and enrich one another in any given setting.''
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