Critique of the Ideographic Myth:

Conflation of Scholarly Discourse and Social Agenda

Keywords: critique, Chinese characters, ideographic myth, script reform,

digraphia, Lawrence J. Howell, John DeFrancis, Victor Mair

The Critique of the Ideographic Myth is less a point of scholarly discourse than one

element in an agenda promoting social change.

To place the critique in full context, we should recall that in “The Chinese Language:

Fact and Fantasy” the late John DeFrancis identified and critiqued six myths in all.

These he held responsible for distorting perceptions of Chinese characters.

Aside from the Ideographic Myth, four of the others center on issues that might be

taken to support the value or utility of Chinese characters. These revolve around the

themes of universality, emulatability, indispensibility, and successfulness. The

remaining myth (irrelevant to the present discussion) concerns the position that words

in Chinese are all monosyllables.

As it happens, DeFrancis and his close associate Victor Mair (have) found it

necessary to counter charges that their ultimate aim is the replacement or abolition of

Chinese characters. Remarks to this effect appear from time to time in language

forums, such as here or here. Even Peter T. Daniels, a scholar of writing systems, has

described DeFrancis and Mair as being hostile to Chinese characters.

How have DeFrancis and Mair managed to arouse this type of suspicion? I submit it

is because the supercharged language with which they have promoted the Critique of

the Ideographic Myth suggests they are not presenting a scholarly argument so much

as pursuing a particular agenda. And the agenda is not at all hard to identify.

As even a slight acquaintance with their activities and writings reveals, DeFrancis

and Victor Mair hold illiteracy responsible for tremendous suffering in China, and

they have actively promoted script reform as a counter-measure. Both have insisted

that the “script reform” at which they aim does not involve abolition, replacement or

reduced use of Chinese characters but rather digraphia, the use of the characters and

of the romanized script Hanyu pinyin.

Proponents of the Critique have inveighed against the Ideographic myth with

missionary zeal, even while they ignore the logical flaws in the Critique. I believe

these dual tendencies owe to the fact that the Ideographic Myth and the other four

myths mentioned have the potential to be used as arguments against the need for

script reform, something not at all in the proponents' interests.

Be that as it may, scholarly discourse is one thing, and a social agenda is another.

The two should not be conflated.

Lawrence J. Howell

6 April 2012