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 语言学家称汉字阻碍创造力发展 （转D Tatlow) |
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sanan
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作者：sanan 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
语言及中国的创造力 （ 英文原文 附于文末）
语言学家称汉字阻碍创造力发展
DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
每一门语言都会带来挑战——比如，英语的发音可能不合常规，而俄语的语法又相当复杂——然而，像中文这样的非字母书写系统，学起来则尤其困难。
众所周知，汉字并不和声音系统对应，这使得学习并记住这些符号十分困难。在上一篇专栏文章中，我也讨论了这一点。遇到不认识的汉字，你连读出来都办不到。
但是，方块字书写系统会对思维产生更深层的影响吗？
关于这个话题，威廉·C·汉纳斯(William C. Hannas)是最富煽动性的作家之一。身兼语言学家和作家二职，汉纳斯能说或写包括汉语在内的10门语言。他认为方块字书写系统阻碍了一种深层的创造力——不过，这种影响并不是不可逆转的。
汉纳斯花了很多力气来说明自己的分析并非建立在种族基础之上，还说在方块字书写系统下长大的人拥有一种不同的创造力，一旦进入一个支持深层创造力的文化，如西方的科学实验室，这些人就会表现得异常优秀。
然而，“掌握汉字书写所需的机械式学习造成了一种顺从的态度，使学习者将重点放在方法而不是结果上。过程压倒了实质。你会花费更多时间玩弄笔画，而不是对内容进行思考，”汉纳斯在一封写给我的邮件中说道。
但是，汉纳斯的观点确实是有争议的——他认为学习汉语会促进实用性而不是抽象性的思考，从而削弱深层创造力。汉纳斯在出版于2003年的《在墙上书写：东亚正字法是如何抑制创造力的》(The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity)一书中表达了这一观点，《纽约时报》(The New YorkTimes)曾对该书进行评论。
正如埃米莉·埃金(Emily Eakin)在书评中写的那样，这是一个敏感的话题，一些学者直接否定这一观点，另外一些人虽然表示认可，但也不愿进行讨论，
到底是怎样阻碍创造力的呢？
“西方使用的字母系统能够培养早期的分析和抽象思考能力，”汉纳斯写道，并强调这只是他个人的观点，并不代表雇佣他的美国政府。
之所以能起到这样的作用，是因为字母系统驱使学习者去做以下两件事情：将音节拆分成不同的音素，然后再把这些音素组合在一起，形成更大的、抽象而灵活的声音单元。
但汉字并非如此。“汉字字符对应着音节——天然的固定单位。它不需要分析，也不涉及太多的抽象思考，”汉纳斯写道。
然而，更为根本的“第二型”创造力——也就是深层创造力——却取决于将不同领域的抽象模式对应起来的能力，本质上就是字母体系所能培养的技能，汉纳斯继续写道。“但在汉字书写习惯中，并没有任何类似的东西，”他写道。
这会阻碍中国的长期发展吗？不一定，汉纳斯说。
“创造力并不是成功的必要条件。成功往往青睐早期适应者，而中国在这一点上出类拔萃，其中有两个原因，”汉纳斯写道。首先，中国人十分善于改进现有模式，而这是一种不同的、更为实用的创造力，汉纳斯写道，并且补充说，研究中国科学的英国历史学家李约瑟(Joseph Needham)也提到了这样的实用能力。
但他还提出了另外一个原因，就是这个原因引发了广泛的争议。
部分是因为这些文化上的束缚，中国建立了“一个绝对令人难以置信的系统”来获取先进的外国技术——还用上了所有的必要手段，包括看似有政府支持的大规模黑客行为，汉纳斯写道。
非中国的研发项目从其来源地“被外包”，“而中国坐享其成”汉纳斯写道，并且补充说，许多人都认为这是“正常的商业行为。”
“实际上，这根本不正常。美国一家情报机构的负责人说中国的非正规技术获取是‘史上最大的财富转移，’我认为这还是轻描淡写的客气说法，”汉纳斯说。
汉纳斯与人合写了一本关于此话题的书，该书将于明年春天出版。
****** 英文原文 ******
Language and China's 'Practical Creativity'
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
Every language presents challenges - English pronunciation can be idiosyncratic and Russian grammar is fairly complex, for example - but non-alphabetic writing systems like Chinese pose special challenges.
There is the well-known issue that Chinese characters don't systematically map to sounds, making both learning and remembering difficult, a point I examine in my latest column. If you don't know a character, you can't even say it.
But does a character script also exert deeper effects on the mind?
William C. Hannas is one of the most provocative writers on this today. A linguist and author who speaks or writes 10 languages including Chinese, he believes character writing systems inhibit a type of deep creativity - but that its effects are not irreversible.
He is at pains to point out that his analysis is not race-based, that people raised in a character-based writing system have a different type of creativity, and that they may flourish when they enter a culture that supports deep creativity, like Western science laboratories.
Still, "The rote learning needed to master Chinese writing breeds a conformist attitude and a focus on means instead of ends. Process rules substance. You spend more time fidgeting with the script than thinking about content," Mr. Hannas wrote to me in an e-mail.
But Mr. Hannas's argument is indeed controversial - that learning Chinese lessens deep creativity by furthering practical, but not abstract, thinking, as he wrote in "The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity," published in 2003 and reviewed by The New York Times.
It's a touchy topic that some academics reject outright and others acknowledge, but are reluctant to discuss, as Emily Eakin wrote in the review.
How does it work?
"Alphabets used in the West foster early skills in analysis and abstract thinking," wrote Mr. Hannas, emphasizing the views were personal and not those of his employer, the U.S. government.
They do this by making readers do two things: breaking syllables into sound segments and clustering these segments into bigger, abstract, flexible sound units.
Chinese characters don't do that. "The symbols map to syllables - natural concrete units. No analysis is needed and not much abstraction is involved," Mr. Hannas wrote.
But radical, "type 2" creativity - deep creativity - depends on being able to match abstract patterns from one domain to another, essentially mapping the skills that alphabets nurture, he continued. "There is nothing comparable in the Sinitic tradition," he wrote.
Will this inhibit China's long-term development? Not necessarily, Mr. Hannas said.
"You don't need to be creative to succeed. Success goes to the early adapter and this is where China excels, for two reasons," he wrote. First, Chinese are good at improving existing models, a different, more practical type of creativity, he wrote, adding that this practicality was noted by the British historian of Chinese science, Joseph Needham.
Yet there is a further step to this argument, and this is where Mr. Hannas's ideas become explosive.
Partly as a result of these cultural constraints, China has built an "absolutely mind-boggling infrastructure" to get hold of cutting-edge foreign technology - by any means necessary, including large-scale, apparently government-backed, computer hacking, he wrote.
Non-Chinese R.&D. gets "outsourced" from its place of origin, "while China reaps the gain," Mr. Hannas wrote, adding that many people believed this was "normal business practice."
"In fact, it's far from normal. The director of a U.S. intelligence agency has described China's informal technology acquisition as 'the greatest transfer of wealth in history,' which I regard as a polite understatement," he said.
Mr. Hannas has co-authored a book on this, to appear in the spring.
作者：sanan 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 语言学家称汉字阻碍创造力发展 （转D Tatlow) -- sanan - (5770 Byte) 2012-8-25 周六, 19:56 (2841 reads)
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