标签：Chinese characters

The Distinctiveness of China’s Written Culture and Print Culture

I often cite McLuhan, Walter Ong, and others on the progression from oral culture to written culture to print culture (see Media, Senses, Space-Time — A Preliminary Exploration of McLuhan’s Media Ontology), but they are basically talking within the context of Western languages. The development of writing there is basically a process of “pure oral speech — ideographic writing — consonantal alphabetic writing — vocalized alphabetic writing (from Greek onward) — alphabetic writing printed with movable type.” Certain Eastern scripts can also be fitted into this genealogy and understood in that way: for example, Arabic and Sanskrit are consonantal alphabetic scripts, and thus preserve context more strongly. However, Chinese writing…