Recent developments

Deviations from official policy

Since the late 1970s, much activity in the educational, cultural, and scientific fields that were almost dormant during the Cultural Revolution has been enthusiastically resumed. On the front of script reform, however, in spite of renewed efforts on the part of the language planning institutions to continue with the agenda drawn up in the 1950s and 1960s, there has been an obvious trend among the general public to break away from the tight controls that have been in place since the 1950s. In comparison with the twenty-year period following 1956, the 1980s and 1990s have witnessed more deviation from the standard in the use of characters.

First, the original complex forms of simplified characters are staging a comeback. In spite of language planning institutions issuing a succession of regulations and directives prohibiting their use, they are everywhere to be seen – on the signboards of streets, stores, schools, companies, and even government institutions, as well as in advertisements, slogans, television subtitles, etc. According to a recent survey of forty-eight universities in Beijing, twenty-five use complex characters in their signs, and of fifty-one restaurants chosen at random in Beijing, forty-three use complex characters in their signs (Zhong 1990). The percentage is even higher in Southern Chinese cities like Xiamen and Guangzhou (Fei and Qi 1986; Dai 1991). The calligraphic works of senior politicians published in prominent places in newspapers contain a large number of complex characters, much to the dismay of language planners who expect these writers to pay more attention to official policy on the use of script.