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The Totality of Chinese Characters - A Digital Perspective

That the Chinese IT industry has been recurrently plagued by the deficiencies of the Chinese writing system has been well known. In this paper, we provided an examination of the complex factors involved in the process of streamlining the total number (TN) of Chinese characters (hanzi), and critically reviewed the existing and emerging theoretical frameworks advocated by language policy (LP) practitioners over the years in addressing the issue of fixing the TN. We first identified three referencing points when people from different fields talk about the TN of hanzi. Based on this review of the concept of TN, we discussed how the ever-expanding, indefinable and unpredictable TN poses problems to Chinese information processing. From a sociolinguistic perspective, we then pointed out the main external causes that lead to the dilemma of TN restriction. Various proposals, articulated since the early 20 century, were then reviewed and their failures were briefly discussed. Lastly, the most recent visionary model to deal with hanzi’s TN was introduced and how it informs the planning of TN of Chinese characters was also discussed. It is hoped, this study will shed some light on the in-depth understanding towards one difficult aspect of Chinese script modernization and computerization.