I wrote a story about the 3 cats in my family; about how they came to this family and the origins of their names.
I like this task, I think it is a fun task and offers me a chance to reflect on writing itself and the differences when writing in different languages. I also did some research on Chinese handwriting, like why did we change from right to left to left to right, and why did we change from vertical writing style to horizontal style. And that’s where I realize how technologies (for example, from the bamboo scroll to paper) in the history shift the way we read and write.
Though I type more than I write because of work, I do like the feeling of writing. When I was in school, almost everything has to be hand written, all the notes and all the tests. Right now, I prefer writing when I need to map out my thoughts, and writing is very calming for me without doing it for a test.
I took a while to decide what I want to do, because I really wanted to try the potato stamp just because I haven’t tried anything like that. However, I also think it is a really good time to practice my Chinese hand writing again. It is a very different process when thinking and writing in English than thinking and writing in Chinese. When actually writing Chinese characters I have to focus on the strokes and the overall form of these characters. However, with a somewhat phonological language like English, you can kind of follow the pronunciation and figure out the spelling. But Chinese characters can’t. The strokes do not follow any phonetic rules. However, most of the time it does offer more leeway to fix the mistake when making a mistake when writing.
Nowadays, I prefer to use iPad and Apple pencil to take note because I can use the search function and locate exactly what I want in a more speedy manner. However, I chose to do this assignment on with real pen and paper because I wanted to know how many characters I couldn’t remember how to write and how would I do when knowing I couldn’t just use the eraser function on a note-taking software or rely on the computer to pick the correct character for me. So I wrote with more carefulness so that I won’ t need to cross anything, but I did cross one that was completely the wrong character that I didn’t want. It turns out I that only couldn’t remember 3 characters.
Typing is usually easier for others read and I don’t have to preplan the formatting of it because on the computer the formatting is easier to fix and play with after. Less thought need to be put into accuracy as the softwares will help me to fix mistakes as well.
However, handwriting are difficult to fix when making mistakes and in formatting. Also, it is not good for information search.
Depending on the task I am doing, will make the decision of whether I type or write. If I am doing something personal that I don’t expect others to see, like a journal, I will usually do this by hand. If it’s a task that is for other people then I will usually type. I also find that when I have writers block or a complex thinking task that I am stuck on, it often helps me to remove the technology element and go back to by hand and it often spurs my problem solving for a task that I have been struggling with on the computer.
Hi Jane,
Great assignment! I don’t know much about it but I am very interested in why some languages are written vertically, from right to left and left to right. Before listening to Lera Borditsky’s (2017) lecture I never thought about how language can affect the way different cultures think and view both space and time differently. This is definitely a subject I would like to pursue further!
I was wondering if there is a means to type and publish languages that write from right to left and vertically? This reminds me of Miguel Treviño’s (2020) discussion about Indigenous communities and their struggles to represent their languages on the web. Do you know if there is software that allows writing in a right to left or vertical direction? I feel like if these don’t exist yet, it’s important to develop these technologies/capabilities to save languages.
I also tend to write journal entries and notes by hand, I have also seen quite a few others do the same. I like to switch mediums when I hit a mental roadblock to spur inspiration. I find that different mediums can result in different ways of thinking about a task. When I’m writing notes by hand I find I’m always worried about the clarity of the formatting of my notes. This isn’t an issue when we write on a word processor as we are able to easily change the formatting. Word processors offer us the ability to focus on the creativity of our writing and not get bogged down by ensuring our document’s formatting (Bolter, 2001, p. 9; 173).
I feel like what handwriting lacks in searchability and the changeability, it makes up for in character and personality.
To finish Jane, do you think it’s possible to print in Mandarin using the potato press?
References
Bolter, J. D. (2010). Hypertext and the remediation of print. In Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (pp. 27-46). Routledge.
Boroditsky, L. (June 2017). [Video]. How the languages we speak shape the way we think
Brown University. (2017). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?”
Trancozo Treviño, M. (2020, April 14). The many languages missing from the internet. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200414-the-many-lanuages-still-missing-from-the-internet
Hi Elvio,
Thank you for your kind words. Actually, there are many applications and software that allow you to type vertically. I think MS Word and Apple Pages all have that function. From what I learned from some research, one of the main reasons why Chinese wrote vertically was because our characters are cubic， and when writing Chinese people can go wild and use different calligraphy styles and most of the time some strokes exceed far out where it supposed to be. And that’s art. Therefore, keeping the characters vertical is good for balance, at least all the cores are aligned on the same vertical line. We only changed from vertical to horizontal within the last 150 years after some scholars got exposed to mainstream western culture.
LOL, thank you for your last question. Some Chinese characters are very simple with only a couple of strokes, like 一（one）， 二（two）, 三（thress）人（human），十（ten）. So I would say if I chose my words wisely, I can do it with some patience.
Jane