Xiandai Hanyu guifan cidian.

• Author: Branner, David Prager
• Position: Book review

Xiandai Hanyu guifan cidian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [A Standard Dictionary of Modern Chinese].Edited by Li Xingjian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Beijing: WAIYU JIAOXUE YU YANJIU CHUBANSHE, Yuwen CHUBANSHE[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 2004. Pp. 80 + 1758 + 34. [yen] 69.90.

Li Xingjian's dictionary is a most exciting development in Chinese lexicography: a high-quality but independent alternative to the semi-official dictionaries that have dominated China's market for reference books since the mid-1950s.

Li, a senior academic figure in the field of Chinese language, is the past Director and General Editor at China's Language and Literature Press (Yuwen Chub&nshe [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). In the 1990s he assembled a team of retired scholars and created this dictionary largely from scratch, with none of the usual bureaucracy or even (at first) government funding. He seems to have proceeded with one idea foremost: to compete with the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Dictionary of Modern Chinese], the de facto standard Chinese dictionary since its first edition in 1978 and domestically even since its widely circulated 1959 trial edition ("shiylnben [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]"). In discussion below, we use the short names common in Chinese: "the Xian Han" for the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and "the Guifan" for the present volume.

Competition with the Xian Han is apparent in many details: the Gulflxn has added notes on part of speech, usage, and variant written forms--including remarks on which variant is officially standard and recommendations on which is to be preferred. It contains a great many more entries than the Xian Han. Most important, however, the Guifan's compilers appear to have gone out of their way to improve on the Xihn Han's definitions. Chinese critical discussion of the Guifan even has a special term for this effect: bixian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'avoiding [duplication of what is in] the Xian [Han]'. The influence of the Xian Han on Chinese lexicography has been so great that its definitions appear, usually word for word, in various smaller dictionaries, without attribution. Li and his team seem to have been determined to create something different.

The Guifan has been controversial in China. One reason is mat Li saw nt to name nis dictionary "standard," even though it is not officially sponsored; the Xian Han itself would seem to be the true "standard" Chinese dictionary...