ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title>Ideographic Chinese Writing and Abstract Thinking</title> <meta name="keywords" content="Chinese language, Chinese philosophy, thoughts and thinking, ideographic writing, phonetic writing, logic, abstract thought, truth"> <meta name="description" content="Chinese Philosophy"> <meta name="author" content="Juli Zhang"> <meta name="author" content="Zhang Juli"> <meta name="copyright" content="&copy; 2006-2007 Juli Zhang"> <script type='text/javascript'> <!-- //script for last update var time = new Date(document.lastModified); var nian = time.getFullYear(); var yue = time.getMonth(); yue = yue + 1; if (yue < 10) {yue = "0"+yue} var tian = time.getDate(); if (tian < 10) {tian = '0' + tian} var newdate = nian + '.' + yue + '.' + tian; //--> </script> <script type='text/javascript'> function newWindow() { catWindow = window.open('table_a.html', 'catwin','width=400, height=340, scrollbars=yes'); catWindow.focus(); } </script> <script type='text/javascript'> function newWindow2() { catWindow2 = window.open('union_a.html', 'catwin','width=675, height=540, scrollbars=yes'); catWindow2.focus(); } </script> <style type='text/css'> body {margin:3% 8%; background-color:#ffd; letter-spacing:1px; line-height:30px;} #title1 {color:purple; text-align:center;} sup {font-size:60%; vertical-align:text-top; font-weight:600;} #byline {text-align:center; word-spacing:-2px; color:brown;} .pinyin {word-spacing:-2px;} #asv {padding:2px; border:2px dashed red; padding-left:14px; position:relative; left:-25px; margin-right:-3%; padding-bottom:5px; margin-left:-1%;} .title2 {color:white; background:green; font-size:120%; padding:5px 10px; font-weight:600; border:3px solid orange;} #wang2 {position:relative; left:50px;} .quote {color:red; font-weight:600;} .page {color:blue; font-weight:600;} #byline2 {text-align:center;} #quote1 {margin-left:12%; margin-right:12%;} table#table1 {border-collapse:collapse;} table#table1 td {padding:0.1em 0.2em; text-align:center; letter-spacing:1px; border:2px solid navy;} #table1 th {padding:5px; letter-spacing:1px; border:2px solid red;} .blue {color:blue; font-weight:600;} .hanzi {cursor:default; color:blue;} caption {font-weight:600; color:purple; letter-spacing:1px; background-color:#3d1078; color:white;} #two_ways {position:relative; left:350px;} #one_way {position:relative; left:350px;} #both {position:relative; left:150px;} #wang2 {position:relative; left:250px;} .yang {font-weight:600; color:green; font-size:110%;} .quote1 {margin:0 35px; padding:2px; padding-left:5px; background-color:#adb; margin-bottom:10px;} .home_page td {text-align:center;} hr {color:navy;} .phonetic {color:blue;} #draft {padding:5px; width:auto; height:auto; background-color:navy; color:white; border:2px solid red;} </style> </head> <body> <table width='100%' class='home_page'> <tr> <td align='left'> Go to <a href="../index.html" class='home'>Home Page</a> </td> <td> <span style='color:brown; letter-spacing:2px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> <!-- document.write ('Last modified: ' + newdate); //--> </script> </span> </td> <td> <span class='banquan'> Copyright &copy; 2006-2008 by <span class='pinyin'>zhang<sup>1</sup>ju<sup>1</sup>li<sup>3</sup></span> </span> </td> </tr> </table> <ul id='asv'> <li> To view graphics in this page, a small plug-in, the Adobe Svg Viewer (ASV), must be installed to your computer. To install ASV or read relevant information, please <a href="http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/"> click here</a>. </li> <li> After the installation, open this page with IE browser. </li> <li> Firefox browser provides native support to svg, but does not show some important graphic features, such as animations. </li> </ul> <h2 id='title1'>Ideographic Chinese Writing and Abstract Thought</h2> <h3 id='byline2'>by <span id='byline'>zhang<sup>1</sup>ju<sup>1</sup>li<sup>3</sup></span></h3> <br /> <span class='title2'>Introduction</span> <p> Research in comparative philosophy has found that while the Western philosophy abounds with abstraction, or Platonic one-many inquiries, this mode of thought is lacking on the Chinese side. Chad Hansen points out: <span style="white-space: nowrap;">'[W]e</span> can satisfactorily interpret Chinese philosophical writings without attributing a philosophical commitment to abstract or mental entities' (<span class='quote'></span><span class='page'>p.39</span>). It has also been observed that traditional Chinese science, though highly sophisticated, is not abstract theoretical science, but non-abstract practical science (<span class='quote'>Logan</span>:<span class='page'>64</span>). Robert K. Logan further proposes that the absence of abstraction in Chinese science, technology, legal system, religion and general culture comes from the ideographic (logographic in Logan's term) writing system. Study in this page corresponds to Logan's opinion. </p> <p> Abstraction is the mental activity of seeking ideal form of individual objects. For instance, there are numerous goats in the world. They are different from one another in terms of color, size, time of birth, gender, weight, length of legs, amount of fleece, and so forth. No two goats are exactly same. Every one is unique. But all of them share essential qualities, and bear the name of 'goat'. Abstraction is the process of defining the essence of goats. The question for abstraction in this case is to ask: 'What is the ideal form or goatness of all these goats?' Or ontologically, 'what is the being of goat?' In such inquiries, individual objects, such as the goats, are also called 'particulars', and the ideal form for the particulars is the 'universal.' As stated above, it is hypothesized in this study that the lack of abstraction in Chinese thought is caused by the language being written in an ideographic, but not phonetic, script. </p> <br /> <span class='title2'>Proof of Hypothesis</span> <p> It is said that spoken language existed long before writing. But human beings must also have communicated with drawings long before the advent of writing. For instance, a hunter from a pre-literate tribe left the camp on a morning, and later saw a flock of goats galloping across the ground in front of him. He had never seen this type of animals. So, upon returning to the camp in the evening, he described what he had seen to his tribesmen. He might have uttered a sound or sequence of sounds from his mouth (language), or drawn one or more pictures on the ground, to describe his findings. Or he might have employed both. The concept of goat, which stands for the type of animals as a whole or any individual of them, thus emerged. Either the writing or drawing could be more efficient or convenient than the other in communication about this concept. But at this time, the language and drawing were not related to each other. The drawing was not writing. As a means for communication, it was predecessor of writing. Relationship between these three elements, namely, the concept, language and drawing, is illustrated in Diagram&nbsp;I. </p> <table align='center'> <tr> <td> <embed src="no_writing2.svg" width="350px" height="348px" type="image/svg+xml" /> </td> </tr> </table> <p> In above diagram, the drawing and language represent the concept independently, but not one another in any manner. Gradually, the drawing became conventionalized and simplified. More important, the language and drawing started to connect with each other. The drawing thus became ideographic writing. The following two diagrams, Diagrams II and III, facilitates discussion about this type of writing. </p> <table align='center'> <tr> <td> <embed src="both.svg" width="800px" height="352px" type="image/svg+xml" /> </td> </tr> </table> <p> Diagram II seems to be the natural next step of Diagram I. The language and drawing now become related to each other. The drawing in Diagram I develops into ideographic writing in Diagram II. A prevalent linguistic theory says that writing is merely a way recording language by visual marks. Accordingly, relations between the three elements are seemingly supposed to transmit from Diagram II into Diagram III. But the fact is that the relationships in Diagram II are still current, at least to certain extent. Following table provides relevant evidence. </p> <table align="center" bgcolor="c6ef8c" id='table1'> <caption>Table I: Chinese Sounds,<br />ideographic and Phonetic Writings</caption> <tr> <th>Sound</th> <th>Ideographic Writing</th> <th>Phonetic Writing</th> </tr> <tr> <td>se<sup>1</sup></td> <td>no writing</td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>1</sup></td> </tr> <tr> <td>se<sup>2</sup></td> <td>no writing</td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>2</sup></td> </tr> <tr> <td>se<sup>3</sup></td> <td>no writing</td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>3</sup></td> </tr> <td>se<sup>4</sup></td> <td><span class='hanzi' title='color'>&#x8272;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='Chinese zither'>&#x745F;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='puckery'>&#x6DA9;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='cesium'>&#x94EF;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='blocking'>&#x585E;</span> </td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>4</sup></td> </tr> </table> <br /> <p> Chinese is a highly homophonic language. A speech sound can represent up to several dozens of words. In the last row of above table, the sound se<sup>4</sup> is shared by five different words. You can move the computer cursor to a Chinese character to see its English translation. Thereafter, on the one hand, the speech sound represents the concept directly, but on the other, it has to rely on the ideographs to precisely distinguish the semantic values of homophonic words and overcome the ambiguity. The upward arrow in Diagram II stands for this phenomenon, i.e., the language has to go to the concept through the ideograph. </p> <p> Furthermore, it can also be seen in the table that only the sound currently in use, that is, the se<sup>4</sup>, has several written forms in the ideographic writing system, but not all the other three legitimate sounds, namely, se<sup>1</sup>, se<sup>2</sup>, se<sup>3</sup>. This is an important difference between ideographic writing and phonetic writing. In phonetic writing, all possible sounds, both in use and not, have a written form which is its spelling, so the relationship between language and writing is independent from the concepts. But this is not the case in the ideographic writing, in which possible legitimate sounds that are not representing any concept have no written forms. In Diagram II, the upward-downward arrow between the ideograph and language stands for this reciprocal relationship between language and writing. This is why that Diagram II is still current. </p> <p> On the other hand, the difference between Diagrams II and III does not affect our discussion about the influence exerted by ideographic writing upon relationships between concept, language and writing, because the writing in both diagrams symbolizes the concept directly, and is associated with the language in the meantime albeit in different manners. In contrast, spelling in phonetic writing represents language only, but not the concept directly, as illustrated by Diagram IV as follows: </p> <table align='center'> <tr> <td> <embed src="wang2.svg" width="600px" height="245px" type="image/svg+xml" /> </td> </tr> </table> <p> In phonetic writing, a spelling consists of meaningless phonemic letters for meaningless phonemic elements (sound). The meaningless nature of sound is thus revealed. Or the fact that the sound has no inherent semantic value stands out. This relationship between sound and concept entails the perception of arbitrariness of language. With this perception, a concept can associate with Sound A, Sound B, Sound C, or any other sound, because no sound has intrinsic meaning. They are all meaningless. Therefore, the phonetic value of a concept is irrelevant to other aspects of it, such as chemical, physical, social, physiological or so forth. Only when the arbitrary relationship between concept and language is perceived, can occur the intent on inquiring into what the concept really is, or what the being of the concept is. </p> <p> The animation in Diagram IV stands for the arbitrary nature of linguistic sign. Ferdinand de Saussure defines the arbitrariness as 'the first principle of language' (<span class='quote'></span><span class='page'>p.67</span>). According to this theory, a concept is not linked by any inner relationship with the sound, and could be represented equally by just another sound in the language. Jonathan Culler (<span class='quote'></span><span class='page'>p.29</span>) describes the arbitrary nature of linguistic sign as: </p> <p class='quote1'> There is no natural or inevitable link between the signifier and signified. Since I speak English I may use the signifier represented by <i>dog</i> to talk about an animal of a particular species, but this sequence of sounds is no better suited to that purpose than another sequence. <i>Lod</i>, <i>tet</i>, or <i>bloop</i> would serve equally well if it were accepted by members of my speech community. There is no intrinsic reason why one of these signifiers rather than another should be linked with the concept of a "dog." (Note that here, . . . I use italics to cite linguistic forms [e.g., <i>dog</i>, <i>lod</i>] and quotation marks to designate meanings [e.g., "dog"].) </p> <p> It can be seen from Diagram IV that the principle of arbitrariness is well embodied by phonetic writing, as the phonetic spelling has no direct relationship with the concept. The relationship between the sound and spelling is that meaningless phonemic elements (sound) are represented with equally meaningless visual signs, that is, the letters of alphabet. On the other hand, in Diagrams II and III, the ideograph graphically stands for the concept, so that the writing is inherently meaningful. And when the meaningful ideograph is also associated with the language sound in the meantime, in either Diagrams II or III, the meaningless nature of the sound is consequently covered up. And the arbitrary relationship between the sound and concept does not show up. Therefore, users of ideographic writing have no chance to perceive the arbitrary connection between the sound and concept. </p> <p> I contend that it is exactly the perception of arbitrary relationship between the sound and concept of language that invokes ontological curiosity in the human mind. It helps detach the sound from concept, to allow meditation going on in the sphere of pure sounds without intervention of concrete concepts. Perception of meaninglessness of the sound comes from the meaningless alphabetic writing. On the other hand, the ideographic writing does not facilitate perception of the arbitrary relationship between the sound and concept. It can be seen that what happens on Diagram IV is not possible for Diagrams II and III. Therefore, ontological meditation does not occur. </p> <br /> <div> <span class='title2'>Discussion</span> </div> <p> It is argued in this study that difference between Chinese and Western philosophy and science comes from different writing systems. Phonetic writing encourages ontological contemplation, while ideographic writing blocks this intellectual pattern. This is the reason that abstract philosophy and science have been developed in the West only, but not in China. As Marshall McLuhan (<span class='quote'>1962</span>:<span class='page'>25</span>) claims: 'By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man'. </p> <p> An immediate question is that whether or not abstract thinking can happen among people in a pre-literate society. In other words, when the concept, language and writing being in the relationship of Diagram I, are the people, such as the hunter who observed the goat running, and his tribesmen, able to conceive of the abstract goat? They are not, according to analysis in this page. Abstract meditation comes from consciousness or sub-consciousness of the arbitrary relationship of linguistic sign. Only phonetic writing represents this relationship. Therefore, until the language is written in a phonetic system, will not occur the abstract thinking. When there was no writing, let alone phonetic writing, the people have no way to detach the sound from the concept, thus to perceive the arbitrary relationship between these two elements, which is conductive to abstract thought, it was thus not possible for them to conceive of the ontological being. </p> <p> In his discussion on different writing systems, Logan suggests that a medium of communication is not merely a passive conduit for the transmission of information, but rather an active force independent of its content or message. The medium has its own intrinsic effects on our perception which are its unique message (<span class='quote'></span><span class='page'>pp.7-8</span>). In Marshall McLuhan's famous adage: "the medium is the message." (<span class='quote'>1964</span>:<span class='page'>23</span>) Discussion in this page follows this thesis. In connection with above examples, I propose that the meaningless alphabetic spelling 'goat' and meaningful ideograph '<span class='yang'>&#x7F8A;</span>' exert substantially different effects on our perception of the linguistic sign, that is, the relationship between language and concepts. And the different perceptions evoke abstract thinking on one side, and non-abstract thinking on the other. </p> <p> In another page listed in my web site, I discussed the difference in representing phonetic possibility between phonetic and ideographic writing. Diagrams in that page can also help the investigation into different thought patterns. The <a href ='javascript:newWindow2()'>last figure</a> in that study is modified as follows, to help discussion in this page. </p> <table align='center'> <tr> <td> <embed src="union3.svg" width="670px" height="510px" type="image/svg+xml" /> </td> </tr> </table> <p> Animation in above diagram is programmed with the svg code, not Javascript. So the reader has to open this page with IE browser and install the <a href="http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/">Adobe Svg Viewer (ASV)</a> in computer, to view the movements in it. In connection with above <a href ='javascript:newWindow()'>Table&nbsp;I</a>, it can be observed from Diagram V that the ideographic writing only represents the language's existence or reality, but not possibilities, because all possible but not currently used syllables have no written forms in it. whereas phonetic writing represents both. Therefore, there are no elements in the area for possible sound in the part for ideographic writing. It is blank. On the other hand, possible sounds are presented by the phonetic writing. </p> Furthermore, the process from existent elements to reach possible ones is of essentially logical reasoning, that is, from known facts to deduce the unknown facts. The left part of the diagram shows that it is impossible for this process to happen linguistically and orthographically, so that the circles are solid, and there are no elements in the possible area. But the process can happen on the right part of the diagram, so that circles are dotted, and there are animated elements in them. </p> <p> In both the left and right parts of Diagram V, the sound in red, <span style='color:red; font-weight:600;'>se<sup>4</sup></span>, is associated with concrete concepts. But not are all the other sounds in the right part. Linguistically those are possible sounds. Philosophically they are mental entities. Therefore, linguistic possibilies that are not associated with particular concepts stand for mental entities or abstraction. There is no linguistic possibility in the left part of Diagram V, which is caused by the ideographic writing. </p> <br /> <div> <span class='title2'>List of References</span> </div> <ul> <li> <p> Culler, Jonathan. 1986. <u>Ferdinard de Saussure</u>. Revised Edition. Cornell University Press. </p> </li> <li> <p> Hansen, Chad. 1983. <u>Language and Logic in Ancient China</u>. University of Michigan Press. </p> </li> <li> <p> Logan, Robert K. 2004. <u>The Alphabet Effect: A Media Ecology Understanding of the Making of Western Civilization</u>. 2nd Edition. Hampton Press Communication Series. </p> </li> <li> <p> McLuhan, Marshall. 1962. <u>The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man</u>. University of Toronto Press. </p> </li> <li> <p> McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. <u>Understanding media: the extensions of man</u>. New York: McGraw-Hill. </p> </li> <li> <p> Saussure, de Ferdinand. 1986. <u>Course in General Linguistics</u>. (English translation and editorial matter by Roy Harris.) Open Court. </p> </li> <li> <p> Zhang<sup>1</sup> Ju<sup>1</sup> Li<sup>3</sup>. <a href='../planning/dongmian5.html'>Models for China's Language Planning</a>. </p> </li> </ul> <!-- <p> [<san class='quote'>2</span>] Mou, Bo. 2004. <u>The Structure of the Chinese Language and Ontological Insights: A Collective-Noun Hypothesis</u>. Philosophy East & West, January </p> --> <hr /> <table width='100%' class='home_page'> <tr> <td align='left'> Go to <a href="../index.html" class='home'>Home Page</a> </td> <td> <span style='color:red; letter-spacing:2px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> <!-- document.write ('Last modified: ' + newdate); //--> </script> </span> </td> <td> <span class='banquan'> Copyright &copy; 2006-2008 by <span class='pinyin'>zhang<sup>1</sup>ju<sup>1</sup>li<sup>3</sup></span> </span> </td> </tr> </table> <!-- <p id='draft'> This page was first listed in my home page on May&nbsp;13,&nbsp;2007. </p> --> <script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> _uacct = "UA-4029303-1"; urchinTracker(); </script> </body> </html> <!-- <p>subliminal or hidden effects</p> <p> Human beings name every object and phenomenon with a word or a series of words, namely, phonetic symbols. When a new object or phenomenon is found or appears, human beings first describe it with words, then name it with a word or a series of words. Furthermore, human beings have also created writing systems. There are currently two major types of writing, the ideographic writing for Chinese and phonetic writing for many other languages. The signs in Chinese ideographic writing represent the combination of the object and sound. The signs in the phonetic writing stand for meaningless sound. The Japanese writing, consisting of ideographic Chinese characters and a syllabic alphabet, is neither a pure ideographic writing nor phonetic one. It is somewhere in between. </p> <p> In Figures II or III, with the written symbol being associated graphically with the object, the arbitrary associate relation between the speech sound and object is hidden. The speech sound would sound to be destined for the object. The human mind would not be able to feel, subconciously or otherwise, the arbitrary association between the speech and object. But only such feeling invokes the curio </p> <p> When the writing is phonetic, the speech sound is actually meaningless, that is, its association with the object is conventional but not predetermined, is covered by the graphically meaningful ideograph. The link between the sound and object would sound like, or look destined, but not arbibrary. <p> <p> Words are divided into the meaningless phonemic (sound) elements of which they are composed and then these meaningless phonemic elements are represented visually with equally meaningless signs, namely, the letters of the alphabet. </p> <p> Gutenberg Galaxy (1962, p. 65), "By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man". </p> <p> "the medium is the message" completely obscures arbitra </p> <p> Another conspicuous phenomenon is that Chinese is a highly homophonic language. A speech sound can be shared by up to dozens of words. For example, in the last row of above table, the syllable se<sup>4</sup> represents five words. The reader can move the cursor to any of the Chinese characters to see the English translation. Thereafter, on the one hand, the speech sound represents the object directly, but on the other, it has to rely on the ideographs to precisely differentiate semantic values and overcome ambiguity. Because of these two features of ideographic writing, we have the following model: </p> <p> Please note that in Figure II, the arrow between the two circles on the left is an upwards downwards arrow, and its counterpart in Figure III is an upwards one. Figure II0may look rather rebellious. Prevalent linguistic theory claims that writing represents speech, but Figure II demonstrates just the opposite, that is, it is the speech that represents writing. Or writing is the primary, and speech is the secondary. In order to justify the relationship, it is necessary to discuss Figures II in connection with following table. </p> --> <!-- <p> Pictographs are the earliest stage of Chinese writing, as they directly came from drawings of object. The pictographic structure is the first of the six structural principles of ideographic Chinese characters. In this study, I take it as an independent stage of evolution, to demonstrate the transition from non-writing drawings to ideographs. </p> <p> First, the ideograph stands for the object directly without going through the sound, even though the ideograph carries a phonetic value. Secondly, as mentioned above, some legitimate syllables in the Chinese language have no ideographic written forms. But the opposite is not true. all ideograhs have The ideographic writing is related to speech, but does not represent speech. The opposite is true. If the writing is graphically represent the object, it is merely object on the paper from point of speech. </p> <p> The upwards and downwards arrow between the ideograph and speech in above figure demonstrate that not only that the ideograph represents speech, but also that the speech must represent the speech, too. Or the set of sounds represented by the ideographs and the set of speech sounds are exactly same set. This is a significant difference between ideographic writing and phonetic writing. Ideographic writing can only represent some, but not all, of legitimate </p> --> <!-- <embed src="two_ways.svg" width="400px" height="345px" type="image/svg+xml" id='no_writing' /> <p> The upwards arrow between the ideograph and language in above figure may look rather rebellious, because from the <p> Writing is not language, but merely a way of recording language by visual marks. </p> --> <!-- <p> The upwards arrow between the ideograph and language in above figure may look rebellious from the perspective of prevalent linguistic theory which says that writing is merely a way of recording by visual marks. The upwards arrow in the figure stands for that language represents writing. To facilitate the discussion in connection with Figure II, it is necessary to present the following table: </p> <table cellpadding="5" border="1" align="center" bgcolor="c6ef8c" id='table1'> <caption>Table I: Chinese Sounds,<br/>ideographic and Phonetic Writings</caption> <tr> <th>Sound</th> <th>Ideographic Writing</th> <th>Phonetic Writing</th> </tr> <tr> <td>se<sup>1</sup></td> <td>no ideograph</td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>1</sup></td> </tr> <tr> <td>se<sup>2</sup></td> <td>no ideograph</td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>2</sup></td> </tr> <tr> <td>se<sup>3</sup></td> <td>no ideograph</td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>3</sup></td> </tr> <td>se<sup>4</sup></td> <td><span class='hanzi' title='color'>&#x8272;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='Chinese zither'>&#x745F;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='puckery'>&#x6DA9;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='cesium'>&#x94EF;</span> <span class='hanzi' title='blocking'>&#x585E;</span> </td> <td class='phonetic'>se<sup class='blue'>4</sup></td> </tr> </table> <p> In the table, all syllables in the first column, i.e., se<sup>1</sup>, se<sup>2</sup>, se<sup>3</sup>, se<sup>4</sup>, are legitimate sounds in Chinese, but only the se<sup>4</sup> has several ideographic written forms, while the others have none. On the other hand, all possible syllables have written forms in the phonetic writing, as listed in the rightmost column of the table. The ideographic writing only represents the language's phonetic reality, but not possibility. This is a significant difference between ideographic writing and phonetic writing. The downwards arrow stands for the phenomenon that the some sounds are represented by ideographs. In order to demonstrate this restriction of the ideographic writing in representing language, Figure II needs to be modified as follows: </p> --> <!-- <embed src="broken.svg" width="400px" height="355px" type="image/svg+xml" id='one_way' /> --> <!-- <p> The upwards arrow in the figure stands for that language also represents writing. It may look rebellious from the perspective of prevalent linguistic theory that claims the only reason for the existence of writing is to represent language. This upwards arrow comes first from the nature of ideographic writing. in Figure II, both the language and ideograph represent the object directly. By nature, ideograph is object on paper. Therefore, the language must represent the ideogrpah, too, as it does object. </p> --> <!-- <embed src="pictograph.svg" width="400px" height="355px" type="image/svg+xml" id='one_way' /> <embed src="pictograph.svg" width="400px" height="350px" type="image/svg+xml" id='two_ways' /> --> <!-- <embed src="ideograph.svg" width="400px" height="345px" type="image/svg+xml" id='one_way' /> --> <!-- <p> On the other hand, Figures II and III share an important characteristic, that is, the writing, namely, the pictograph in Figure II and ideograph in Figure III, are graphically associated with the object and represent the speech sounds in the meantime. As will be discussed, only this charactistic affects abstract thought. Figure IV shows relations between the object, speech, and writing in the phonetic writing system: Marshall McLuhan expressed this idea with his famous adage, "the medium is the message," </p> -->