This study examines how the social status of Hanja 漢字 “Sino-Korean characters” and Hanmun 漢文 “Literary Sinitic” has changed within the history of knowledge formation in Korea, focusing on three interrelated layers: shifts in episteme, the reconfiguration of knowledge baselines, and transformations in curriculum discourse. Hanja and Hanmun were marginalized in the context of modern nationstate language policy and the establishment of disciplinary academic systems, but this did not immediately entail the disappearance of their educational value. Rather, Hanja education came to be assigned new goals, such as deepening vocabulary and literacy, facilitating access to historical texts, and cultivating an understanding of the shared written culture of East Asia. At the same time, the ways in which each country and region evaluated and authorized “valuable” knowledge became a key factor in reshaping the respective status of Hanja and Hanmun.

This study examines how Hanja education policy in Korea has changed in relation to shifts in language and script policy since the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point the 1894 Royal Edict of King Kojong 高宗(r. 1863–1907), which marked the transition of Korea’s official writing system from Hanja-centered writing to Han’gŭl-centered writing. To this end, the study divides Korean language and script policy into the periods before and after 1945 and analyzes how the policies of each period affected Hanja education policy in Korea. The findings are as follows. First, the major policies that influenced Hanja education policy in Korea since the twentieth century include the 1894 Royal Edict of King Kojong, the Act on the Exclusive Use of Han’gŭl of 1948, and the Framework Act on the National Language of 2005. Second, in the process of implementing these policies, various issues related to Hanja education were discussed or put into practice, including arguments for the abolition of Hanja, Hanja education in elementary and secondary schools, Hanja education within the Korean language curriculum, the parallel notation of Hanja, the establishment of commonly used Hanja, and the designation of basic Hanja for Literary Sinitic education. Third, future Hanja education policy should be based on an investigation of Hanja vocabulary actually needed in daily life and official documents. It should also organize educational content around practical use and develop learner-customized methods that make effective use of science and technology. This study confirms that changes in language and script policy in Korea since the twentieth century have shaped the character and direction of Hanja education policy. It is expected to provide basic material for establishing Hanja education policies suited to the linguistic life ofKorean society in the future.

This article serves as a preliminary study for a larger project on developing Literary Sinitic textbooks for Anglophone learners. It examines major Literary Sinitic textbooks published for use in Korean universities since the twentieth century, focusing on three aspects: the definition and scope of Literary Sinitic, pedagogical approaches, and the selection of texts. The study shows that Korean university textbooks generally present Literary Sinitic as both an integral part of Korean literary tradition and a shared classical language of the Sinosphere. They also place considerable emphasis on systematic grammatical instruction while recognizing the limitations of grammar-centered pedagogy. In addition, some textbooks employ pedagogical strategies such as diagramming methods and practice exercises to promote active learner engagement. With regard to text selection, they seek to balance representative works with broader educational objectives, although further diversification remains desirable. Based on these findings, this article argues that future textbooks for Anglophone learners should provide a clear explanation of the concept and scope of Literary Sinitic, adopt a balanced approach to grammatical instruction, and diversify their selection of texts in light of recent scholarship and the needs of Korean Studies. It is hoped that these observations will contribute to the development of more effective Korean Literary Sinitic teaching materials for Anglophone learners.

This paper aims to examine various methods of Chinese character education practiced in China and to identify their characteristics and implications. As a country that has used Chinese characters as the writing system of its native language, China has accumulated extensive research and practical experience in Chinese character education over a long period of time. Based on this background, China has established the scope and hierarchy of characters to be learned at the level of the national curriculum and has developed and applied diverse instructional methods according to learners’ developmental stages and educational objectives. An analysis of these methods can provide useful insights not only for Chinese character education in Korea but also for the development of instructional methods for learners outside Chinese-speaking contexts. This paper first examines the Basic Character List for Literacy and Writing Instruction (識字寫字敎學基本字表) and the Commonly Used Character List for the Chinese Language Curriculum in Compulsory Education (義務敎育語文課程常用字表), both of which were presented by the Chinese Ministry of Education. These lists institutionalize, at the national level, the range and sequence of Chinese characters to be learned during compulsory education and serve as important standards for textbook compilation and the organization of teaching and learning content. In particular, the Commonly Used Character List presents 3,500 characters to be mastered during compulsory education, while the Basic Character List selects 300 characters that should be taught first at the initial stage of learning. This indicates that Chinese character education in China is not dependent solely on individual teachers’ experience or textbook compilers’ judgment, but is systematically organized according to national standards. The paper then discusses the content and characteristics of representative methods of Chinese character education used in China, including the Concentrated Character Recognition Method (集中識字法), Distributed Character Recognition Method (分散識字法), Phonetic-Notation-Based Character Recognition Method (注音識字法), Component-Based Character Recognition Method (部件識字法), Character-Principle-Based Character Recognition Method (字理識字法), and Root-Character-Based Character Recognition Method (字根識字法). The Concentrated Character Recognition Method emphasizes intensive learning of characters before moving on to reading instruction, whereas the Distributed Character Recognition Method enables learners to acquire characters naturally through the process of reading textbook passages. The Phonetic-Notation-Based Method connects early reading ability with character recognition by using pronunciation guides. The Component-Based and Root-Character-Based Methods make use of the structural analysis of Chinese characters, while the Character-Principle-Based Method helps learners understand the relationship among character form, sound, and meaning on the basis of the principles of character formation. Although each method has its own strengths and limitations, together they demonstrate that Chinese character education can be designed in various ways by taking into account both the structural features of Chinese characters and the learners’ level. This paper also examines cases in which digital technologies are applied to Chinese character education in China. Electronic dictionaries, digital textbooks, educational software, learning games, and video materials are widely used, contributing to greater accessibility and to the expansion of learning methods and environments. Such digital resources and platforms may also offer meaningful references for developing new teaching and learning methods in Korean Chinese character education. However, Chinese character education in China differs from that in Korea in several respects, since it presupposes an environment in which Chinese characters are used as the native writing system, employs simplified characters, and aims primarily at developing reading and writing abilities. Therefore, when applying Chinese research findings and instructional methods to Korea, it is necessary to critically reconsider them in light of the aims and conditions of Korean Chinese character education, such as the understanding of Korean vocabulary, the learning of Sino-Korean words, and education in traditional culture. Nevertheless, China’s systematic use of character lists, development of diverse character recognition methods, and active adoption of digital technologies provide significant implications for improving and expanding Chinese character education in Korea and other regions outside China.

The traditional liushu (Six Principles) theory, while effective in explaining the historical formation of Chinese characters, is not readily applicable to the analysis of modern character forms. This study proposes a structure-based interpretation grounded in the present forms of Chinese characters and reconstructs a classification system on this basis. At the classificatory level, the notion of structural motivation is redefined, and a revised fivefold system is proposed, consisting of pictographic, indicative, associative, phono-semantic, and symbolic characters. At the level of structural mechanisms, a tripartite functional model of components—semantic, phonetic, and symbolic—is introduced. The concept of “component languaging” is further proposed to account for the transformation of components from graphic units into functional linguistic units capable of participating in subsequent character formation. On this basis, a type–function model is established, integrating classification, structural mechanisms, and structure-based interpretation. This model provides a unified synchronic framework for the analysis of modern Chinese characters and offers a theoretically grounded and operational approach to their structure-based interpretation.

This article examines the transregional dissemination and localization of the post-May Fourth linguistic reforms—specifically Vernacular Chinese (baihua) and the National Language (Guoyu)—within the Chinese diaspora of Malaya and Singapore (Nanyang). Moving beyond the traditional "impact-response" paradigm, this study argues that the adoption of the vernacular was not merely a passive cultural importation from mainland China, but an "active fabrication of identity" necessitated by the complex realities of British colonial rule and severe internal dialectal fragmentation. By analyzing early Chinese press materials, such as the Sin Kuo Min Jit Poh, and local educational records, the research traces the tangible trajectory of this linguistic transformation. It first highlights the role of newspapers as media vanguards that transitioned from reprinting mainland literature to cultivating local vernacular expression to discipline oral traditions. Subsequently, it investigates the institutionalization of Guoyu in formal schools and grassroots night schools, which served to educate the laboring classes and dismantle provincial boundaries. Ultimately, the "remolding of the tongue" in Nanyang facilitated the construction of a transregional Zhonghua identity, demonstrating how language standardization functioned as a profound tool for social reorganization and diasporic integration.

This study examines how the social status of Hanja 漢字 “Sino-Korean characters” and Hanmun 漢文 “Literary Sinitic” has changed within the history of knowledge formation in Korea, focusing on three interrelated layers: shifts in episteme, the reconfiguration of knowledge baselines, and transformations in curriculum discourse. Hanja and Hanmun were marginalized in the context of modern nation-state language policy and the establishment of disciplinary academic systems, but this did not immediately entail the disappearance of their educational value. Rather, Hanja education came to be assigned new goals, such as deepening vocabulary and literacy, facilitating access to historical texts, and cultivating an understanding of the shared written culture of East Asia. At the same time, the ways in which each country and region evaluated and authorized “valuable” knowledge became a key factor in reshaping the respective status of Hanja and Hanmun. The current state of Japanese Chinese Character 漢字 (kanji) and Classical Chinese 漢文 (kanbun) culture and the surrounding school education, serves as a valuable filter and reference to reflect on Korean linguistic practices and to explore the future direction of Korean Classical Chinese漢文 (hanmun) education. In 2010, for the first time in 29 years, Japan established the “Shin Jōyō Kanji” 新常用漢字 (new regular-use kanji) and revised large-scale educational reforms alongside the Course of Study reforms, bringing significant changes to linguistic practices and written life, as well as Classical Chinese education. This paper follows the author’s work from 2011 that examined the achievements and trends of Classical Chinese education research in Japan from 1945 to 2010. This paper examines the direction of Classical Chinese education and the current state of Chinese Character education research over roughly ten years since 2010. The framework of this research conducted in this paper is as follows. ① The social, cultural, and educational background of the implementation of the “Shin Jōyō Kanji” which has not been covered or sufficiently addressed in previous research, and the content of the 2017-2018 revised Course of Study are analyzed. ② Focusing on high school Classical Chinese, the direction, purpose, and characteristics of Classical Chinese education under the new curriculum are examined, and the trends, content, and questions of recent university admission Classical Chinse examinations are also examined. ③ The achievements related to Classical Chinese education published in the leading specialized journal on Classical Chinese education Atarashii Kanji Kanbun Kyōiku 新しい漢字漢文教育 (Journal of New Kanji and Kanbun Education) are organized by area and topic, and the current status and characteristics of recent research and teaching examples in Japanese Classical Chinese education are reviewed. The world of Classical Chinese in East Asia is not homogeneous. It is important to keep this in mind and apply this point in Classical Chinese education and its research. The differences from Korea allow for a clearer understanding of the diversity of the East Asian world of Classical Chinese, as well as Korea's unique characteristics and position. Meanwhile the similarities or shared aspects with Korea can serve as direct reference for reflecting on and improving Korean policies and practices. The author intends to continue reporting the status of Japanese Classical Chinese education and its research to the academic community roughly every ten years, while further examining the specific topics section described in this paper as necessary.