Literacy
and Script Reform in Occupation Japan
Reading
(New York: Oxford University Press , 1996)
"Among the best scholars in the world to tackle this
interesting subject. ... Unger argues ... that there is indeed a
relationship between the complexity of a writing system and social development.
This may not be the final statement on what the Japanese writing system means
to Japanese society, but it is an interesting and forcefully argued
position." --Florian Coulmas (
"Unger has carried out meticulous archival research and unearthed previously unstudied documents ... The fact that conservative factions in the LDP worked hard to bring about a successful partial reversal of the postwar script reforms has been well documented in other scholarship. Unger's book adds a new dimension to the picture by clearly showing that fear of romanization, which suddenly did not seem such an unrealistic alternative, made them all the more determined to hold off the challenge." --Nanette Gottlieb (Monumenta Nipponica)
"This is a book that deserves wide readership." --Eleanor Harz
Jorden (Social Science
A Japanese translation entitled Senryô-ka
Nihon no hyôki kaikaku was been published in 2001 by Sangensha (
Other publications on writing systems and literacy in English:
2005 Review of Multilingualism
in
2005 “
2004 Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of
Disembodied Meaning.
2002 “How the Ideographic Myth Misleads Historians: An Example from the Occupation of
2002 “How the Ideographic Myth Misleads
Historians: An Example from the
Occupation of
2001 “Functional Digraphia in
2001 Review of The Japanese Mental Lexicon: Psycholinguistic Studies of Kana and Kanji Processing, by Joseph F. Kess and Tadao Miyamoto. Word vol. 52 no. 3 pp. 479–83.
2001 Review of Word-processing
Technology in
2001 "Functional Digraphia in
1997 Review of The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter McDaniel and William Bright. With John DeFrancis. Language in Society vol. 26 no. 3 pp. 436-39.
1996 "Taking Digraphia Seriously: Future Software for
1995 "Logographic and Semasiographic Writing Systems: A Critique of
Sampson's Classification." With John DeFrancis.
Scripts and Literacy:
1994 Review of The World on Paper, by
David R. Olson. The Times Higher Education Supplement (
1994 Rejoinder to Geoffrey Sampson, "Chinese Script and the Diversity of Writing Systems," with John DeFrancis. Linguistics, vol. 32 no. 3 pp. 549-54.
1994 Review of Understanding Japanese Information Processing, by Ken Lunde. Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 28 no. 1 pp. 103-10.
1993 Rejoinder to
1992 "Literacy East and West: Data from Linguistics and
Psycholinguistics." Language, Writing Systems, and
Literacy, ed. Umesao Tadao, J. Marshall Unger, and Osamu Sakiyama. Senri
Ethnological Studies, no. 34 pp. 93-107. Senri:
1991 "Memorizing Kanji: Lessons from a Pro."
Schriftfestschrift: Essays on Writing and Language in Honor of John DeFrancis
on His Eightieth Birthday, Sino-Platonic Papers, no. 27 pp. 49-58.
1991 "Minimum Specifications for Japanese and Chinese
Alphanumeric Workstations." Characters and Computers, ed. Victor H.
Mair and Yongquan Liu, pp. 131-40.
1991 Review of Language the
1991 Review of A History of Writing in
1990 "The Very Idea: The Notion of Ideogram in
1989 "Language Engineering versus Machine Engineering: A Linguist's
View of the Character Input Problem." Text Processing Chinese by Computer:
Characters, Speech and Language, ed. Wesley A. Clark, pp. 113-23.
1986 "Japanese Research and Policy on Health Hazards of Video Display Terminals." Office of Naval Research Far East Scientific Bulletin, vol. 11 no. 1 pp. 4-12.
1986 "Nihonjin no yomikaki nôryoku to konpyûta [Japanese Literacy and Computers]." Kyôto Sangyô Daigaku Kokusai Gengo Kagaku Kenkyûjo Shohô, vol. 7 no. 2 pp. 167-75. English translation in Sino-Platonic Papers, no. 6 (1988).
1984 "Japanese Orthography in the Computer Age." Visible Language, vol. 18 no. 3 pp. 238-53.
1984 "Japanese Braille." Visible Language, vol. 18 no. 3 pp. 254-66.
1983 "A Mnemonic Code for Sino-Japanese Characters (Kanji)
Based Entirely on their
1983 "Chinese Input in Computer-Based Education
(Abstract)." Proceedings of the International
Conference on Chinese Information Processing [
1983 "The Problem of Japanese Input." Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 18 no. 1 pp. 56-64.
1983 "Real-time Han'gul Input on the PLATO Computer-Based Education System." Korean Linguistics, vol. 3 pp. 145-58.
1983 "A Compressed Representation of Line-Drawn
Chinese Characters." Proceedings of the
International Conference on Text Processing with a Large Character Set [
1979 "Kanamajiribun Editing and the PLATO Computer-Based Education System." Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 14 no. 2 pp. 141-56.
Last Updated 8 June 2006 by J. Marshall Unger