兩岸三地常用的中文字彙比較研究

FREQUENTLY USED CHINESE CHARACTERS IN MAJOR CHINESE SOCIETIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

中文是眾多的語文中相當獨特的一種。這不單是因為中文具有許多特殊的屬性，更因為它是一種被非常廣泛使用的語文。當今世上有三個地區的居民以中文為主要使用語文。這三個地區包括所謂「兩岸三地」的大陸、台灣、和香港。三個地區所使用的中文，除了字體的繁簡及學習閱讀方法的差異之外，在語文的使用，特別是在文字方面，是否還有其他值得心理學家注意的地方？為了探討這個問題，我們特別從三個地方的常用字詞研究結果中抽取了各地最常用的五百個單字作分析比較（500個最常用單字可以包含一般文字讀物中百分之七十五以上的材料）。結果發現，三個地區的共同常用字所佔比率比一般的預期為低。另外就三個地區的材料作兩兩比對時發現，台港兩地的重複幅度較大，而大陸與台港的重複幅度較小。此外，我們還特別分析了個別地區所使用的特殊常用字，把它們在所屬地區中所能構成的詞語找出，並加以分類和比較。結果顯示，三個地區之特殊常用字無論在構詞的種類及數目上都有明顯的地區特性。透過這些中文單字及詞語比較的結果，我們將於文中討論中文在兩岸三地的使用及內容的同質及異質性，以及是次研究之方法及結果對心理學研究的可能意義。

Chinese is a language quite unique among the many natural languages. This is because not only of its many special characteristics, but also of its very wide usage around the world. Nowadays there are three areas in which the majority of dwellers speak the Chinese language. These three areas are Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Beside the simplified versus the standard character contrast and differences in the learning of reading, are there any other differences among the three areas in terms of language use, especially those related to the use of words, which may deserve attention from the psychologist? To study this question, we analyzed and compared across the three areas the most frequently used 500 characters drawn from frequency norm studies (the 500 most frequently used characters represent over 75% of characters used in everyday written communications). Results showed that the portion of characters commonly used in all three areas was lower than what had been expected. Pairwise comparisons revealed that Taiwan and Hong Kong had the greatest overlap of character use while the Mainland China versus Taiwan-Hong Kong contrast had the smallest. In addition, we analyzed some special characters used in each area and categorized the words that could contain these characters for each area. It was shown that both word construction and word frequency associated with the various semantic categories had obvious area characteristics. Based on these results of character and word comparisons, we discuss the similarity and difference in terms of both the use and the semantic contents of the Chinese language associated with the three areas. Implications of the present methodology and results on psychological research are also discussed.