Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning

In his latest book, J. Marshall Unger exposes the historical, scientific, cultural, and practical flaws accompanying the widespread belief that Chinese characters embody pure, language-less meaning. Whether one is interested in Chinese characters from the standpoint of language, literature, semiotics, psychology, history, cultural studies, or computers, Ideogram contains new ideas and insights that are sure to challenge preconceptions and provoke thought.

"In this informative and entertaining book, once and for all, J. Marshall Unger thoroughly demolishes the notion that Chinese characters directly convey meaning without any reference to specific languages and cultural contexts. To do so, he unleashes an amazing array of weapons, ranging from the perceptions of a famous comedian, the techniques of specialists in memorization, the secrets of shorthand, the mysteries of probability, computer science, and artificial intelligence, to the profundities of philosophy. With a razor-sharp mind and deft pen, he exposes the self-contradictory folly of those who would assert some sort of independent, transcendental status for Chinese characters. Anyone who reads this book from beginning to end--parts of it are easy and fun, others are challenging and demanding--will surely come to the same conclusion as the author: in reality, there is no such thing as an ideogram." --- from the foreword by Victor H. Mair