韓日 兩國의 漢字政策에 대한 理解와 問題點 － 漢字混用論의 立場에서 －

Abstract

Chinese characters currently in use in Japan play an indispensable role. By contrast, hanja use appears to be in decline in Korea and the general use of Hanja has rapidly been abandoned. This essay discusses how differently Chinese characters have been the vehicle through which the Chinese lexicon became a large part of vocabulary of Korean and Japanese languages and how the difference in policies on Chinese characters between the two countries has caused some problems in Korea. Problems of causing various and serious confusion by distorting and transforming in use of the Korean Language, as shown in an example of the confusion between 「Sechuk」 and 「Sejung」, can be said to originate from three reasons: ①Korean policy on formal hanja education, which abandons teaching Chinese characters in schools, ②An increasing number of young generations in Korea who do not have an opportunity to be exposed to the necessary Chinese characters, by whom many of Japanese substituted Kanji are adopted and pronounced in Korean, ③Lack of formal Hanja education in the normal language education courses in Korea, resulting in incogitant borrowing of Japanese substituted Kanji. In conclusion, this essay tries to present some useful action plans for ensuring correct use of language which will lead us to get out of the distorted application of Japanese Kanji in Korea.