December 2005
The first part of the essay introduces a result of a questionnaire to general audience about the usage of kanji characters appearing in TV screen subtitles. In response to a question on whether “unlisted kanji,” or Chinese characters not included in “joyo kanji (kanji list for daily use designated by the government), ”should be used in subtitles, most common answer was “unlisted Kanji should not be used” while not a few respondents, especially young ones, thought “policy on kanji usage may depend on program contents.”
The second part of the essay looks at problems concerning screen subtitles.
To display images, television system uses scanning lines, which actually serve as a restriction that makes kanji with complicated strokes difficult to read. Besides, each producer's intention determines the duration of subtitles, and audiences have no control on it. Therefore, subtitles should use letters and expressions easy to read and understand.
Such restrictions were main factors behind past attempts to replace certain characters with homophones, or certain expressions with more simple ones, or to use mixed transcription of hiragana and kanji.
Recipients of programs also have adjusted themselves to understand subtitles by actively capturing textual information with their eyes while gathering tonal information with their ears. Recently, however, TV programs themselves have started to change approaches to subtitles.
According to a research, not many characters are used on TV screen, with approximately 1,200 types of characters accounting for 98 % of all subtitles appeared on TV.
Technical innovation has created various types of screen displays, and the current of the times seems to put more emphasis on “kanji for reading” than on “kanji for writing.” At the same time, however, we have realized that establishment of the standard orthography system will lead to the effective utilization of kanji.
Some argue that restrictions on Kanji usage should be alleviated. To do so, objective studies are essential, but the reality is that no data eligible to become effective are available yet.
It is necessary to introduce extensive studies on kanji including proper nouns, and measures considering the reality of kanji learning and progress of information tools.