This paper centers on the Yupian by Gu Yewang of the Southern Dynasties and offers a systematic investigation of its transcultural impact on the development of East Asian civilization. It does so by addressing four key themes: the scholarly positioning of the Shuowen in the North and the Yupian in the South; the mechanisms through which the text became a shared cultural heritage of China, Japan, and Korea; the historiographical significance of the birth of East Asian Yupian Studies; and the multiple research dimensions of this field. The study finds that, as the first dictionary compiled in standard script and structured around the three dimensions of form, sound, and meaning, the Yupian laid the foundation for a shared lexicon within the Sinosphere. Its transmission followed a model of “importation–adaptation–innovation,” fostering a common hermeneutical framework for the dictionary across the three countries. More than a bond that links and sustains the development of the Sinosphere, the Yupian has also served as a powerful engine for the spread of Confucianism throughout East Asia. The Yupian has given birth to an entirely new East-Asian discipline; the emergence and study of Yupian will supply linguistic evidence that illuminates how East-Asian civilizations have mutually illuminated one another.

This study analyzes the semantic network of the Chinese character heng (橫, horizontal) based on the comprehensive data from the Hanyu Da Cidian (漢語大詞典), elucidating how the notion of ‘horizontal’ systematically acquired negative connotations in the Chinese language. Through a detailed examination of 31 semantic entries and a complete analysis of 407 compound words incorporating heng, it was found that negative meanings accounted for 51.6%, constituting a majority, while positive meanings represented merely about 10%. Initially referring to a wooden barrier placed horizontally across a doorway, heng evolved metaphorically to denote disorder, suddenness, violence, and reckless decisiveness. This semantic development contrasts sharply with the vertical axis (縱 zong, 經 jing, 直 zhi), which symbolically represents order, centrality, authority, and continuity. Consequently, the horizontal axis became semantically associated with disruption and deviation from established order. Conversely, the English concepts of “horizontal” and “lateral” predominantly carry positive or neutral connotations, embodying metaphors of fairness, equality, and creativity. Such divergences originate from the contrasting cultural contexts: the Chinese sedentary-agricultural civilization strengthened values centered on the vertical axis, whereas Western maritime, nomadic, and contractual traditions affirmed the positive symbolism of horizontal metaphors. In conclusion, the semantic orientation of heng offers linguistic evidence of the vertical-axis-centered thinking inherent in Chinese civilization and exemplifies significant structural differences in conceptual frameworks between Eastern and Western cultures.

Hu Pu’an (1878–1947) compiled the Ziyuanxue jiangyi (Course Materials on Theories of Chinese Characters) for the Chinese Language Department of the Commercial Press Correspondence School. This textbook was specifically designed for correspondence students with an educational level equivalent to primary school graduates. Focusing on the Six Principles (Liushu) of Chinese character formation, it employed numbered headings and clear examples, illustrating an endeavor to popularize knowledge of Chinese character studies. This paper utilizes Ziyuanxue jiangyi as the core text and compares it with Hu’s Liushu qianshuo (A Brief Introduction to the Six Principles) and Wenzixue ABC (The ABC of Chinese Grammatology). It explores how he modified the language style and educational content to suit the audience, analyzing the variations in format and knowledge translation strategies across lecture-oriented, popularizationoriented, and correspondence-oriented teaching materials. This paper examines Hu Pu’an’s “scaffolded explanation” process, transitioning from academic to popular formats and subsequently to correspondence education. The “scaffolded” approach refers to content stratification based on varying levels of difficulty and embodies a structured, guided, and systematic knowledge translation. This includes simplifying terminology, incorporating life-like examples, and reorganizing the teaching material structure. Although Ziyuanxue jiangyi is brief and has not been a mainstream focus in academia, this study reveals it as a unique case in the evolution of Chinese language education and Chinese character textbooks during the early Republic of China through textual analysis. Hu’s translation practice fills the gap at the intersection of the history of Chinese character teaching materials and the history of correspondence education, offering historical insights for the popularization of contemporary Chinese character education and possessing interdisciplinary significance.

This study investigates Sino-Japanese and Sino-Vietnamese cognates listed in the Old JLPT Vocabulary List and examines their relevance for Japanese language education. Focusing on kanji-only vocabulary, it extracts and classifies one- and two-character items and analyses correspondences in written form, core meaning, and grammatical function. Using dictionarybased comparison supplemented by checks from highly proficient native Vietnamese speakers, the study identifies many same-form cognates, particularly in academic, administrative, scientific, and abstract domains. It also shows that about 18.8% of same-form two-character items exhibit part-of-speech mismatches, such as noun–adjective and noun–verbal noun correspondences, which may lead to negative transfer. Overall, the findings indicate both the pedagogical value of same-form cognates and the need for instructional approaches that account for grammatical differences.