With greater importance attached to the use of Chinese and the imminent drafting of laws in Chinese, the Chinese Language Division of the Government is assuming an increasingly important role. I therefore hope that its manpower resources and facilities (e.g. the chinese word processor) will be increased according to actual demands. I also hope that other government departments will step up their implementation of bilingualism in official business. To further support the work and expedite the development of the Chinese Language Division, I propose to set up a Chinese Language Committee comprising non-government members to reflect the views of the public on the use of Chinese in official matters.
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The Government is now actively promoting the use of the vernacular style in all of its Chinese communications, to which I have no objection. But I think there is no need to go to extremes, or else the fluency and elegance of a piece of writing will be lost. The Report of the Working Party on the Development of a Chinese Language Foundation recommends that a wider interpretation of modern Chinese be adopted so as not to preclude commonly used terms in local dialects and elements of classical Chinese that are easily understood and widely used. I fully endorse this recommendation. Some vivid and expressive words and phrases in the literary style have a definite value. For example, conventional expressions on invitation cards like:( 1 'we cordially request the honour of your presence at a humble meal', which are so concise and exquisite that there is no need to change them into the vernacular style. Or if one insists to render the idiom ( L ) This is really outrageous!' into the vernacular style, it would only be a waste of ink and might damage
the beauty of the idiom.
Sir, with these remarks, I await your response.
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