Retrieval of Chinese language titles in Pinyin: A comparative study
Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: This study attempts to investigate the Pinyin retrieval of Chinese language materials within online catalog databases. The Peking University Library (PKUL) database is studied in comparison with those of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN). It is found that both title-keyword and known-title searches at PKUL yield better results because of its fundamental difference in retrieving bibliographic records in Pinyin. It adopts a non-segmented string match in retrieval. In so doing, it greatly raises the precision rate without negatively affecting the recall rate, and bypasses the controversy over, and potential human errors in, word division in cataloging and retrieving. ********** The conversion from Wade-Giles to Pinyin of Chinese language bibliographic records has finally been accomplished in North American libraries. Now the question facing the library community is how to improve the current way of handling the Pinyin records so as to provide a better service for the end users of those records. With this question in mind, the author turned to China, where the Pinyin romanization was originally invented, and compared the database of Peking (Beijing) University Library (PKUL) with those of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN). The findings of this study point to a way in which the North American library community could improve its service of Chinese language bibliographic records to its patrons. The two sections following the literature review report the study comparing OCLC and RLIN with PKUL respectively in title-keyword and known-title searches. The concluding section presents the summary and implications of the study. Background and Literature Review For decades, the issue of word division kept the Library of Congress (LC) from converting Chinese romanization from Wade-Giles to Pinyin. In Pinyin, where the Chinese language is romanized with alphabetic letters, the normal practice is to separate words from each other with a space, as opposed to Wade-Giles, which separates all the individual syllables (each represented by a Chinese character in writing) within and between words with a space. The rationale behind aggregating syllables into lexical units in Pinyin is to reduce ambiguity resulting from homophony in the Chinese language. There are as many as forty-seven thousand to eighty-five thousand distinct characters in written Chinese, which share only around thirteen hundred syllables, including tonal distinctions, in spoken Chinese. (1) When tonal distinctions represented by diacritical marks are eliminated, which is the common practice in the library community, the number of base syllables is reduced to approximately 410. (2) The many-to-one relationship between characters and syllables in Chinese leads to great homophonous ambiguity as Chinese characters are romanized into Pinyin representation, especially after the tonal distinctions are excluded. Homophonous ambiguity, however, is solved 95 percent of the time when individual syllables are aggregated into word units. (3) The problem with syllabic aggregation is, on the other hand, that word boundaries are not always clear in Chinese. Sometimes differing interpretations lead to different segmentations of lexical units. Therefore, there arises the issue of word division in the Pinyin romanization. (4) In the absence of an international standard on word division, and out of concern over inconsistencies in Pinyin aggregation in creating and retrieving records, LC decided to separate all individual syllables from each other except in the cases of personal names, geographic locations, and certain proper nouns. (5) A strong argument against the monosyllabic format (i.e., syllable division) consists in the fact that, as mentioned earlier, it greatly increases ambiguity caused by homophony and thus reduces readability of Pinyin records. …
Author: Jie Huang
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W338916231