20世纪上半叶,中国的汉字学经历了从传统小学到现代文字学的转变。这种转变的早期代表是章太炎和唐兰二元分离的汉字工具论观点。此前,中国的小学传统是将“形音义”相结合进行研究,字形研究为本,字义研究为核心。章太炎在《论语言文字之学》中说“:今日言小学者,皆似以此为经 In the first half of the twentieth century, the Chinese philology went through a shift from traditional primary school to modern philology. The early representatives of this shift are the instrumentalist views of Chinese characters separated by Zhang Taiyan and Tang Lan. Earlier, China’s primary school tradition is to “shape and tone meaning” a combination of research, based on the shape of the study, the study of meaning as the core. Zhang Tai-yan in the “theory of language writing” said: "Saying primary school today, are like this