Final answer:
True. Aristocratic women such as Shonagon were trained in Chinese but mostly wrote in vernacular Japanese, which is true. They utilized Hiragana, a script distinctive to Japanese, to document their narratives and experiences.
Step-by-step explanation:
Aristocratic women like Shonagon were indeed trained in Chinese, but they primarily wrote in vernacular Japanese. This is true because during the Heian period, a time of artistic and cultural growth, two new types of lettering were created: Katakana, which was a simplified script based on Chinese, and Hiragana, a more cursive style that was distinctively Japanese. While upper-class men and women both received training in the arts, it was the women who became the primary artists of script-writing and used these forms to document and narrate court life and their own personal experiences in their native tongue.
Therefore, the correct answer to the question, "Aristocratic women like Shonagon received training in Chinese, but wrote mostly in vernacular Japanese," is:
a) True