英文版Analysis-of-English-and-Chinese-Word-Formation

1 Analysis of English and Chinese Word Formation A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Foreign Language Department Xingtai University By April 2014 2 Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to Professor Zhang Yuanyuan my supervisor for her constant encouragement and guidance She led me into the world of linguistics Without her consistent and illuminating instruction this thesis could not have reached its present form Second I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the professors and teachers at the Department of English Professor Yang Guixia Professor Zhang Shaojuan who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past four years Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis 3 Contents Abstract in Chinese 4 Abstract in English 5 Introduction 6 I The current situation of the study of the English and Chinese vocabulary 7 II The comparison between English and Chinese words 8 A The different language systems of English and Chinese 8 B The way of thinking in words 8 III The comparison of English and Chinese word formation 9 A Similar word formation 9 1 Conversion 9 2 Sounding changing 9 3 Affixation 9 4 Compounding 10 5 Abbreviation 10 B Unique word formation of English and Chinese 10 1 The unique word formation in English blending and inversion 10 2 The unique word formation in Chinese reduplication 10 Conclusion 11 Bibliography 12 4 摘摘 要要 英语和汉语作为世界上两种重要的语言 在词的构成方面有许多共同点 同 时也有各自比较独特的构成方式 通过大量的语言实例分析英汉词语来源 比较 和归纳出英汉构词法的异同 对扩充词汇量 理解词意 进行英汉语言研究 创 造新译词以及进行英汉翻译都有一定帮助 关键词关键词 词 英汉构词法 比较 5 Abstract Both English and Chinese are very important languages in the world They share many similarities with each other in word formation meanwhile they each have their own unique forms Then we can compare and sum up the similarities and differences between English and Chinese word formation through a lot of analyses of English and Chinese words examples to help us enlarge our vocabulary understand the meaning of words do research on Chinese and English languages create new translated words and do translation between English and Chinese Key words word English and Chinese word formation comparison 6 Introduction Word is the smallest unit of language It is analyzed from the phrases or sentences representing certain significance with a fixed speech form And it is the smallest structure unit for independent operation Vocabulary is the expression of language 7 I The current situation of the study of the English and Chinese vocabulary A lot of traditional study between Chinese words and English words has been done ever before but articles on Chinese characters and English word formation are few And there is less research on methods of word formation between English and Chinese and also less qualitative analyses of them This article uses some relevant theories of linguistics by analysing Chinese and English vocabulary structure characteristics similarities and differences in morphology to learn English effectively and accurately And for further research on Chinese and English it also plays a valuable role in English learning 8 II The comparison between English and Chinese words A The different language systems of English and Chinese According to their morphological characteristics vocabulary system can be divided into isolating language agglutinative and inflectional language Isolated language is also called the analytic language or the root language This kind of language expresses grammatical meanings through independent function and fixed word order And isolating language lacks most declension Chinese is an isolated language While English is not And English is a typical inflectional language which is expressed using a morphological change as a major means of grammatical relations And to a certain extent most of the Indo European languages are inflectional languages B The way of thinking in words The westerners used to think in a linear way That is to express the central idea namely the layers of deduction For example Care careful carefully careless While the spiral mode of thinking in Chinese is that first claim the theme then repeatedly discuss and finally return to the Lord with repeated stress For example 看 看 毛毛雨 心心相印 and so on So both western linear thinking and Chinese spiral thinking directly influence its form and connotation of vocabulary 9 III The comparison of English and Chinese word formation There are such a large number of English and Chinese words that make the meaning of words so complicated Word formation is a way to produce new words English word formation includes sounding changing conversion affixation composition shortening blending back formation while Chinese word formation includes sounding changing conversion affixation compounding abbreviation and reduplication By comparison of both English and Chinese word formation we have summarized their similarities and differences A Similar word formation 1 Conversion It does not add any ingredients does not change the morphology but takes a word from a part of speech into another part This is called the conversion Many English words expand their significance in this way such as match As a noun such as this sentence Who won the tennis match It is used as a transitive verb Anther sentence The color of the shirt does not match that of the coat It is used as an intransitive verb And conversion phenomena in Chinese is more flexible than English This is because of a strong function of Chinese sentences Since the ancient Chinese most words not only have had the function of transformation but also have had the transformation function For example 美 its adjective meaning 好的 善的 like 美德 美丽 as a verb 美容 美言 美誉 as an adverb 美滋滋 and so on 2 Sounding changing It is a new method by changing the composition of word pronunciation English form new words by changing the consonants and vowels and Chinese change initial consonants and compound vowels to form new words For example Chinese 和 H is an adjective meaning peace harmony Like 和睦 和谐 when 和 is a verb pronunciation H in 一唱一和 meaning harmony singing along While in English refuse word pronunciation of refuse waste when the verb is read into re fuse refuse Also there are compound words in Chinese such as director part of speech is a verb meaning to organize and guide the work and director meaning role play or film to organize and guide the work as a director working people to express their thought with an actors 3 Affixation Affixation method is a new method that consists of a root or words and affixes It exists in both English and Chinese word formation From the grapheme there is no difference between Chinese affixes and roots while in English the difference is very big but easy to distinguish Both English and Chinese words have the prefixes and suffixes Some common English prefixes are meaning antisense anti dis il im in meaning common co col com con table outward extra over table 10 beyond too and then back to the re semi While the Chinese are old small O first second and to etc Suffixes in English and Chinese are also very large such as occupation suffix in English an ant ar er ian said ain al meaning posts ary says people from somewhere an er ese people who do some action al ar or ster ess ette ine meaning negative etc At the same Chinese also has the similar word suffixes such as occupation 师 士 员 relatives 人 夫 头 action 者 人 徒 meaning of general people 子 生 友 etc 4 Compounding Two or more than two independent words are compounded in a certain order to form a new word and this word formation is called compounding method English compounds are mainly used to form nouns verbs adjectives and adverbs such as himself everything inside sunshine blackbird football etc For the Chinese words can be said to be the main methods of word formation which is mainly composed of nouns adjectives verbs and adverbs but it is generally through the subject verb verb verb complement coordinate and partial positive relationship such as subject predicate relationship 心疼 日出 verb object relationship 读书 拼图 verb complement relationship 提高 揭露 parallel relationship 长短 好坏 partial positive relationship 冰箱 内衣 5 Abbreviation Abbreviation is the word shortening which is characterized with strong new creative ability especially prominent in scientific style and the style of newspapers and periodicals In Chinese for example 地下铁路 地铁 高等学校 高校 北京大 学 北大 中央电视台 央视 国有企业 国企 etc And English abbreviations mainly use letters of initials or extracting words For example Voice of America VOA World Trade Organization WTO December Dec address ad United Nations UN very important person VIP etc B Unique word formation of English and Chinese 1 The unique word formation in English blending and inversion Blending refers to cutting two original words choosing one of the head or tail and then splicing into a new word such as SICOM situation comedy psywar psychological war sitcom psychological warfare Motel motor hotel Autolodge auto lodge The inversion and the affixation are just the opposite Affix affixes to form new words and inversion is to get rid of the suffix to form new words The using of inversion of words are mainly verbs such as Editor edit peddler peddle beggar beg etc 2 The unique word formation in Chinese reduplication The reduplication is one of the common means of grammar in Sino Tibetan 11 Languages It is by overlapping part or all of morphemes words Nouns pronouns quantifiers in modern Chinese verbs adjectives and adverbs can form new words according to a certain format overlap For example AA type 想想 年年 AAB type 毛毛雨 悄悄话 BAA type 热乎乎 黄澄澄 AABC type 历历在目 丝丝入扣 BCAA 可怜兮兮 衣冠楚楚 AABB type 高高兴兴 规规矩矩 ABAC 一言一行 各种各样 ABAB type 分析分析 痛快痛快 AA 练一练 挑一挑 etc 12 Conclusion From the analyses and comparison above we can see that English and Chinese languages have many similarities in word formation English belongs to the Indo European languages It is alphabetic writing Letters combine and generate syllables Chinese belongs to the Sino Tibetan language family which is a