Semantic Analysis Of Chinese And English Kinship Terms

Kinship terms are a universal feature of languages because kinship which remains the principal source of our closest ties with others is so important in social organization. However, kinship term systems vary across languages and nations, revealing different political, economic and cultural backgrounds under which they develop. Therefore, the study of differences between kinship term systems in various languages will help us get a better understanding of the histories and cultures of different nations and the relationship between language and culture. It is also helpful to some extent in foreign language learning and translation practice. Moreover, the comparative study will help smooth away the difficulties in mutual understanding when such kinship terms are involved in intercultural communication.The technique of comparison and contrast is used throughout the whole thesis to explore the semantic as well as pragmatic differences between Chinese and English kinship term systems and examine the causes of those differences.In order to find the semantic differences between the Chinese and English kinship terms, the author makes a new and arduous attempt to employ the technique of semantic componential analysis in comparing the two languages rather than confine it to one particular language like most of the previous researches in the same field: in the thesis all the Chinese and English kinship terms are organized into the smallest kinship fields; then each term is broken down into its semantic components; and then by picking up the semantic contrast of the corresponding Chinese and English kinship terms in the same field, the differences between them are found out; the overall semantic differences between kinship terms in the two languages are finally drawn out from the analytic results in all subfields. The author has found that Chinese and English kinship terms differ semantically in three dimensions: sex, relative age within the same generation in a horizontal relationship, and consanguineal vs. affinal relations in both horizontal and vertical relationships. In contrast to the overall generality and inclusiveness of the English kinship terms, Chinese kinship terms are much more descriptive bearing the semantic feature of specificity. Those differences are by no means just linguistic; they are fundamentally cultural. Different cultural realizations of social system, family structure...