Chinese And Korean Kinship Terms

Relative relationship exists widely in human society, and correspondently kinship terms, terms that mark this kind of relationship, become a common component of nearly all languages. Being a particular phenomenon that reflects human cultural psyche, kinship terms have been attached some attention to by the academe. Most researches focus on the anthropologic significance of kinship terms from the angel of society and culture, while their linguistic nature and characters have not been sufficiently studied. A linguistic research on the comparison of kinship terms in different language systems is even scarcer. Yet that is precisely the contents of this thesis. Taking kinship terms in Chinese and Korean as the targets of research, the thesis analyze their linguistic features, compare the differences and probe into the profound reasons that make these differences from the view of the nature of the language itself as well as culture and anthropology.The thesis is composed of five parts and methods used in it involve comparative analysis, quantitative research and qualitative research, and the combination of static and dynamic state, of language and speech. To begin with, the thesis makes clear the contents of kinship terms and its system. Then a multi-angel descriptive comparison of Chinese and Korean kinship terms is given and a conclusion is drawn on their characters. Thirdly, the author analyzes the word building and meaning of Chinese and Korean kinship terms. Fourth, the author concludes their differences from a linguistic as well as a cultural point of view, and explores the profound reasons of these differences. Lastly, discuss the generalization problem of Chinese and koren kinship terms.