Kanji derived from China. It was borrowed by the Japanese and has become a component of Japanese writing system. This phenomenon can be regarded as a process of some kind of writing’s being transformed and dissimilated after it enters a different culture, which also reflects the characteristics of cultural transmission. Even if the same writing character in different cultural soil to nourish, its direction and path of development may be different and the presented features also vary. Japanese culture influences the characteristics of Chinese characters. Although Kanji derived from China, it has a totally different path of development from Chinese characters and shows different features in the influence of Japanese culture. Therefore, we can see it as a form of alienation of Chinese characters.Approaches and outcome of writing’s dissimilation are closely linked with its cultural background. Specific national consciousness or thinking mode has the potential to affect the situation of development of the nation’s writing. Japanese people have a strong "mamoru" consciousness. The so-called "mamoru" means guardian or protection.The Japanese have a strong national consciousness and they always show a strong sense of protection of their traditional culture. They are good at absorbing useful things for themselves, but all of the absorption depend on not losing their original culture and tradition. In the process of absorbing Chinese characters, they take serving Japanese and maintaining the basic characteristics of Japanese as the supreme principle. Therefore, Kanji has been branded with a certain degree of " japanization". In addition, the delicate and sensitive nature makes the Japanese has strong impression of the subtle differences between Chinese characters and Kana characters. The Japanese take full advantage of the differences when dealing with the writing. In this way, Kanji has been given some new characteristics and functions.Previous studies on the cultural function of Chinese characters are mostly in the range of Chinese culture. The cultural function of Chinese characters is in the scope of Chinese cultural studies. This paper seeks to expand the view of Chinese characters cultural function and explore the cultural function of Chinese characters in Japanese literature. Realization of the cultural function, not only depends on the function of the shape, pronunciation and meaning of Chinese characters, but also depends on the function of the shape, pronunciation and meaning of Kanji (which came from China and has been dissimilated by the Japanese culture).This paper has taken careful and further investigation into these two kinds of function basing on the materials of22Japanese contemporary novels including the award-winning novels and popular novels, such as "Snakes and Earrings","Install","The Lamp of the Window" and so on. The full text is divided into four parts. The first part is the Introduction. The second part(Chapter1) mainly discusses the function of the original characteristics of Kanji in Japanese contemporary novels. The thir^part(from Chapter2to Chapter5) mainly discusses the function of the derivative characteristics of Kanji in Japanese contemporary novels. The fourth part(Chapter6) mainly discusses the cause of formation of the characteristics and function of Kanji in the contemporary Japanese novels. |