A Study On The Vocabulary Of Mazu Belief

The folk belief is a kind of important cultural and folk custom phenomenon in the ancient Chinese society, which used to be in fashion in one time and played a very important role in the life of Chinese society. In modern times, it is regarded and criticized as feudal supersition and almost disappear. However, it doesn't and will not die out. In the past decades, a variety of folk beliefs, such as Mazu, Guan-God and Mount Tai Grandma and so on, have begun to become well received and attracted the attention of scholars.The vocabulary about the folk beliefs, which is not very large, is an important category in the Chinese language. With distinct characteristics, the words and expressions are used on specific occasions. Although it's difficult for them to enter the national vocabulary and become commonly used, they have an extremely strong vitality. The vocabulary about the folk beliefs has complex sources, inflenced not only by official words and expressions on sacrifice in the feudal society which have a natural flesh an blood contact with it, but by Buddhism, Taoism and even folk supersitions. and which results in its complication.Currently, researches on Chinese ancient sacrificial vocabulary have attracted scholars'attention, and among them Three Manners (Li) in the Confucian classics become the most popular ones. Studies on vocabulary in ShuoWen Jie Zi. Shi become another hot topic, about which many papers and monographs have come out. What is most notable about the studies is that language is studied associated with culture. People begin to study the characters, functions, purposes and various ceremonies of sacrifice by studying vocabulary about sacrifice, which is decided by the characteristics of sacrifice itself. Culture about sacrifice has an important and special position in the political life of the country and is an important branch in ancient Chinese culture. Studying it only from the language itself is not enough. As for the sacrificial vocabulary in the later generations, there are few scholars to study them.At present, researches on the folk beliefs, belief in Mazu in particular, have become a new hotspot of academia. These researches focus on sorting out and combing the documents, and associate documents and folklore investigations to explore the origins of Mazu belief, its spead, development and evolution, the nature of faith, and its meaning on the present, which have achieved great success.Up to now, there are few people who get down to the studies on vocabulary about folk beliefs, especially about Mazu belief, which we think is closely related to the characteristics of vocabulary on folk beliefs. Having less quantity and being more closed, researches on the vocabulary involve more departments and consequently seem to be of little value. We try studying the vocabulary in Mazu belief and by doing so we are intended to explain many issues about it and to explore the cultural information of it. At the same time, we also hope to do a survey about the evolution of the vocabulary about ancient Chinese sacrifice. In our opinion, this kind of study is meaningful. On one hand, it has good effect on the understanding of the folk religion itself, and on the other hand, it will help the study of the Chinese vocabulary.Great convenience has been offered to us by previous researches, thanks to which the documents about Mazu belief becomes more systematic and large numbers of monograghs and essays have already been published, all of which are of great help to our research. Researches on the vocabulary about ancient sacrifice are helpful as well, because folk beliefs are closely connected with official orthodox worship and in terms of vocabulary, the vocabulary on sacrifice is the most important source of those about folk religions. With language and culture combined, the method of studying the sacrificial vocabulary can also provide reference.Our method of work is to collect vocabulary on Mazu belief with The Compilations of Historical Materials of Mazu Literature (volume of essays) and Atlas as the main source of Mazu diction and then to classified them, after that, to explore the origins of the vocabulary respectively on the basis of classification and finally to do transverse comparison of vocabulary on the Mazu belief and the belief in Guan-God. In this way we will get an overall understanding of vocabulary about Mazu belief. Meanwhile, we combine the language with culture to seek the cultural information contained in vocabulary of Mazu belief and to study how the cultural factors influence and constrict the evolution of some vocabulary. In addition, according to our researches, wu put forward our preliminary opinions of how to study the vocabulary on ancient folk beliefs and hope to get corrected by experts. We think other vocabulary which has a broad impact on the folk beliefs is worth researching as well. We are sure that our proposal, although not mature enough, is inspiring.This paper consists of seven chapters.Chapter One is the introduction. This chapter briefly introduces the profiles of Chinese sacrifice and belief in Mazu, focusing on the important position and function of sacrificial culture in ancient China, and the differences between orthodox and unorthodox sacrifices. This chapter makes a summary account of the origin and propagation of Mazu belief and gives a description of the present situation of researches on vocabulary about sacrifice and Mazu belief, and then introduce the research ideas and method of this paper.Chapter Two is the overview of the vocabulary about Mazu belief. First, classify the words about the belief into ordinary vocabulary and fixed expressions. And then further subdivide nouns and verbs in the ordinary vocabulary and give examples to illustrate them. The fixed expressions include the four-character words, adages and allusions.Chapter Three expounds the origins of the vocabulary of Mazu belief from the longitudinal angel of history. The vocabulary of Mazu belief mainly comes from those of ancient sacrifice and religious words and expressions, for example. Buddhism. They also borrow words form other areas. We classified the vocabulary and by giving examples illustrate their origins and historical evolutions.In Chapter Four, we try to combine language and culture to expound the cultural information contained in some of the vocabulary about beliefs, on the other hand, to illustrate by example the influence of the cultural factors on the semantic evolution of the vocabulary of the beliefs. Our research is not deep enough but inspiring and the method of combining language and culture is preferable.Chapter Five compares transversely the vocabulary about Mazu belief and the belief in Guan-God. We do the comparison from two aspects:praise and conferment that they receive and their origins. There are differences and similaries between them, which originate from the general features of the folk beliefs and the specific characters of their own. By comparion, we think, Mazu belief and Guan-God belief are basically the same in nature. Just because their respective prototypes are of different genders and identities, differences are caused in their clerical tiltles and positions.In Chapter Six, we summarize the train of thought of examinng the Mazu belief vocabulary, and accordingly put forward the our suggestions on theories and methods of studying vocabulary about beliefs. We think that as a kind of special catagory in the Chinese vocabulary, the vocabulary on the folk beliefs is worth studying deeply. In the research, we must pay attention to using the method of cmparison to find their characteristics from the longitudinal and transverse angels and we must combine language with culture, which are of great referencial value not only to the study of the folk beliefs but to the study of Chinese vocabulay. At the same time, we must use the previous research results on the language, including the text, phonology, exegetics materials and so on. Only by inheriting the results of ancient researches and combining the modern linguistics with the lexicology, can the research go deeper.In Chapter Seven, we classify and survey the vocabulary that we encounter in our research and which can make supplement to and correctioin of the Chinese Dictionary. We adopt a prudent attitude and whether it is a supplement or correction, we explain the reasons and give evidence. From Chinese reality, The Chinese Dictionary pays attention to the division of work with related large-scaled dictionaries and focuses on the purpose of clearing the doubts and ambiguity of the users. Its principle of collecting words that not every word needs to be recorded, instead, the value of interpretation should be fucused on is very correct. So we classifiy and illustrate the vocabulary that The Chinese Dictionary doesn't collect instead of concluding hastily that they are left out. As for the vocabulary with less value of interpretation, we analyze the reasons for which they need't be collected; as for the vocabulary that The Chinese Dictionary should but does not collect, we try to paraphrase and cite documentary evidence. We make a list of the interpretations of the vocabulary in The Chines Dictionary, the advanced documentary evidence and the following-up documentary proofs and when necessary, outline the reasons.The value of this paper lies in studying the kind of vocabulary of Mazu belief which represents typically the folk beliefs. In the study of Chinese vocabulary there are no results achieved. This research can examine the evolution of vocabulary of ancient sacrifice and religious terms and can also contribute to deeper understanding of folk beliefs by studying the vocabulary. In the research methods, we pay more attention to the combination of language and culture and are not just confined to the vocabulary themselves. The features of the vocabulary of folk beliefs decide that we must focus more on the reference and absorption of the previous research results besides the use of the theories of the modern lexicololy. This kind of train of research thought are not innovative and it just inherits the methods that our ancestors used to study language. We believe that only by fully inheriting the previous results and absorbing the research results of modern linguistics can the research of the Chinese vocabulary especially the ancient Chinese vocabulary obtains great achievements.This essay has two more prominent weak points, one of which is due to the limited knowlege and the shallow foundation of the achievements on the ancient documents and language research of the author. As a result, the author does not do well in the combination of language and culture. Another point is that the author has not enough theories of study, which remains to be promoted step by step in the following researches.