Research On Vocabulary Of "Four Satirical Novels" In The Late Qing Dynasty

In the literature in the late Qing dynasty, satirical novels are unique, thought, and have relatively high artistic achievement, the larger social impact, which representative works are mainly known as "Four Satirical Novels", including "The True Colors of the Officialdom", "Strange Things in the Past Twenty Years", "Nie Haihua", and "Lao Can's Travel Notes". "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty novels are mainly written in the colloquial forms in the late Qing dynasty, in line with the basic characteristics of spoken language, which is showed clearly in the novels. Many new words, new phrases, new meanings can be timely presented in the works. This period is a transitional period from modern Chinese to contemporary Chinese, laying directly the foundation for contemporary Chinese vocabulary systems. Research on vocabulary characteristics of "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty is not only the successive and continual study of the ancient Chinese and modern Chinese vocabulary but also the original study of contemporary Chinese vocabulary, which reflects directly the basic laws and features in the development and evolution of the middle ages, modern vocabulary to contemporary Chinese vocabulary.The linguistic materials of the dissertation are words and phrases of "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty novels. The dissertation describes the features of Chinese vocabulary systems in the late Qing dynasty and analyzes the specific vocabulary phenomena by research on vocabulary characteristics of "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty, which reveals the basic phenomena and laws in the development and evolution of the modern Chinese vocabulary to contemporary Chinese vocabulary. In the course of the study, the dissertation analyzes vocabulary systems in "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty novels, which is based on contemporary linguistic theory, especially contemporary vocabulary theory, absorbed in traditional primary scholarship and referring to contemporary linguistics research methods.The dissertation consists of seven parts. Chapter One is "Prolegomenon". It discusses research value, research overview and research approach. And then it introduces the linguistic materials and the diachronic polymeric characteristics of "Four Satirical Novels" vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty at the threshold of colloquial novels and colloquial movement in the late Qing dynasty, the main contents and versions of "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty.Chapter Two is " The Constitution of 'Four Satirical Novels' Vocabulary in the Late Qing Dynasty( I)". It discusses the main features of vocabulary systems of "Four Satirical Novels "vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty from basic vocabulary and general vocabulary. We analyze the conceptual issues of dynastic basic vocabulary and specialized books' basic vocabulary, and establish the basic principles of distinguishing "Four Satirical Novels "vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty, and then have category description of the composition just coming into basic vocabulary. In the second section, we describe systematically and comprehensively general vocabulary of "Four Satirical Novels "vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty, including inherent words from history, ancient words needed and applied specially, dialect words, loan words, social dialect words.Chapter Three is " The Constitution of 'Four Satirical Novels' vocabulary in the Late Qing Dynasty( II) ".All fixed expressions of "Four Satirical Novels "vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty are equivalent to the role of vocabulary like basic vocabulary and general vocabulary ,which are the important part in vocabulary systems in "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty novels. This paper tries to probe into the structural forms, semantic origin and usage features of idioms, subfixed words, proverbs and so on, which shows the characteristics of vocabulary systems in "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty novels from another respect.Chapter Four is "The New Words of 'Four Satirical Novels' Vocabulary in the Late Qing Dynasty". We discuss the distinguishing methods and the basic principles of new words in the late Qing dynasty. We insist on the inspecting standards of "sememe" as the basic unit, that is, if the emergence of a new sememe has its constructional form, it will mark the emergence of a new word. On the base, we divide new words in the late Qing dynasty into two types: new form showing new sememe and old form showing new sememe. We classify new words from syllable form, word-class and other aspects. New words will be divided into six major categories, including officialdom politics, economic and trade, social life, science and technology, folk and culture, and other specialized words, which the main causes of new words in the late Qing dynasty are probed. The chapter also studies the word-building and the word-constructing. It analyzes the main word-building methods including sound justice wanton to combing meaning, rhetoric, contraction, extension and so on. Then it studies the word-constructing characteristics in the late Qing dynasty from vocal forms, morphemic features and compositive ways.Chapter Five is " The New Meanings of 'Four Satirical Novels' Vocabulary in the Late Qing Dynasty". Semanteme includes lexical meaning, grammatical meaning and colorful meaning. According to it, the chapter analyzes the development and evolution of semanteme of "Four Satirical Novels" vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty. The chapter analyzes the main causes of developing new meanings from society, cognition and vocabulary system. The detailed examples are used to discuss the basic types of the development and evolution of semanteme from three types of semanteme. Focused on the two main ways of evolution of the lexical meaning—derivation and grammaticalization, the main form of evolution of the grammatical meaning—transition of word-class, the main form of evolution of the colorful meaning and the most important way of evolution of the colorful meaning—transition and so on.Chapter Six is "The Classification of Semanteme of 'Four Satirical Novels' Vocabulary in the Late Qing Dynasty". We establish the basic principles of research on classification of semanteme: firstly, classification of semanteme is synchronic and in the same system; secondly, words in the same classification of semanteme must have the same grammatical meaning; thirdly, "sememe" is known as the basic unit. Then we analyze three basic types of classification of semanteme—synonym, near-synonym and antonym from definition, types and causes of developing.Chapter Seven is " The Folk Words and Expressions of 'Four Satirical Novels' Vocabulary in the Late Qing Dynasty". The novels use a lot of folk words and expressions, which reflect the prevailing social customs, combined the description of the folk with all kinds of social phenomena and all life, fully revealed the complex social relations, social contradictions and social-cultural psychology. Firstly this chapter discusses the composition and source of the late Qing dynasty folk words and expressions. We classify the meanings and analyze structure of the folk words and expressions in the late Qing dynasty. At the same time we also study the assemblage of different shades of meaning of folk words and expressions including polyseme, synonym, generic terms and relative terms and make the cultural analysis to a certain extent. Focus on three aspects including the clothing jargons in 'Four Satirical Novels' in late Qing dynasty and clothing culture in the late Qing dynasty, the cooking jargons in 'Four Satirical Novels' in late Qing dynasty and cooking culture in the late Qing dynasty and the recreational jargons in 'Four Satirical Novels' in late Qing dynasty and cultural feature of common citizens. At last, we complete the look of vocabulary system of 'Four Satirical Novels' vocabulary in the late Qing dynasty from the social and cultural perspectives.The research on vocabulary of "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty is a part of < the Research on Vocabulary History of Chinese Colloquial Novels>, which is the last synchronic section of the dynastic research on vocabulary history of Chinese colloquial novels. The research on vocabulary system in the late Qing dynasty and the studying of the social political, economic, cultural language exterior factor's effect on novel's vocabulary system in the late Qing dynasty have very important academic value and meaning. By the investigation of vocabulary of "Four Satirical Novels" in the late Qing dynasty, this thesis contributes to the academic development of the research on Chinese vocabulary history research.