The Study On The Character’s Appellations Of Zuozhuan

The appellation came into being while the human society formed. Human beings havebeen given different appellations according to the kinship, identity in the family and status insociety. Zuo Zhuan is the most abundant ancient book in which contains appellations fromZhou dynasty to Spring Autumn period. It not only provides us important historical figures’different appellations in this period, but also summarizes our early name system,nomenclature principle and other important literature and so on.The characters’ appellations are complex in Zuo Zhuan. In addition to the surname,family name, first name, a style name, posthumous title etc. It includes some appellations ofdisplaying status, position, family relationships, modesty, one’s respect in this book. Theseappellations have different meanings on different occasions. They reflect the political systemof ancient society, patriarchal system, the institution of marriage, etiquette and custom etc.In this thesis, the first question is about Zuo Zhuan character appellation type and scopedivision. From the meaning of appellation, Zuo Zhuan character appellation is divided intohonorific title (symmetric), the habit appellation (he said), kinship terms, and specialappellation. From Zuo Zhuan, you can see, honorific title and the special appellation oftenshow speaker’s modesty, and respect to another speaker. It is a necessary social interactionmanners and means of communication. Habit appellation is more complex and diverse,because the person who doesn’t join in the conversation is called. So people in thisconversation, we can call him with its identity, position, peerages, but also to refer to surname,a style name, posthumous etc. Kinship term is to show blood relationship, the family affinity.The second question is about Zuo Zhuan character appellation and early surname system.The records of surname origin and the surname system are very rare in Zuo Zhuan. Fromthese documents, giving surname is unique system in Zhou dynasty. The purpose of givingsurname is that "surname" is to make identification for a kinship and marital relations. On theother hand, consolidate JI surnamed regime, strengthen the means of domination of the Zhoudynasty. The activities of giving surname show political purpose. Family name and land aregiven by the leader of Zhou regime, in order to facilitate the implementation of family rule.Son, grandson, marriage alliance and a small number of the Shang aristocracy that theyreceived the mound, they will be ordered family name.The third question is about the appellation of Zuo Zhuan and the early institution ofmarriage. We can see from the records of Zuo Zhuan, the Zhou dynasty has “Same SurnameNot Marriage”system, because people have recognized the man and woman of same surnamewhose marriage will result in health problems of future generations. In addition, the Zhou dynasty rulers also want marriage by a different surname as soon as possible to strengthentheir camp in order to consolidate his regime. Thus it creates cousin marriage and marriagewife’ slave girl system. At the same time, from Zuo Zhuan, we can also be learned, in theZhou dynasty and the Spring and Autumn period, there are a lot of group marriages, thelegacy of the semi-group marriage customs. There is “zheng”(son marry father’sconcubine),”Fu”(married brother’s wife or uncle’s wife), nephew’s wife marriage, wife andher sister marriage and even grab marriage, they form original marriage.The fourth issue is about the most common figures’ name and type in Zuo Zhuan, as wellas the posthumous title and posthumous law system. The most common appellation of ZuoZhuan is first name, a style name and posthumous title. So-called first name, which is thealleged code. The person’s first name was given by parents and accompanied all his life.Because the first name is not everyone can call on any occasion, an alternative name will beused, this is the "a style name". Zuo Zhuan character, all have first name and a style nameregardless of male or female. A style name derived from first name, you can use, when youare inconvenience or your first name can not be said on some occasion to communicate withothers in society. Posthumous title was given by others when he died. Posthumous titlecontains the evaluation of his life. For first name, a style name, giving posthumous title, thereare principles and taboos in Zhou dynasty. These taboos reflect patriarchal clan system, theritual system, posthumous law system in many aspects.The writer also summarized name type from the perspective of men and women. Thecharacter’ appellations are very complex in Zuo Zhuan. Family name, first name, a style name,posthumous title and other various combinations are multiple. Female names rarely appearbecause of women’ name taboos in public. One of the characteristics of women’ names arethat they must have their family (father’) surname. The biggest difference that female’s nameis different from the male name. Male appellation is much more complex. Through thedifferent appellations of the various occasions, we can appreciate the attitude of the author forhistorical events, historical figures.