Study On The Forty Years’ Development And Changes In Military Terms

Military terms are the abbreviation of nomenclatures of military affairs. In times of peace, military terms are the guarantee to ensure the smooth carrying out of the military orders and the coordination of military actions. In times of war, they are the key elements with which to accurately grasp the intention of the superiors, issue orders efficiently and make coordinate operation with the adjacent units. As compared with the terms of other specialties, the intrinsic group, violence and confrontation in the military field ask for a higher requirement in terms of normalization, standardization, and scientification. This means that we should use the lexicology research method based on the linguistic theory to describe the composition, structure, semantic characteristics, etc. of the military terms in order to examine the phenomena, grasp the characteristics and reveal the rules of the military terms so as to provide a better service for the construction and application of the military terms.Military terms vary with the development and changes of the times. Military terms of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated from the August1st Nanchang Uprising. Through years of war and military transformation, they have gradually grown from infancy to comparative maturity, forming a system of the military terms which cover almost all areas of arms and services as well as professional fields. Faced with such a language system rich in war wisdom, language essence and cultural connotation, we should adopt a research method which combines synchrony with diachrony, description with explanation, empirical analysis with logical analysis, and qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis. This way, we can not only make a purposed and selective lexical description of the military terms in the same year, but also compare and contrast the language characteristics of the terms in different periods of time, thus obtaining an objective cognition of the forms, structures, contents and the development tracks of the military terms. This paper is divided into six chapters, the main contents and viewpoints of which are as follows:The first chapter is introduction, which mainly defines the body area of the military terms’ research and puts them under the framework of the lexical system of common vocabulary. From the perspective of field variation, it explains the origin of the project, clarifies the connotation and extension of the military terms, and points out that the project begins with the narrow definition of the military terms and selects the four versions of comprehensive military terms of the armed forces issued since1970s as the research object. Then, it makes an analysis of the history and present status in the research of the military terms, finds out the weak and blank points of the present research, clarifies the purpose and significance of the project, works out the research ideas and methods from linguistic perspectives, and predicts the possible innovation of the project.The second chapter deals with the understanding of the military terms from different perspectives. It centers on the existent reality and significance of the military terms and expounds the theoretical basis of the research of the military terms in terms of their concept, history, characteristics, category and function from the perspective of ontology, practicality, epistemology, methodology and axiology. The paper holds that the evolution of the military terms is mainly based on the military practices, which reflect the route of theoretical exploration that follows the rules of language development, with the characteristics of corresponding military field such as limitation, orderliness, nationality, specificity and militancy. After classified investigation of the military terms, the paper takes the military personnel and groups as the main body, goes deep into the level of value existence and analyzes various functions of the military terms, such as the function of addressing military concept, the function of strengthening military exchanges, the function of passing on military cultures and the function of analogizing new military knowledge.The third chapter is an overview of the PLA military terms, which uses the concept of narrow military terms as the basis, comprehensively but concisely summarizes the formation and development of the PLA military terms, draws up an outline of the development and provides a historical reference to the analysis of linguistic development of the PLA military terms. Then, the nature, mission, purpose and developmental history of our army is examined comprehensively, the language expression, the origin of the words, as well as the annotation and the pragmatic value of the military terms are analyzed from a macro point of view so that the unique colony characteristics, the times characteristics and the national characteristics of our military terms can be grasped. And finally, based on the purpose and requirement of the research, a small-sized corpus containing over20,000entries is established to provide a platform for the research of the military terms.The fourth chapter discusses the lemmas, structure, development and changes of the military terms. We mainly make a statistical analysis and comparison of the word formation, syllabic numbers, structural types, features of part of speech, and special types of the comprehensive military terms in the four versions before arriving at the conclusion of morphological changes in the military terms. For instance, the words used in the military terms are within the range of commonly-used Chinese characters, the syllables are dominated by four syllabic numbers that have the tendency on the rise. The phrases have prevailed in the structure which is mainly represented by subordinate structures. The nouns and nominal phrases form the main body of the military terms. Moreover, we also make an exhaustive investigation of the abbreviations and alias forms of the military terms, analyze the features, rules and motivation of these special types and provide ample materials for the suggested standardization of the military terms.The fifth chapter deals with the development and changes of the semantic meaning and the characteristics of the military terms. Based on the knowledge background of the semantic framework at different times and from two levels—lemmas and senses—of the military terms, we make a statistical analysis and comparison of the lemma replacement, the addition and subtraction of the senses and their relationship with semantic changes in the comprehensive military terms of the four versions. We believe that only by replacing the old lemmas with the new can the military terms better serve the military practice, that there is a correlation between the structural forms and the semantic framework, and that the motivation and approach of the addition and subtraction of the senses are simplistic as compared with the general social vocabulary. Last but not least, through the examination of the generalization phenomenon of the typical military terms, we conclude that there is some obvious feature and posture in the cross-domain generalization of the military terms under the combined effect of primary metaphoric gradual change and secondary semantic extension both internally and externally.The sixth and last chapter discusses the causes and influences of the development and changes of the military terms. Mainly based on the static description and diachronic changes analysis of expression forms and semantic characteristics of the military terms, we explore internal and external reasons of the development and changes. Then, by considering the parallel relationship between language history, military history and cultural history, as well as the language can faithfully reflect military practice and social culture, we discuss the influences of the development mechanism of the military terms and their external performance, which are on the Chinese vocabulary development, language style, and social life, we also put forward countermeasures and suggestions to improve the military terms system in the judgment of the interactive relationship between the military terms and society.This project opens a new field of researching military terms of multi-versions, expands the new methods of studying military terms quantitatively, analyzes several characteristics as well as the evolution rule of the military terms, explains the causes, mechanisms and influences of the development and changes of the military terms innovatively. It is the central topic in military language research, and the basic project of national defense and army building. The research production can not only describe the evolution orbit of the linguistic characteristics of the military terms, but help us deepen the understanding of the terms as well, which is beneficial for promoting the information processing of the military terms, finding the covariant relationship between military phenomenon and language phenomenon, strengthening the rational consideration of the use of the military terms and their developmental mechanism, and offering the useful supplement for the research on the development and changes of modern Chinese vocabulary, and providing reference to the planning, editing, revising and popularizing of the military terms.