A Study Of Semantic Fuzziness Of Chinese Four-Character Idioms With Numerals

This research is to discuss the semantic fuzziness of Chinese four-character idioms with numerals. It first analyzes the semantic fuzziness of numerals and then goes deep down to the exploration of the semantic fuzziness of Chinese four-character idioms with numerals. Numerals are publicly considered as the most precise language because"one"is"one"and"two"is"two", how comes the fuzziness? But during the actual language use, apart from the precise calculating function, there indeed exists fuzziness under certain circumstances. The semantic fuzziness of the numerals makes the semantic meaning of the idiom change correspondingly. Based on the fuzziness of cognitive categories and the Gestalt theory of cognitive linguistics, it is to discover the cognitive basis of the semantic fuzziness of the numerals and idioms, thus providing a tentative answer to the question why the semantic meaning of the numerals and idioms can be fuzzified and what are the effects that the fuzzification brings to us. There are in all three parts of the whole paper.The first chapter introduces the definition of the idioms, and then explains the Chinese four-character idioms with numerals in detail. The numerals in the idioms can be classified into three parts: some are used to show positive exaggerations such as"three, five, seven, eight, nine"and"ten"; some are used to show negative exaggerations such as"one"and"two", among which"one"is the most typical example; some are used to transfer from quantities to other categories, i.e. numerals no longer express quantities, but other meanings besides quantities. It then goes on to discuss the semantic fuzziness of the idioms owing to the semantic fuzziness of the numerals, which is the key point of the whole paper.How numerals render Chinese four-character idioms fuzzy? Based on the cognitive motivation of the fuzziness of cognitive categories, it explains the fuzziness of the category NUMBER and how comes the semantic fuzziness of the numerals realize. Guided by the Gestalt principles and the specific collocation rules, it discusses the generation of the semantic fuzziness of the idioms. In the Chinese culture, 3, 6, 9, 10, 100, 1000, 10000 etc. are gestalts, when the actual number is 95, for example, the gestalt 100 is evoked. The whole is not simply the sum total of its parts and what is perceived is more than what is seen by our eyes. The semantic meaning of Chinese idioms is not the simple addition of the literal characters, and one idiom is a holistic structure. The whole formed in its way is not determined by its parts.After the approach to the operation process of the semantic fuzziness of Chinese four-character idioms with numerals, chapter three mainly explores the effects that this kind of semantic fuzziness brings to us—the advantages and the disadvantages of semantic fuzziness of Chinese idioms engendered by the use of numerals. The advantages are that it can bring the effect of least effort from the speaker's perspective and some efficacy of rhetorical effects while the disadvantages are that it will also bring the effect of more effort from the hearer's perspective and will harm or ruin our communication. So we should try to minimize the fuzziness and commence to the reduction and removal of the disadvantages—transition from semantic fuzziness to semantic precision, and this will be done from the following two aspects: contextual-dependence and the synchronic and diachronic change of idioms.In short, fuzziness is the characteristic of the human language; it is also the attribute of the human thought. Language is the carrier of thought and the fuzziness of language is the realization of the fuzziness of thought. The semantic fuzziness of the idioms is deeply influenced by the semantic fuzziness of the numerals.