The Development Of Tongjia And Its Effect On Chinese Character

The previous study of "tong jia", or "borrowing" is usually focused on the description of phenomenon about " tong jia" based on the incomprehensibility of "tong jia", or on the description of the reason and process of its coming into being, its development, and its perish. Hardly anyone would study "tong jia" from the aspect of the history of philology, nor would anyone associate the variety of Chinese character with the contradictions in "tong jia" while discussing "long jia", though a thorough understanding of these may be significant for the research into "tong jia" and the developing history of Chinese characters. This thesis is to study the contradictions of "tong jia" and to have a quantitative analysis while considering the Chinese characters' history of development.This thesis first reviews the history and current situation of studying "tong jia" from three aspects: the definition of "tong jia", the classification, and the its influence on the history of Chinese character. The thesis first introduces various opinions of "tong jia" and define "tong jia" by introduce western term "signified" and "signifier" into analysis. And "long jia" words are classified into four types.The thesis is focused on the features in different historical stages and its developing process in ancient time. The age of inscriptions on bones and metals is the prosperous time of "tong jia" words. In Spring-and-Autumn period and the Age of War, "tong jia" mainly appear in "Book of Songs", "Sayings of States "and "Han Fei Zi". To exemplify with these works, "tong jia" is classified into four types: a) words with the same or similar sound but look completely different; b) words with the same sound part; c) the sound part of a word is replaced by the whole "xing sheng" word; d) a character is replaced by its sound part.The thesis makes form in the sequence of 30 ancient rhymes to elaborate the characteristics of "tong jia" words: there is a large portion of "tong jia" that have no connection between the looks of the borrowed and borrowing; simpler words tend to be used in the process ofborrowing; the sound connection between the borrowed and the borrowing is getting more and more following the historical sequence. The analysis shows that the phenomenon of "long jia" in the period put many borrowed words into its position. On the other hand, "tong jia" speeds up the sound-oriented tendency in the way of enrichment of Chinese character.In the end, the thesis points out that "tong jia" is always embodied with its historical feature. The creation, development and dying out are all the inevitable results of the development of Chinese character. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that in the standardization and simplification of Chinese character the need and the natural laws of language itself must be taken into consideration.