A Comparative Study Of Bodyparts Lexemes And Their Characteristics In Vietnamese And Chinese Language

379 lexemes taken from the modern Vietnamese language, i.e its semantic fields concerning body parts are made the focal point of the study. Through the description of the aforementioned lexemes, together with such lexemes in modern Chinese language the possibility is made to better understand Vietnamese and Chinese compound words and the similarities (differences) between them regarding structures, characteristics and meanings; to reflect same ethnic particularities of the respective languages and to further explain the position and use of Han-Viet words within the system of Vietnamese language. Helping Vietnamese studying Chinese language, and vice versa, is an additional goal of the thesis, which is otherwise divided into 4 main units:1. A brief introduction of Vietnamese language lexemic system in which the words belonging to Han-Viet dialect make an important component. Both Vietnamese and Chinese are primarily monosyllabic languages and the Han-Viet words in question possess an overlapping Sino-Vietnamese history.2. A distinction and description of Chinese and Vietnamese body parts lexemes through the following methods:(1)According to the multi-level division, resulting in its corresponding chart.(2)According to the structural division, resulting in the tables of body parts' simple and compound words.3. Among the 65simple and 284 compound words, there are 10 simple and 55 compound ones comprising the body of Chinese loan-words in Vietnamese language, primarily belonging to medicine terminology. Those proved to be very useful for the comparative method, the results of which show that the body parts lexemes in Vietnamese language are mostly in the attributive form, the recipient word preceding its modifier, which is just opposite in Chinese language. The co-existence of the 2 forms is clearly enriching the structural part of Vietnamese language.4.A further comparison has been made between the existing modern Vietnamese language body parts lexemes and the Chinese language ones corresponding to Han Viet dialect. The result shows there are some Han-Viet words that still fully contain the original meaning, and there are those the meaning of which changed under the influence of the structural and communicational laws of Vietnamese language. The new or extended meanings added new value to the Han-Viet body parts lexemes that symbolize different psychological and emotional states.In conclusion, the author hopes the thesis will be of assistance, and a contribution to the concerning language educational circles.