On The Conventionalization Of Unset Phrases In Modern Chinese And Its Causes

In our study, we found there was a rather universal phenomenon in the modern Chinese, that is, many unset phrases gradually became idioms for various reasons in the long-term language practice, and at present, the study about this problem was still far from being enough. Therefore, we collect a great deal of language materials, and try to discuss this problem in detail. At first, we give the definition of the idiom and divide its several inferior types. This is the theoretic basis for the next study. Some scholars have studied this problem and held different opinions about this, so we put forward our opinion on the base of their study achievements. We think that the idiom is a kind of set phrases or short sentences with connotative meanings in a language, and there are five kinds of inferior types of the idiom, such as proverbs, maxims, etc. Then, we discuss how to judge the conventionalization of unset phrases and features of these phrases. Generally speaking, we can judge this by their structures, meanings and pragmatic frequency. A conventionalized unset phrase often has finalized in its structure, and has rhetoricity of pragmatics, and popularity in its style. The course of conventionalization is very complex, and between the phase of unset phrases and idioms, there is a mid-phase, that is, the phase of quasi-set phrases. We explain this complex process by using the theory of hierarchy of conceptual integration and the economic principle of the language. At the end of the paper, we discuss some tentative ideas about how to deal with this kind oflanguage phenomenon in teaching Chinese to foreigners, and we hope this attempt can attract much more attentions to this new problem.