A Contrastive Study Of Lexicon In English And The Yi Language

In order to have a sufficient understanding of the differences between languages, one has to make contrastive studies of languages. Contrastive Analysis is closely related to foreign language teaching. Wang Li (1985) suggests that in foreign language teaching "the most effective way is the comparative teaching of the Chinese language and the foreign language." According to the theory of Contrastive Analysis, by contrasting two languages, people can predict learning difficulties and reduce errors in language study. Moreover, according to Xiang Xiaohong et al's study (2005), English shares much more similarities with the Yi language than with Chinese, and learning English by the aid of the Yi language is easier for sure, especially to those Yi students whose Chinese is not good.Up till now, few efforts have been made, either at home or abroad, to carry out thorough and systematic studies on Yi lexicon, let alone with contrastive study of lexicon between English and the Yi language so as to facilitate Yi students' vocabulary learning. That's why the author makes the study.The lexical contrast between English and the Yi language is accomplished in two aspects: morphology and semantics. In the aspect of morphology, the author summarizes the morphological features of each language, and then describes the similarities and differences between English and Yi word formation, which can be divided into affixation, compounding and conversion. In the aspect of semantics, the author outlines the semantic features of each language, and then chooses the representative words—color terms as the object of semantic contrast.The thesis consists of six chapters.Chapter One serves as an introduction, which accounts chiefly for the significance and method of the research.Chapter Two provides a general academic background to the lexical contrast between English and the Yi language. It is composed of three sections. The first two sections introduce the definition and theoretical development of Contrastive Analysis and language transfer. The last section focuses on lexical studies, including the definition of lexicon, the content of lexical morphology and semantics.Chapter Three briefly introduces Yi nationality and Yi students' English learning situation, and thus further demonstrates the necessity and feasibility of this research. Learning English is easier by the aid of the Yi language than by that of Chinese, especially to those Yi students whose Chinese is not good.Chapter Four analyzes the morphological features of lexicon in English and the Yi language firstly, and then concentrates on the major formation types with detailed similarities and differences illustrated by a great number of examples.Chapter Five takes the color system as a studying case of the semantic contrast between English and the Yi language. Different associative meanings of the same color term in the two languages reflect the differences between two cultures.Chapter Six concludes the thesis. Implications of this research are discussed and limitations are also listed.This is evidently a preliminary step to the comprehensive contrastive study between English and the Yi language. Contrastive study should be conducted in light of other aspects except lexicon. Therefore, there lacks a deep, thorough contrastive study of lexicon between these two languages. A more systematic and exhaustive contrastive analysis of lexicon in English and the Yi language, and transfer study on acquisition of lexicon of Yi students are recommended.