A Comparative Research On Word Meaning In The Dream Of Red Mansions And In Modern Chinese

The Dream of Red Mansions which was written in early Qing dynasty isthe representative work at that time. Vocabulary of The Dream of Red Mansions reflectsthe Vocabulary's basic circumstance at that time. This paper observes word meaningevolution during the last two centuries through compare word meanings in The Dreamof Red Mansions which is typical and that of modern Chinese. This paper alsosummarize the characters and tendencies, analysis the reasons of The Dream of RedMansions word meaning evolution.This paper can be divided into the following two parts:The first part: Compare the word meanings of The Dream of Red Mansions andthose of modern Chinese.We select classic phrase, through analysis of collectedmaterial to compare the word meaning in modern Chinese and in The Dream of RedMansions, prove the new features and concepts that word meaning change causes, andgrasp the evolution of the overall trend. The word meaning of The Dream Of RedMansions mainly comes from the phrase dictionary of The Dream Of Red Mansionswhich edited by Zhou Ding-yi. The new meaning of a phrase mainly comes fromModern Chinese dictionary 2005 edition. During the period of word meaning comparing,we also refer to other relevant dictionaries. We compare the word meaning mainly fromthree points: the signification of word meaning; the understanding of word meaning andthe usage of word meaning.The second part: The characters, tendencies and reasons of The Dream Of RedMansions word meanings evolution. Through Comparing the word meaning in TheDream Of Red Mansions and that of modern Chinese,we can draw four characteristicsand two tendencies.the first character is:the changes of word meaning show in allrounds;the second character is: the changes of the references of a word areapparent;the third character is: word meanings in The Dream of Red Mansionsinfluenced each other at the process of evolution; the forth character is: some wordswhich have a few meaning terms tend to have more meaning terms; some words whichhave many meaning terms tend to have less meaning terms. Two tendencies are someword meanings tend to non -specialization, some word meanings are specific to abstract trend. We also analysis reasons of The Dream of Red Mansions word meaning changes.There are mainly three reasons: the first reason is the change of the world including thedevelopment of social life and human ideology. The second reason is terminology of asystem of self-regulatory mechanisms may exist. Things may come from the evolutionof language imbalances. The third reason is the using process of a wordThrough studying, the conclusion that this paper has reached is as follows:(1) Changes of The Dream of Red Mansions word meaning are in all rounds.(2) Word Meanings in The Dream of Red Mansions influenced each other at theprocess of evolution.(3) The reasons of the evolution of The Dream of Red Mansions word meaningincluding the development of external world and the self-regulatory of a word meaningsystem and the practical usage of phrase.(4) Some word meaning in The Dream of Red Mansions are specific to the abstracttrend. Some word meaning in The Dream of Red Mansions tend to non -specialization.