A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Cooking Words

The thesis makes a contrastive study of English and Chinese cooking words. Food plays an indispensable part in people's life whether in western or eastern countries, and the ways of preparing food is a necessity to fulfill the people's needs. The thesis describes and analyzes English and Chinese cooking words by using the method of componential analysis within cooking semantic field. According to theory of semantic fields, the meaning of a word can only be determined by defining it in relation to the meanings of neighboring and contrasting words, so the theory is helpful to define lexical meanings, and it also provides a basis for conducting contrastive studies on words between different languages. Componential analysis is a method used to analyze the meaning of a word into its components. So it is helpful to understand the true sense of a word.The thesis contrasts cooking words in two aspects: degree of lexicalization and cooking semantic fields. Through the analysis the thesis finds that Chinese has a higher degree of lexicalization than English in cooking semantic field, and the thesis gives some reasons why English and Chinese have different degrees of lexicalization in cooking semantic field from three facets: living environment, historical development and culinary culture. At the same time, the thesis finds that the structures of the two cooking semantic fields are different. The thesis describes and analyzes all the cooking words by using four semantic features: medium of heat transfer, duration of heat, degree of heat and materials. By comparing these semantic features, the thesis finds some characteristics of them in describing English and Chinese cooking words. In English, medium of heat transfer and the kind of tool used to contain materials or to cook materials are frequently used. In Chinese, medium of heat transfer, degree of heat, and the kind of food materials are frequently used. Finally, the thesis divides all the cooking words into three equivalent relationships between English and Chinese from the perspective of translation: lexical gap, full equivalence and partial equivalence. Contrastive studies of words help to master words in their true meanings and to use proper words in proper places. Language and culture are closely related, so studying on cooking words can give an insight into the cultural backgrounds of both languages. It is hoped that the thesis is beneficial to teachers, students and translators, and it can promote cuisine cultural communications.