A Study Of The Chinese Translations Of Structuralism Terms In Grammar

A term is a word or phrase used as a name of something in a certain field, especially one connected with a particular type of language. During Chinese linguists absorbing foreign linguistic theories, there are controversies over the translations of certain terms besides their great influence. At first, this thesis collects the translations of some basic terms in Grammar from some influential translated western works in Structuralism, some English-Chinese dictionaries and English-Chinese dictionaries in Linguistics. Then it classifies these translations into three classes, those are grammar units, word classes and syntactic structures, and then separately lists these three classes of translations and compares them. After that, combining different theories in western Structuralism, this thesis collects the basic terms in Grammar from some Chinese works in Linguistics and analyses these terms to find out how western Structuralism influences the development of Chinese Linguistics, how the choices of the translations of terms reflects the history of Chinese Linguistics and how Chinese linguists comprehend and absorb western theories. After the analyzing, we believe there are several reasons for different translations for the same terms: firstly, different Chinese linguists absorb different western theories and comprehend those theories distinctively; secondly, different Chinese linguists have their different theories; thirdly, the history backgrounds are different when different linguists absorb western theories. At last, the thesis analyses the problem of choices of some controversial translations of terms in China and thinks that the choices should respect the history and the principle of accepted practice.By studying Chinese translations of terms in Grammar, this thesis finds out the reasons for different translations and puts forward its own opinions on standardizing and uniting of the translations of terms. It also studies the development of Chinese Linguistics from the aspects of the translations of terms and raises a new angle for the study of the history of Linguistics.