A Study Of Polyphonic Words In Modern Chinese Dictionary

Polyphonic words study is an important part of the modern Chinese charactersstudy, in recent years; scholars have analyzed them, and achieved some results. Thesixth edition of “Modern Chinese Dictionary” is a new version which has just beenreleased in2012. It is so new that scholars’ study of polyphonic words in this versionis very rare. In this paper, author have found all polyphonic words in the sixth editionof “Modern Chinese Dictionary”(2012) and carried out an exhaustive investigationon the basis of the predecessors’ study. I divide polyphonic words which are in“Modern Chinese Dictionary” into some types and analyze their reading objectivelybased on quantitative analysis and investigation. I focus on the descriptive analysisof polyphonic words which are difficult to distinguish the pronunciation, and makesome clear polyphonic word learning strategies and many pieces of advice. Thisarticle includes the following:The first chapter is introduction. Introduce the general situation of the study ofpolyphonic words which are in “Modern Chinese Dictionary”, research value,research materials and methods.The second chapter is statistics and analyses of polyphonic words. First of all, Ifind all polyphonic words in the sixth edition of “Modern Chinese Dictionary”(2012).These polyphonic words don’t include these words which come from old reading,ancient sound and other sound. There are982polyphonic words in the sixth edition of“Modern Chinese Dictionary”(2012). Secondly, I make reasonable classification andanalysis of polyphonic words based on a objective statistic. In this paper, the study ofpolyphonic words is based on the “Modern Chinese Dictionary”, and thus the analysisof types of polyphonic words is mainly based on “Modern Chinese Dictionary”interpretation label. Author also references relations of polyphonic word sound andmeaning, and language practice. Types of polyphonic words include following ones.Firstly, polyphonic words have same meanings. Secondly, polyphonic words have some same meanings. Thirdly, polyphonic words have some similar meanings. Lastly,polyphonic words have different meanings. Because of the fourth type of polyphonicwords is easy to distinguish and master, I only briefly list. This article focuses on thefirst three types of polyphonic words. There are16polyphonic words which havesame meanings,17polyphonic words which have some same meanings, and44polyphonic words which have some similar meanings.The third chapter is the analysis about use of polyphonic words. Firstly, I use aquestionnaire to test the first three polyphonic words mentioned in the last chapter.There are77polyphonic words and145terms in the questionnaire. I analyze thecorrect rate and misreading rate of different pronunciations which belong to the samepolyphonic words, and summarize the high frequency misreading sound, intermediatefrequency misreading sound and low frequency misreading sound. Secondly, Ianalyze reasons of misreading of polyphonic words. Reasons of misreading ofpolyphonic words can be divided into two major reasons for objective reasons andsubjective aspects. Objective reasons include the fact of objective language and thepragmatic frequency of each pronunciation of polyphonic words. Subjective reasonsinclude psychological basis, cognitive styles and teaching reasons.The fourth chapter includes polyphonic word learning strategies and many piecesof advice. Firstly, I describe learning strategies about polyphonic words. Learnersshould learn the comprehensive view of elements of polyphonic words, master thesystem of polyphonic words, combine the theory of polyphonic words with practicalapplication, and master the distinction between polyphonic words. Secondly, Idescribe many pieces of advice about dealing with polyphonic word. These advicemainly include problems in the dictionary and dealing with polyphonic words in thedictionary.Study about polyphonic words in the “Modern Chinese Dictionary” is in itsinfancy. Currently, scholars’ researching on polyphonic words in the “ModernChinese Dictionary” is incomplete, in particular about polyphonic words which havesame meanings and which have some similar meanings. In this paper, I mainlyresearch polyphonic words’ types based on “Modern Chinese Dictionary” interpretation label and relations between polyphonic word sound and meaning, andmake some clear polyphonic word learning strategies and many pieces of advice.Further studies are needed in the future, including in-depth study, digging newperspective, and exploring new areas.