"annotation" Under The Guise Of The Word,

In the history of Chinese Linguistics, the research about phonetic loan characters was a traditional topic which was full of rich connotations. Xu Shen of Later Han Dynasty initiated the systematic research about phonetic loan characters. The representative of the Qing Dynasty scholar Duan Yucai was "Annotation on Shuowen Jiezi", many items of which referred to phonetic loan characters. After Xu Shen, Duan Yucai had a further understanding and put forward the thoughtful theory—the three-stage theory about phonetic loan characters. The research about phonetic loan characters which Duan Yucai had did was a milestone in the history of Chinese Traditional Linguistics.Our studying object of this paper is the phonetic loan characters in Duan Yucai's "Annotation on Shuowen Jiezi". We first statistic the number of the items about phonetic loan characters, and later summarize and analyze them. After doing that, we describe and study the three-stage theory about phonetic loan characters, and especially the third stage viewpoint, trying to provide references for our present studying of Chinese characters.This paper is mainly divided into two major parts: Part one is about the essential information of phonetic loan characters in Duan Yucai's "Annotation on Shuowen Jiezi", such as the number of items, the form and feature of explaining, the way of corresponding. Part Two is to try to explore the three-stage theory about phonetic loan characters, and especially the third stage viewpoint. By further studying the kind of systematic information—the using and abandoning of Chinese characters. We try to discover another phenomenon about phonetic loan characters which is different from the third stage theory in Duan Yucai's three-stage theory about phonetic loan characters, comprehensively revealing the phenomenon about phonetic loan characters in the advanced stage of Chinese characters and providing a few of references for our present studying of Chinese characters.