A Contrastive Study Of Chinese And English Culinary Names-from Cognitive-psychological Perspective

Culinary name is a peculiar social language. Chinese culinary names endow with dense cultural implications and historical background, and manifest apparent characteristics of the age, while western culinary names also cover unique features of the people and psychological preference of cuisine. After the survey of previous studies on culinary names, abundant researches have been done from cultural angel and translation perspective, but few refers to language study under the guidance of cognition and psychology. This study aims to map out cognitive mode or thinking pattern of the two peoples, to figure out changes of psychological needs for food through times, and to dig out functions of language in association with Chinese and English culinary names by means of data analysis. The significance is to give a further explanation to the close relationship between language of food and human cognition, to help people develop a cross-national, cross-language, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary comparative consciousness, and to lay a solid foundation for the cultural exchanges and menu translation.The research purpose mentioned above is formulated as a set of specific questions as follows:(1) What are thinking patterns of the two peoples demonstrated in current Chinese and English culinary names? (2) What are functions of language in Chinese and English culinary names? (3) What are changes of psychological needs for food reflected in Chinese culinary names through times? (4) How do Chinese and English culinary names reveal the relationship between language and cognition?The data are 300 current Chinese culinary names,300 old names, and 300 English culinary names, which are all the collection from relevant linguistic items of books, academic papers and websites. The data are labeled with cultural implications and historical background, and are respectively recorded their conceptual semantic structures (ingredients, flavorings, cooking method, or cutting styles). Quantitative approach is employed to figure out the proportion of each subclass names, and qualitative analysis is to reveal the relationship between the name and the entity. The descriptive study goes on two lines with synchronic study of Chinese and English culinary names and diachronic study of Chinese culinary names through times.H describes different semantic structures of culinary names in order to explore the two peoples" thinking patterns and psychological needs.On the base of synchronic study of culinary names, the research finds out differences on cognitive model between Chinese and westerners, and summarizes functions about language of food in the two peoples. In the expression of food, the Oriental usually talk about the subtle roundabout like cooking method, minor ingredients or flavorings firstly, next about the knock or the point, i.e. major ingredients. Chinese people favor spiral thinking pattern with the semantic structure "cooking method, flavorings+ingredients". Sometimes, the Chinese culinary names are not equivalent to the course or ingredients, and overweight functions in pursuit of aesthetics, cultural implication, and commercial effect, because Chinese people always pursue internal comfort and self-fulfillment through external objects. In comparison, the thinking pattern of English speakers is linear in language sequence with logic. Westerners do not externalize their personal feelings by culinary names. English culinary names are relevant to the entities in the form of "major ingredients+ minor ingredients", and play the informative function without any auspicious and fashionable words included.The diachronic study of Chinese culinary names serves to support the view that language changes accompany the transformation of minds through times. In old times, people have named food with rhetorical devices in connection with cultural implications, in order to draw the blue print for better life. Ancestors have given prominence to six themes "Fu. Lu, Shou. Xi. Cai, Ji" in the process of naming courses, and have insisted the belief that food is the utmost thing in life. However, modern culinary names go down with inelegant social factors like celebrity effect. language violence, erotic attraction, media pollution, desire of conquest, and spoof. People are the followings of entertainment and take a risk in eating everything what they can find in the world. Besides, Chinese people have formed the outlook of "everything is nothing" in cuisine culture. The analysis above mentioned is to show language of food exposes psychological preferences and differences on cognition between Chinese and westerners, culinary names as the point of reference. The contrastive study is helpful for intercultural communication and provides raw data for interdisciplinary researches like menu translation with cognition, consumption and psychology.