On The Iconicity Of The Construction Of The Meaning-expressing Chinese Characters

There is certain relationship between the construction and the meaning of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters. This text analyses the meaning-expressing Chinese characters with the Cognitive Linguistics theory, what it mainly analyses is the iconicity of meaning-expressing Chinese characters contains.The text consists of three parts:The first part is preface. It is mainly about the basis situation of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters and the iconicity, and analysis situation and the method, theory which the text use. It expatiates the meaning and definition of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters, and discusses the property of Chinese characters and of the symbol which composing Chinese characters and the types of Chinese characters. These make the definition of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters more clearly.The second part is chapter1and chapter2.Chapter1discusses the motivation and iconicity of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters, putting forward that the construction of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters is with motivation and iconicity, and summarizes with five iconicity principles of the meaning-expressing Chinese characters construction. Charter2is mainly about this five iconicity principles. It firstly analyses the meaning-expressing Chinese characters which Qiu Xigui defines. Secondly it concludes five types according the relationship of the construction and the meaning, analyzing each type separately. At last it summarizes the five iconicity principles of meaning-expressing Chinese characters configuration, they are image iconicity, index iconicity, member iconicity, superposition iconicity and position iconicity.Image iconicity consists of three sorts, and the text analyses the three sorts with examples, and then discussing the features of the pictograph and the reason for the decay of image iconicity.There are also three sorts for index iconicity, the principle of classification is how we mark, and the text analyses the three sorts with examples, and then discussing the features of the index characters.Superposition iconicity and position iconicity are special member iconicities. The text analyses the three sorts with examples, and brings us the conclusion at the last of each part.The third part is the peroration. It gives summation of the text. It also points out the five iconicity principles can’t explain all the meaning-expressing Chinese characters, other iconicity principles of meaning-expressing Chinese characters configuration needs to be study. It points out at last that, during the study of meaning-expressing Chinese characters configuration, some other cognitive principles, taking metonymy metaphor and categorization as example, are very useful, we have a long way to go before we have a whole and clear knowledge of meaning-expressing Chinese characters.