Chinese Clothing Semantic Meaning And Cultural Meaning Of The Words

Dressing is closely related to human beings daily life. With her very long history China is reputed as "Capital of the Garments". Based on the clothing, there are numerous words in Chinese which occupies a very important position. From different angle we can divide dressing words into different classifications by using the Theory of Semantic Field. According to different parts of body, the dressing words can be divided into3semantic fields:head clothing, trunk clothing and foot clothing; According to the characteristic features of referents the dressing words can be classified as general words and specific words; Also based on different dressing morphemes there are different words, such as crown, hat, scarf, upper clothing, under clothing, gown, shirt, collar, sleeve, skirt, sweep, ribbon, fur coat, shoe, boot, etc. The paper illustrates the characteristic features of the dressing words by examples from3aspects:composition, meaning and usage of the words.In this paper some representative dressing words are selected from3semantic fields: head clothing, trunk clothing and foot clothing, to trace back to their sources and analyze their semantics, such as the words:crown, hat, scarf, upper clothing, under clothing, gown, shirt, collar, sleeve, skirt, sweep, ribbon, fur coat, shoe, boot, etc. In semantic analysis languages and cultures are combined to reveal national culture information which contained in dressing words.The paper analyzes the rhetorical pattern of dressing words by using "content and method research" of traditional rhetoric. Analogy and metonymy are more common used in dressing words. In metonymy a large portion of dressing words are used as referents. In analogy a large portion of clothing words are based on similar position association. Further research indicates the usage of rhetorical pattern of dressing words are mainly based on specific cultural implications.Chinese dressing words contains very rich national cultural implications and, to some degree, Chinese traditional thinking pattern and ideas are also reflected in dressing words. Start with dressing idea of Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mocianism contained in dressing words, the paper illuminates traditional Chinese philosophic thinking and cultural perspective. Meanwhile, cultural information such as world view, social scale, color aesthetics and cost saving aesthetic consciousness reflected in dressing words are also described in this paper.