| Ambivalent words are a common phenomenon objectively existing in most of the languages in the world. Together with polysemy, homonymy, synonymy and antonymy, ambivalence makes up the diversity of sense relations. Compared with other sense relations, the researchers on ambivalent words are quite rare. And among these researches, scholars mainly focus on studying the following questions:(1) Do ambivalent words really exist?(2) How many types of ambivalent words are there?(3) What are the forming reasons of ambivalent words? Alex Eulenberg (1994) posted a query on Linguist List titled "Words that are their own opposites" and received many responses, mostly by suggesting new examples; Klaus-Uwe Panther&Linda L. Thornburg (2010) discussed the existing conditions of auto-antonyms and pointed out that auto-antonyms would become fewer and fewer as time goes by. However, few scholars pay attention to the comparative analysis of ambivalent words in Chinese and English, except that in China, Liu Tingting (2009) has classified ambivalent words in both languages in the light of parts of speech and discussed the exact opposite relations of each ambivalent word example; Jiang Shuzhen (2010) has pointed out some similarities of ambivalent words between Chinese and English by analyzing some examples. Thus, this thesis, theoretically based on the three sense relations, including antonymy, polysemy and homonymy, aims to do a comparative study on ambivalent words, and tries to find out the similarities and dissimilarities of this phenomenon between Chinese and English.The thesis focuses on answering the following questions:(1) What are the similarities and differences of Chinese and English ambivalent words on definition, classification and forming reasons?(2) What is the developing tendency of Chinese and English ambivalent words?(3) What inspirations can the lexicographer get from the study of ambivalent words?Through the study, it can be concluded that in both Chinese and English, the definitions of ambivalent words are quite similar, and they all refer to the phenomenon that two opposite meaning components exist in the meaning system of the same word, and they are a special type of polysemy. On the classifications and forming reasons, the main difference lies in that Chinese and English are two different languages, and the former is a kind of hieroglyphic, emphasizing inherent meaning, while the latter is a kind of alphabetic script, focusing on structure. In addition, Chinese people usually like to attribute the language phenomenon to the philosophical level, while people in western countries pay more attention to the pragmatic factors.As for the developing tendency of ambivalent words, it is not reasonable to simply define that they will become more and more or fewer and fewer. The emerging and disappearing of ambivalent words are the result of social development, and they are always in a changeable state. Some existing ambivalent words may never be used again, while some other words may become ambivalent during the use. Thus, lexicographers must deal with the explanation of ambivalent words properly. On one hand, if the meaning components of ambivalent words have become stable in use, then the lexicographer should not feel troublesome to illustrate all the meaning components in a dictionary. On the other hand, lexicographers should not blindly pursue detailed explanation and record all that has been heard, as some uses of the word are just temporary, not long and wide enough to be recorded.At last, this thesis concludes that ambivalent words are the products of the interaction between diachronic meaning development and synchronic application. It is not only a language phenomenon, but also a social phenomenon. |
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