The Study Of A Dictionary From English To Colloquial Mandarin Chinese

In the early 19 th century,linguistic science was born in Europe.Using the knowledge of linguistic science,Westerners recorded and studied the spoken Chinese and Chinese dialects.At the same time,they published and compiled a large number of language materials,including all kinds of Mandarin dictionaries,dialect dictionaries,Bible translations,customs' documents,manuscripts and notes on Chinese,which reached a high academic level in this field at that time.These documents are of great significance to study language.It is a rare treasure in terms of vocabulary,grammar,pronunciation and writing.Their language learning,initiated by missionaries,opened the prelude to the study and research of Chinese by Westerners in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.It not only has reference value and guiding significance for later generation's Chinese learning and research,but also has made great contributions to the cultural exchanges between China and the West in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.In this academic dialogue,Chinese and Western scholars can reference and inspire each other,expand the historical materials of language studies and the horizons of academic research.However,due to insufficient attention and lack of relevant research materials,there are few academic works and research results on overseas Chinese materials in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,and a large number of materials have not been excavated or studied in depth.A Dictionary from English to Colloquial Mandarin Chinese which compiled by George Carter Stent lists a large number of everyday expressions and folk sayings,expressing the basic situation of the concept,things and vocabulary of spoken language in the late Qing Dynasty,showing the rich content of social life at that time,and providing detailed linguistic materials for the related research of Mandarin in the late Qing Dynasty.This paper takes the dictionary as the research object,and then summarizes the spoken words,cultural words and new words in the dictionary,finally carries on the classification and the explanation.In addition,it is compared with three dictionaries in the early,the same period and the late period,in order to objectively evaluate the meaning and value of the dictionary.Chapter ? is the exordium,which presents the research object,methods and status.This section discusses the current research situation and direction of linguistic works compiled by scholars at home and abroad during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Chapter ? is the contribution of Westerners to linguistics.By collating and comparing a large number of linguistic works written by Westerners,the author believes that the contributions of Westerners to Linguistics in the Ming and Qing Dynasties mainly include three points: first,recording a large number of spoken materials of Chinese dialects;second,creating a pioneer in the study of Chinese grammar;thirdly,collating and collecting modern Chinese vocabulary,which promotes the development of East-West Cultural Exchange.Chapter ? is a brief introduction to Stent's English-Chinese Dictionary.It briefly expounds Stent's life and representative works,focusing on the stylistic arrangement and characteristics of the Dictionary.The author considers that the dictionary has five main features: 1.different ways of tagging different parts of speech;2.rich explanations of entries and various ways of explaining them;3.obvious oral characteristics of Chinese translation and its pronunciation;4.there are many variants in the translation;5.the vocabulary is not limited to spoken words.Chapter ? is the vocabulary study of the dictionary,which is mainly discussed from the aspects of colloquial words,culture-specific words,new words and reverse words.In this section of colloquial words,the author chooses some distinctive colloquial words to interpret and counts all the reverse words in the dictionary,which are divided into three categories: noun-noun,verb-verb and adjective-adjective,then focuses on the analysis of several groups of words whose meanings have changed;finally,lists the colloquial pronunciation or special expressions of some words in the dictionary.For these sections of cultural characteristic words and new words,the author induces them from the perspectives of politics,economy,culture and social life.By describing these words which expressed the people's life at the end of the Qing Dynasty,this paper summarized the language features of politics,culture and social life at that time.Chapter ? compares Stent with other three dictionaries: the first English-Chinese Dictionary by Morrison,the English-Chinese Dictionary by Condit,English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standrd Chinese Spoken Language and Handbook for Translators by Hemeling.With the help of the macro-structure and micro-structure of the dictionary,the author reviews the four dictionaries from four aspects: cataloguing,phonetic system,translation and illustration.Chapter ? is the evaluation of the Dictionary.The dictionary has a sound structure,massive practical words and wide content,which carries Chinese culture and promotes the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures.Stent inherited and developed the previous experience of dictionary compilation,and combined with his own understanding of Chinese vocabulary innovation,which has a certain impact on future dictionary compilation.