A Study Of Transmission Of Japanese And English Loanwords In Modern Chinese

This paper studies the linguistic phenomenon of borrowing from English and Japanese languages(the borrowings)into the modern Chinese language in the context of globalization and China-Japan international relations.It attempts to study the major ways of assimilation of Japanese and English loanwords into the modern Chinese language.This study focuses on the analysis of the main transmission channels of English and Japanese loanwords in modern Chinese and all assimilative methods are classified according to their characteristics.Specifically,phonetic,semantic and calqued methods.Based on the theoretical analyses of previous linguistic studies on English and Japanese loanwords,this paper gives a deep overview of how the loanwords can be chronologically classified and adapted in modern Chinese;how English and Japanese loanwords were borrowed and used;how their original meaning was changed over time in different conditions.The results of this study are shown as follows: 1)Based on the quantitative study,this paper finds that the vast majority of Japanese loanwords are words formed by the combination of Chinese characters.Among the first 100 most frequently used Japanese loanwords,60 of them are Japanese loanwords,which changed their original meaning and became unrecognizable.28 Japanese loanwords narrowed(specified)their original meaning and 12 Japanese loanwords broadened their original meaning during the development process.2)The development of Japanese loanwords in Chinese language can be divided into four stages involving the semantic borrowings.Most of the Japanese loanwords are related to politics,economy and military and a few of them are adopted in daily life,proper names and geographical names.3)English loanwords in modern Chinese are adopted by ways of phonetic,semantic,and mixed borrowing methods.Graphic borrowings are not frequently used in modern Chinese.The conclusion of this study shows the significant influence of the English and Japanese languages on modern Chinese.Under the current Chinese policy aiming at its integration into the global economy,we expect that this influence will increase in the future development of China.Thereby,more attention should be paid to the discourse during studying or teaching the modern Chinese language.