Analysis of Chinese Character and English Words

孙嘉瑜

Abstract： Chinese character and English words are two kinds of different forms to express meaning.These two kinds of forms have connections to each other.

Keywords： Chinese character； English words

【中圖分类号】B842

Character is composed of “文” and “字”. “文” means pictographs， and it is the forms we write the character. “字” means “形声字”，and it is the ways we pronounce the character. According to the methods how people create the character， Chinese characters can be classified into pictographs like “日”， “月”，and “手”，indicative which is a sign plus a pictograph like “渐” and “休”，Phonetic complex， associative transformation like “考” and “老”，and borrowing. In a word， radical includes mainly “形旁” and “声旁”. The radicals in Chinese characters key radicals have the effects of expressing the meaning. The relationship between radicals and key radicals in Chinese characters is the whole and its components. The radicals which can express meaning are key radicals.

Different from English words， the “morpheme” of Chinese characters is hard to define. For instance， we cannot say clearly how many morphemes are there in the words like “狗” and “葡萄”. In modern Chinese， the classification of Chinese characters is the combination， domination， subject-predicate， and verb-object structure. In English， the form of word is （prefix） root （suffix）. In terms of the formation of words Chinese characters are different from English words. The forms of Chinese characters are composed of two parts which are radicals and key radicals.

Conclusion

Chinese characters are all monosyllabic words， while English words are either monosyllabic words or other forms. At the same time， there are far more homonyms in Chinese than in English. For example， in Chinese， “yi” can represent “一”，”依”， “衣”， “伊” and so on. In English， the number of homonyms is limited， like week and weak.

References

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3. 何善芬，英汉语言对比研究，上海：上海外语教育出版社，2005年第一期